Type =rand(99,99)[Enter] into MS word

  • Thread starter AntonVrba
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In summary, the conversation discusses a feature in Microsoft Word where typing =rand(99,99) and pressing enter results in the phrase "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" being printed for 117 pages. The conversation also includes other Microsoft-related jokes and anecdotes, such as a prank involving the format command and a discussion about a different version of the =rand() feature in the autodin days. The conversation ends with a humorous story about a coworker accidentally formatting the hard drive and a prank program that prevents it from happening again.
  • #1
AntonVrba
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Another microsoft first!

Type

=rand(99,99)[Enter]

into your MS word document into the beginning of the line and see what happens.
 
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  • #2
AntonVrba said:
Another microsoft first!

Type

=rand(99,99)[Enter]

into your MS word document into the beginning of the line and see what happens.
Wow, absolutely nothing!

What was supposed to happen?
 
  • #3
AntonVrba said:
=rand(99,99)[Enter]

into your MS word document into the beginning of the line and see what happens.

Perhaps you mean Microsoft Excel?
 
  • #4
At first try Word crashed :rolleyes:, at second time it worked :tongue2:
 
  • #5
It types out "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" for 117 pages.

Yeah. That was exciting. My life is complete.
 
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  • #6
I actually knew about it with different numerics. As this one is also working I tried many variation today. =rand() also prints out the same message but once. The numbers give the input of no. of rows and columns, perhaps.
 
  • #7
Evo said:
Wow, absolutely nothing!

What was supposed to happen?

Worked for me.
 
  • #8
Did nothing for me. Boo hoo.
 
  • #9
brewnog said:
Did nothing for me. Boo hoo.
did you make sure to actually press enter
i really hope you didnt type out "[enter]"
because you are doing it wrong if that's the case.
 
  • #10
Cool. I love secret codes.

Start the Dos emulator and try this: Format C:[enter]

Okay, maybe you had better not. :biggrin:
 
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  • #11
Ivan Seeking said:
Cool. I love secret codes.

Start the Dos emulater and try this: Format C:[enter]

Okay, maybe you had better not. :biggrin:

noooooo my mp33ssss,, me porrrnnnnn , me collection of gory death videos all goooneeeee. :mad:
 
  • #12
moose said:
did you make sure to actually press enter
i really hope you didnt type out "[enter]"
because you are doing it wrong if that's the case.
Yes, I hit enter, nada.

Maybe it doesn't work with my version, I have a specially licensed corporate version.
 
  • #13
It's not a bug, it's a feature..

It's helpful when testing printing of text.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;826845
from "How to troubleshoot print failures in Word 2003"
Step 1: Test Printing in Other Documents
Damaged documents or documents that contain damaged graphics or damaged fonts can cause print errors in Word. Before you reinstall drivers or software, test the Word program's ability to print. To do this, follow these steps:
1. Open a new blank document in Word.
2. On the first line of the document, type the following text:
=rand(10)

3. Press ENTER. This inserts 10 paragraphs of sample text.
4. Try to print the document.
5. If the document prints successfully, change to a different font, or insert clip art, a table, or a drawing object
 
  • #14
Evo said:
Yes, I hit enter, nada.

Where is the nada key?
 
  • #15
Ivan Seeking said:
Where is the nada key?
I have a "special" keyboard. :biggrin:

I wish I could find that "microsoft keyboard" picture I used to have, it only had three huge keys "control, alt, & delete" :tongue:

Thanks MIH, I checked Microsoft's website and here is why it didn't work for me "This feature is turned on by default, and is disabled when the Replace text as you type option is turned off." I have that feature disabled because it is so annoying.
 
  • #16
Evo said:
Thanks MIH, I checked Microsoft's website and here is why it didn't work for me "This feature is turned on by default, and is disabled when the Replace text as you type option is turned off." I have that feature disabled because it is so annoying.


Ahh, problem solved. :smile:
 
  • #17
Math Is Hard said:
It's helpful when testing printing of text.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;826845
from "How to troubleshoot print failures in Word 2003"
Yes, this is from the old autodin days, except MS Word seems to have misinterpreted the test. In the autodin version of the test, the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog 1,234,567,890 times (this tests every letter and every number). The Microsoft version seems to perform 1,234,567,890 tests of whether or not the fox jumps over the dog.

Ivan Seeking said:
Cool. I love secret codes.

Start the Dos emulator and try this: Format C:[enter]

Okay, maybe you had better not.
Back in the Z-100 days, John, a guy I worked with, constantly formatted our hard drive while trying to format floppies. I finally renamed the format command to something impossible to type and wrote a Basic program that would guide the user through formatting a floppy and would eventually access the format command, but with the proper syntax to format the floppy instead of the hard drive. It made it virtually impossible to format our hard drive.

It was also a little facetious. If, for some reason, the user entered c: as the drive to format, the computer would give a warning about what was going to happen, give the user the opportunity to change his selection, but, regardless of the choice he chose, the computer would give a message informing the user the c: drive would now be formatted, plus reinform the user that formatting the c: drive would erase all information on the computer. It would even access a file on the computer to make the light blink. John thought it was funniest thing he'd seen, plus he was relieved not to have to worry about formatting the hard drive anymore (we always backed everything up once a month, but it was a real pain restoring the hard drive, none the less).

