Apostrophe defeats Microsoft's smart tags

Microsoft's smart tags, one of the flagship Office XP's key selling points, have been exposed as not so smart when it comes to handling apostrophes.

Purchasers of Office XP have been left frustrated by the glitch, which prevents them from inserting contact details from Outlook into Word if the contact's name features an apostrophe. As a consequence, all the O'Neills, O'Sheas and O'Reillys in contact books can't be accessed via smart tags.

A Microsoft spokeswoman told vnunet.com: "We're aware of this issue. An engineer has replicated the problem and we've issued a bug report."

However, she could not say when a patch would be issued. Office XP owners can sign up here to receive email alerts when fixes become available.

The bug was reported by home user Nigel Duncan, a self-confessed Microsoft fan, who paid over £500 for his copy of Office XP after attending a demonstration at Microsoft's London launch on 31 May.

He is angry that he had used one of his two support calls on a software problem after being advised several times that the fault was with his PC, rather than with the software.

He told vnunet.com: "I'm really annoyed that I've had to use one of my two free support calls for a product I've paid over £500 for on a problem with their software."

The Microsoft spokeswoman later promised to contact Duncan to confirm that his call would be treated as a bug report, meaning that his enquiry would not count as one of his two free support calls.

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