I often criticize the built-in "help" system in Microsoft Office.  One of its greatest shortcomings in my mind is that it beats around the bush before telling you how to do something relatively simple. Sometimes it never tells you. Recently I wanted to merge a Word document into another.  Naturally, I looked for an "insert file" command on the ribbon. But it was nowhere to be found. Alas, I would have to begrudgingly turn to "help" for help. I searched for "insert file," and was confronted with this convoluted message:

Symptoms You want to insert text from another document into the document that you are working on, but you can't find the Insert File command.

Cause The Insert File command has been renamed Text from File and moved to the Object menu on the Insert tab in Microsoft Office Word 2007.

Resolution Use the Insert tab to access the Text from File command.

Now, assuming that you don't feel like you've been diagnosed with a disease, by the time you're at the end of that robotic message, you have an answer. One has to wonder whether we're really any better off than we were in the days of clippy.

But this is how I really interpreted the "help":

Symptoms You want to insert text from another document into the document that you are working on, but you can't find the Insert File command.

Cause We renamed Insert File command to something less intuitive so that it's no longer recognizable by name (Text from File). We also moved it to the Object menu making it more difficult to find in Microsoft Office Word 2007.

Resolution Avoid using software with confusing interfaces and overly verbose help documentation.

Indeed, this is a better resolution.

One of the things I like most about Pages, Apple's word processor in the iWork suite, is that when you type a menu command in the help search field, the top hit shows you exactly where to find that menu item. Simple and genius design from people who actually use the software.