Author Steven Poole on Ditching Microsoft Word
This is a long, but interesting blog post by a man who has lived and breathed Word for years. But he now has a Word-free hard drive, and relies on WriteRoom and Scrivener. What about the whole interoperability question - Poole tackles that one head-on:
The last question is one of interoperability, and on first sight it’s a serious one. Surely if everyone else is using Microsoft Word and we are sending documents back and forth to each other, then I need to use Microsoft Word too? I imagine that kind of reasoning sells the majority of new copies. But for me it doesn’t matter at all. If I just need to read a Word document, I can open it in pretty much any Mac program. If I need to exchange files back and forth using comments or Track Changes, I can do that through Google Apps or Pages.
I know there are a few Mac Law Students readers who are doing without Word. For this year I’ve committed to using Pages 3 wherever possible, and only opening up Word when absolutely necessary. I figure if I can make it through the year without having to fire up Word, come May I’ll wipe it from my hard drive.
Brian Cavner wrote,
I certainly have no love for Microsoft, but I continue to use Word simply because its what I’m comfortable with and it seems to do the job correctly. I’ve tried alternatives because I feel like it’s the Mac thing to do, but I can’t find anything that’s so mind-blowingly better that a switch is justified.
I’m curious, do Mac users use non-Word programs simply because they hate the idea of using something from Microsoft or are there actual, specific reasons either for Word being bad or something else being good?
–Brian, briancavner.com
Link | September 4th, 2007 at 12:16 am
Erik Schmidt wrote,
I don’t have an inherent dislike for Microsoft software. For quite a while, IE 5 for the Mac defined the state of the art in browsers (believe it or not). But I have found over the years Microsoft just can’t seem to focus their software development efforts. In trying to be all things to all people, they wind up producing really bloated software that is more difficult to use than it needs to be.
Generally I prefer applications that do less, but do those things well, over apps that do everything, but don’t do those things particularly well. That’s why I’m drawn to WriteRoom and Pages. For me, less is more.
My particular gripe about Word is that it is amazingly bloated. I feel like 90% of what Word does I don’t ever use, and the functions I do want to use are not as easily accessed as they should be. I’m also not a big fan of how Word is constantly trying to “help” me even when I don’t want to be helped.
Even so, I do understand that Word is the de facto word processor, and the .doc format is what most people use. In many ways it probably is easier to stick with Word. Most people probably don’t share my irritation with it.
Link | September 4th, 2007 at 1:00 am
Erika York wrote,
I am a recent convert to Mac from Windows, I have considerable experience using Word (I’ve been using the new 2007 office since October last year) and until the new iwork 08, was using Word and Excel on my macbook. My dissatisfaction with Microsoft products is that they are so incredibly bloated. I found it very easy to use, I think just because I’ve been using different versions of Word for so long. Mac is SO simple, streamlined, and now that I can convert documents so that they are readable to Microsoft Office users, I don’t plan on buying the new Office apps for mac when they come out next year.
Link | September 5th, 2007 at 12:18 am
AER wrote,
Law Review = must use Word.
I hate Word 2004 because it is not Universal Binary, so you can’t scroll, and because it is not perfectly compatible with Word 2003/2007. I didn’t even re-install it when my HDD died - I use Parallels and Word 2003 now. It performs much, much better than Word 2004, and there are no conversion issues. It sucks to have to boot up a whole ‘nother OS just to use Word, though.
It still starts up faster than OpenOffice….
Link | September 6th, 2007 at 6:03 am
Erik Schmidt wrote,
AER,
I assume you must use Word because the Law Review at your school uses Word’s change-tracking feature. It seems that is the single biggest hangup for those who wish to leave the Word World.
Link | September 7th, 2007 at 1:40 am
Mary Keesling wrote,
I found this blog entry using Google advanced search — a phrase search re: Word 2004 being compatible w/Word 2003…
I am a diehard Mac user (from day one), but not a techno expert, and I’m too lazy to look through tons of literature and help screens etc… can someone here tell me if the scrolling problem is the only real problem between Word 2004 and Word 2003?
I’m taking an online class at USF(Tampa–not law, though) and the professor said she wants us to use Word 2003 ONLY for our assignments. She’s mainly trying to tell us NOT to use Word 2007, but, I’m wondering– if I use my Word 2004 for Mac [this is just for simple term papers, etc]. will I be ok? Or must I load Word 2003 onto my Mac?
Thanks so much! I’ll check back later in the week…
Link | January 9th, 2008 at 2:22 am