Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Microsoft Word must die

antipope.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–387 of 387 posts

Re: Why Microsoft Word must die

#381

Post by Samuel_Michon »

MAGZine wrote: post #308
Samuel_Michon wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Numbers is a good, platform-locked spreadsheet editor for simple uses? Numbers is not just a spreadsheet editor, it’s a full-fledged spreadsheet creator. Its features are sufficient for all but the most demanding users. > Dropbox+Excel seems like it would do the same thing For me, it doesn’t. Just using Dropbox and my stock OS (and providing I don’t use Numbers), I can view Excel files on my phone and tablet but I…

I would, except that I don't use iOS. Then again, I carry my air on me everywhere I go, so I'll never, ever be editing spreadsheets on my phone. Seems like an odd usecase to me, though.

I was mainly referring to Numbers on iPad, which I use much rather than Numbers on OS X. I do however occasionally use Numbers on iPhone, when I don’t have an iPad or notebook with me. It works fine for looking up information, make small edits, or do some quick calculations (although I mostly use Soulver or WolframAlpha for that).

Re: Why Microsoft Word must die

#382

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

tarre wrote: post #260
disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but it only works when you use word. Yours sincerely, a graduate student whose thesis is written in LaTeX and then converted to RTF and then hand edited so his supervisor(s) can give him comments. I sent them a link to my github repository, but they never took me up on my offer :(

Did you try to send them just the pdf-file? That worked for me.

I wish. Did that for a while, but when I told them when I wanted to finish, they demanded Word.

The worst part was that they didn't even use the track changes feature on anything I sent them.

Re: Why Microsoft Word must die

#383

Post by mncolinlee »

Oddly enough, when I was a corporate intern technical writer, everything was being done there in DocBook XML. We were using PTC Arbortext products which were very expensive per seat.

It's inevitable that the publishing industry will dump Word, but I don't think it's realistic to expect it all at once. First, they have to offer the ability to use other formats and they may require that the industry adopts a standard software package and document flow that does exactly what it needs. This sounds like an awesome open source project for someone who knows that industry's exact needs.

Re: Why Microsoft Word must die

#385

Post by gggmaster »

anuraj wrote: post #58

Word is an end user product - not open source - not developer friendly - want a developer friendly format - work with ODF or similar entities pushing open standards. Word does its job fairly well.

There are many better open source alternatives for end users. Being locked into one product is not a good thing.

Re: Why Microsoft Word must die

#386

Post by singingfish »

iSnow wrote: post #332
singingfish wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's a dumb thing to say. It's reasonably frequent that the best tool for a job is one that scales from the smallest possible use case (individual) to the largest, smoothly and without hassle. Git fits this criterion. SVN is a real pain by comparison.

Well, I believe in YAGNI. Throwing the biggest possible solution onto a small problem because it might get a large problem is speculative thinking. Which is bad.

That's different. YAGNI (e.g. starting with oracle where sqlite is probably all you need) is different to using tools designed to (reasonably transparrently) scale from the smallest use case to the largest.

Re: Why Microsoft Word must die

#387

Post by pseingatl »

tanzam75 wrote: post #205
pseingatl wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wordperfect still is very popular in law offices. Lawyers love the "make it fit" feature, which word doesn't have. Lawyers are always trying to put 17 ounces into a 16 ounce glass.

> Wordperfect still is very popular in law offices. Lawyers love the "make it fit" feature, which word doesn't have. Lawyers are always trying to put 17 ounces into a 16 ounce glass. Word does not have a "Make it Fit" feature, but it does have a shrink-to-fit feature. You do have to shrink it one page at a time. You start with 13 pages and shrink it to 12, then shrink 12 to 11, etc. However, the feature has been remo…

I didn't know about this feature. The documentation says it just reduces font size. WP did that but also increased kerning, reduced linespacing as well as a few other tricks.
Post reply on HN