Why Microsoft Word must die • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Microsoft Word must die

#161

Post by AlephGarden » Sat, Oct 12, 2013, 1:49 PM UTC

sounds wrote: post #15

zerovox wrote: post #4

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of writers were less technically savvy, happiest writing in Word, or simply wouldn't know how to write in any other format. It makes sense from the publishers point of view to pick one format and stick with it, so they have a consistent editing style and ability, and only have to deal with converting one format into a final publication. I do feel that this is one of those cases where…

Arguing this is the exceptional case misses his point, I think. He is intelligent, eloquent, and absolutely correct. In _any_ field except "business letters and reports" there are numerous talented, creative people who use other software and understand his lament: "the major publishers have been browbeaten into believing that Word is the sine qua non of document production systems." Some examples: ∙ Hard science rese…

As an aspiring mathematician, the thought of not using LaTeX for mathematics frightens me. The thought of using Word for mathematics terrifies me.

Re: Why Microsoft Word must die

#162

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 12, 2013, 1:51 PM UTC

kleiba wrote: post #106

daned wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't agree with you more. My SO is a PhD candidate and she doesn't know what she's missing when it comes to collaborative version control. They spend a lot of time sending around modified office docs.

Well, some people claim that tar balls and patches are a much superior source control management system than CVS. So you could say that unless you want every Joe User to master git, sending around modified office docs might not be the worst of solutions.

[deleted]

Re: Why Microsoft Word must die

#163

Post by Al-Khwarizmi » Sat, Oct 12, 2013, 1:51 PM UTC

Derbasti wrote: post #26

wfunction wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there are solid alternatives to the other products in the office suite Are you sure? Does it not strike you as odd that OpenOffice/LibreOffice still haven't managed to replace Word?

OOo/LO is a straight forward clone of MS Office. It shares all its design weaknesses and adds some of its own. Except foor freedom, I don't see any reason for using it over MS Office.

I use it for a different reason: no ribbon.

Re: Why Microsoft Word must die

#164

Post by Al-Khwarizmi » Sat, Oct 12, 2013, 1:53 PM UTC

wfunction wrote: post #44

MaulingMonkey wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At home? False premise: It has replaced Word (for me.) That it has not for everyone or as a whole doesn't strike me as odd in the slightest. There are plenty of reasons to use Word. Aside from the fact that it's solid itself, it also has a metric ton of inertia. Those using it already have the license or pirated copy, already know it, have legacy documents using it, and are generally otherwise are left with very litt…

I know I tried to switch to LibreOffice for a few weeks and then ran back screaming. I know some others who have done the same. I haven't yet met a single person who is happier with OOo/LO than with Word; if that's true for you you're the first such person I've heard of.

> I haven't yet met a single person who is happier with OOo/ > LO than with Word; if that's true for you you're the first > such person I've heard of.

Hi, I'm one such person. Reason: the ribbon. In the rest, yes, Word is better. But I like standard menubar interfaces and hate the programs that don't let me use them.

Re: Why Microsoft Word must die

#165

Post by macmac » Sat, Oct 12, 2013, 1:55 PM UTC

alextingle wrote: post #116

rtfeldman wrote: post #45

I came to similar conclusions but didn't like Scrivener, so I scratched my own itch instead. The result is http://dreamwriterapp.com - it only works in Chrome, but it can handle 100,000+ word novels without performance tanking like it does in Google Docs.

I get nothing but a spinning icon.

Same here.

Re: Why Microsoft Word must die

#166

Post by _random_ » Sat, Oct 12, 2013, 2:01 PM UTC

The reality is that Word is really-really good. That's why it's a monopoly. Just like Apple products.

Re: Why Microsoft Word must die

#167

Post by scholia » Sat, Oct 12, 2013, 2:03 PM UTC

triton wrote: post #99

cstross wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a published format. Open, not so much: to parse .docx properly you've basically got to re-implement Word -- they carefully drafted the standard to make it hard for rival XML processors to work on their files.

That's actually a load or horse shit (excuse my French). I've worked with both ODF and OOXML extensively as we write document templating software and I'll pick OOXML over ODF any say. It's less quirky, there are decent COTS tools to handle it and the output rendering is consistent regardless of which tool you pick to do the rendering. It's also better documented and way more intuitive. I really don't know where you a…

Well said...

Re: Why Microsoft Word must die

#168

Post by scholia » Sat, Oct 12, 2013, 2:05 PM UTC

telephonetemp wrote: post #8

Government forms served as Word documents with complex table-based formatting and "fields" made out of underscores are truly the worst. They are sadly ubiquitous throughout Eastern Europe, much like mathematics typeset using Word and MathType.

Which is the fault of the users, not the applications. Microsoft Office offers much better ways to do that sort of thing.

Re: Why Microsoft Word must die

#169

Post by scholia » Sat, Oct 12, 2013, 2:10 PM UTC

nkhodyunya wrote: post #144

clarry wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If air was a big, expensive, complex, hard-to-use, proprietary product that we could perfectly well kill off and do without, I'd loathe it.

The author's argument that Microsoft Word in unavoidable because doc format is de facto standard in his problem domain seems bullshit to me. You can't substitute a document editor with document format like that. I mean, you can totally avoid using Microsoft Word for creating doc files by switching to latex/markdown/org/... with [pandoc][1] converter, for example, or use any kind of MSWord-like word processors, e.g. O…

You're right, it's bullshit. Apart from anything else, Word saves in a ton of formats. I use Word all the time but I very rarely use doc/docx. I use rtf instead.

Re: Why Microsoft Word must die

#170

Post by makomk » Sat, Oct 12, 2013, 2:21 PM UTC

riffraff wrote: post #38

> But somehow, the major publishers have been browbeaten into believing that Word is the sine qua non of document production systems. Is this actually true? I accidentally checked just a few days ago, and amazon's self publishing platform allows using a simple html file. Also I clearly remember that D. Hofstadter's books were typeset with latex, and at least in my country they are published by one of the biggest publ…

I think at least some non-fiction authors have to supply a "camera-ready" manuscript, which is basically typeset and laid out by them and not the publishing house and so doesn't have to go through the Word-based workflow fiction publishers like Stross' use.