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Goodbye Cruel Word
theodp writes "The problem with Microsoft Word, writes the NYT's Virginia Heffernan, is that 'I always feel as if I'm taking an essay test.' Seeking to break free of the tyranny of Microsoft Word, Heffernan takes a look at Scrivener and the oh-so-retro WriteRoom, which she and others feel jibe better with the way writers think. 'The new writing programs encourage a writerly restart. You may even relearn the green-lighted alphabet, adjust your preference for long or short sentences, opt afresh for action over description. Renewal becomes heady: in WriteRoom's gloom is man's power to create something from nothing, to wrest form from formlessness. Let's just say it: It's biblical. And come on, ye writers, do you want to be a little Word drip writing 603 words in Palatino with regulation margins? Or do you want to be a Creator?'"
"The problem with Word and notably Microsoft, is that they have attempted to make both Windows and their apps, notably Office, all things to all people with an interface that has not really changed at all over the course of its lifetime."
Office 2007 is leaps and bounds over anything Microsoft put out before. The interface is also heavily improved, so I don't know where you're getting this (unless this is pre-2005 when Office 2007 wasn't public knowledge)
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from the looks of the front page you would think math geeks would only use it but it also functions as an excellent word processor...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
A guy with a brand new Fender Strat doesn't sound like Jimi Hendrix. Nor can you drive better in a Lotus than an xB.
What's more likely is that if you think you're doing better and that helps you, so much the better.
Document composers for mass mailings, labels, newsletters, all need different features that aren't part of the word processing function of creativity, rather its creative exposition. I'll write (a dozen books, thousands of articles so far) on whatever, and won't go to Jerry Pournelle's years of bitching about the nuances. It's the content, Jerry. It's the content. Word, Word Perfect, WordStar, Zedit, Joe, Vi, textedit, don't much matter. Grammar checkers, spell checkers, syntactical analyzers, pretty printers, code-indenting hoohaa, I don't care. Let me write. Grace and elegance are for those that need glitter and swan-like moves. They look pretty, but it's only style, and style will always be subjective. Content rules; fancy-assed WYSIWYG twelve-key-combo-crap drools.
Just my 2c worth.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
LaTeX tries to do a different thing than "desktop publishing," and for what it does, it does it extremely well, and is far better than any alternatives.
Back in the day, we had "word processors," and we had "desktop publishing software," the difference being that the desktop publishing software let you precisely control page layout and were WYSIWYG. Word processors were things you typed documents into and they broke that document into pages to send to a printer. Word processors had extensive features to help you enter your document correctly, like spell and grammar checkers, ways to emphasize text by making it bold or underlined, and not much else. They processed words, not pages.
Then someone had the not-so-bright idea to bring WYSIWYG into word processing, combining Desktop Publishing Software and Word Processing Software into shitty abominations called WordPerfect > 5.1 and Microsoft Word. Putting a small subset of desktop publishing power into cheap, buggy software ensured that secretaries everywhere would abuse Comic Sans and clip art until the end of time, and attach their creations to what should have been plain text email.
My first "office suite" let you type your document into the word processor, then you could set up the page layout in the desktop publishing program and link the text in, where it would flow into the predetermined layout and fill it. Two discrete steps, which couldn't have been easier. Trying to do this all at once is a pain in the ass, especially if you're changing the document around (editing). The problems worsen when multiple people work on the same document.
Initially, it was obvious that word processing and desktop publishing were two very different things, and never the twain shall meet. We'd all be a lot better off if this distinction had stayed, because the problem with word processors today is not that they're trying to be all things to all people, but that they're trying to do two different things at the same time.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
I would say the earlier Windows versions up to about 6 were the zenith of Word Processing. Novell was one thing but when Corel got it, ugh. Became buggy in their quest to dumb it down to "Wordishness".
I've never quite understood the bloatware bitching. If there are a lot of features you don't like, then shut up, sit down and don't use them for Chrissake. You can write your novel very happily in AbiWord I'm sure but don't complain because I want something that can do more. I used WP to do double-sided tri-folds. I don't know what I would have done without reveal codes for micromanaging stuff that as often as not was in text and graphics boxes rotated this way or that. Get a publishing package you say. Why? WordPerfect produced the B&W laserprinted trifolds we needed. Used macros to take a delimited server db addresses dump, convert it to a WP data file and do the merge and print. Routinely ran a whole bunch of lists that way for years with WP as the core program.
When Microsoft used their OS monopoly money to dump Office 97 on the market it was one of the most shameful examples of a monopoly murdering quality with artificial underpricing.