After I moved to another office, the disk controller failed. The drive was repaired or replaced, but, once again, all the files had to be restored on the hard drive. Except for that little Basic program I wrote. It was kind of facetious, so I never backed it up. One day, John was showing a new worker the ropes around the office and was explaining how the computer worked (the new guy knew more about computers than John). He said there was one thing he just had to show him:

"Watch this, this is funny as hell. Type in 'format'."

"Uh, that's not a good idea. If you do that, ZDOS will assume you mean the c: drive and format your hard drive."

"No, no, this is great! You'll fall on the floor laughing on this one! This is hilarious!"

"Okay, if you really want me to." :rolleyes:

"Go ahead."

"Are you really sure?" :uhh:

"Yeah, this is great! You're going to love this!" :biggrin:

"Okay" and away it goes...

John: "What's it doing?" :confused:

New guy: "It's formatting the hard drive."

John: "No, it's supposed to give you funny warnings. It's impossible to format the hard drive. It just says it is and then formats the floppy." :confused:

"Looks like it's formatting the hard drive to me."

"AAUUUGH . NO! OH GOD, NO! IT'S FORMATTING MY HARD DRIVE! " :cry:

"You're right. This is pretty funny." :rofl:
 
  • #18
Evo said:
I wish I could find that "microsoft keyboard" picture I used to have, it only had three huge keys "control, alt, & delete" :tongue:
http://mindprod.com/images/mskeyboard.jpg

- Warren
 
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  • #19
chroot said:
http://mindprod.com/images/mskeyboard.jpg

- Warren
:rofl: Thanks chroot! :biggrin:
 
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  • #20
BobG said:
Back in the Z-100 days, John, a guy I worked with, constantly formatted our hard drive while trying to format floppies.
:rofl: :rofl: Thanks for the story, Bob. Best laugh I've had all day.
 
  • #21
BobG said:
Back in the Z-100 days, John, a guy I worked with, constantly formatted our hard drive while trying to format floppies.

:rofl:

My sister managed to do something like that on her first job. We both got jobs at one time or another at the office our mom worked at. Her job was data entry, just entering employees' work hours into the computer used for payroll. I don't recall exactly what happened, but I think she had to remove an employee from the payroll, or delete a wrong entry. She got instructions from one of the engineers there who didn't think to point out there was a space in the command line that was really important. She entered it with no spaces and deleted all the payroll records. The part that surprised me is that she didn't get fired, she wound up with a full-time summer job when she was only supposed to be working as a temp for a few weeks, because they then needed someone to re-enter all the payroll records from the printed ledgers! :grumpy: Darn, wish I had thought of something like that. I temped there for a month and ended up working in every dept there...I was supposed to just work in accounts payables/receivables, but ran out of work in just a few days, so they shuffled me all around the office because I never took as long as they expected to do anything. I remember the only task that took me a while was when one of the engineers handed me a set of blueprints and told me to make copies on the Xerox for a meeting they had later that day and to just tape the pages together (I don't remember what the reason was for this...draftsmen were too busy to give them a proper copy or some such thing). After quite a bit of frustration realizing that no matter how hard I tried, I could NOT get the pages to line up to tape them together, the guy who gave me that assignment walked out to check on how I was doing and just started laughing...that's when I learned about distortion on Xerox copies. You know, I'm still not sure if he really needed those copies or if it was just a way to keep the temp busy. :uhh:
 
  • #22
BobG said:
"You're right. This is pretty funny." :rofl:


That's great! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

I knew a guy named Rich, I think, who caught his neighbor stealing his electrical power. An extension cord was found connected to a remote outlet between the buildings, or along the common fence line etc. So Rich waited until the neighbor was gone and then re-wired the circuit for 240, instead of the standard 120 VAC. Later that weekend, when Rich turned on his own computer, he discovered that it was on the same circuit as the exterior outlet! It turned out that the neighbor had never returned. He was gone on vacation for a week and never knew the difference.
 
  • #23
Ivan Seeking said:
when Rich turned on his own computer, he discovered that it was on the same circuit as the exterior outlet!
Owwww...
 

What is the purpose of typing =rand(99,99)[Enter] into MS Word?

The purpose of typing =rand(99,99)[Enter] into MS Word is to generate a random text that consists of 99 paragraphs with 99 sentences each. This can be useful for testing formatting, layout, and design of a document.

Can the number of paragraphs and sentences be changed in =rand(99,99)[Enter]?

Yes, the numbers in the parentheses can be changed to any desired number of paragraphs and sentences. For example, typing =rand(50,10)[Enter] will generate 50 paragraphs with 10 sentences each.

Will the text generated by =rand(99,99)[Enter] be the same every time?

No, the text generated by =rand(99,99)[Enter] will be different each time. This is because the text is randomly generated using the default Lorem Ipsum text, which consists of nonsensical Latin words.

Can =rand(99,99)[Enter] be used in other Microsoft Office programs?

Yes, =rand(99,99)[Enter] can be used in other Microsoft Office programs such as Excel and PowerPoint. However, the formatting and layout may differ from that in Word.

Is there a way to customize the text generated by =rand(99,99)[Enter]?

No, there is no way to customize the text generated by =rand(99,99)[Enter]. However, you can use other formulas or tools in MS Word to create custom dummy text for testing purposes.

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