I come from the world of print, where only one thing is more dreaded than formatted MS Word files – MS Publisher files. Charlie has at least caught one small break.
3 Likes
I’m on it - just give me the word!
Sadly, this will be years from now. But I’ll make you head shill in my shill factory one day in the way off future.
This.
When I had to write my Masters thesis, I decided to learn LaTeX to do it. Never looking back.
Of course, I have to use Word at work.
3 Likes
I’ve been using Word for a long time. I could use something else, but then you run into all the issues with transferring files between formats (I tried using Open Office, and still do sometimes). Word is what people seem to expect - and when people are paying me I try to send them things they can open and read.
But I hate it. It doesn’t randomly reformat whole sections of my documents anymore, or suddenly BOLD a whole paragraph like it used to. Or stick an impossible to remove blank page at the end of my documents (@&&#$@*) like it always did. But, as if to compensate, it now makes me click back and forth between menu pages when I want to do a little formatting, or it makes me jump 3 hoops and do a backflip for a couple of basic tweaks. HATE IT.
I’d love someone to make something better that I could use, but unless they are able to break the hold Word has on business and government documents, I have no choice but to try to make the best of it.
Not in my experience. I have lost too many files to the fuckedupedness of that format, the difficulty of converting between formats, the impossibility of converting tables, etc. I now use LibreOffice, though it also has the bad habit of imposing its own formatting instead of my preferred formatting, unless I disable the bugs involved.
1 Like
The real culprit is that “clippy” thing, it is evil!
2 Likes
Charles Stross could write a 1600-word essay about what time it is. And probably has.
4 Likes
Actually Word’s concept of template files seems a lot more familiar today. You’ve got your template files containing the formats, styles, heading levels, and even macros. And then you’ve got the various managers that you copy styles and formats from other templates. You can even copy macros between documents that use different templates. Being diligent about these issues takes care of many of the heartaches of word and most other Office products.
But WordPerfect 4.2 off a floppy was faster than Word would be for many years. The “Reveal Code” view was awsome. And the hot key combinations for keyboards with function keys on the side were very natural and fast.
3 Likes
These concepts like using different styles for text wrapping and white spacing are becoming more familiar in CSS. If I had something like a table was going to be a problem to format, I’d probably just grab a jpg and stick it in.
1 Like
That’s what I usually do if the table refuses to be placed in the correct location. I often use Powerpoint to make the table though as there aren’t any restrictions on placing objects and it’s easy to save anything as a jpeg. If I want to change the table, I have to go back to the ppt with the tables and edit it there. Thus a document is made in Rube Goldbergian fashion.
1 Like
Mr Stross’s point forms part of the plot of Rob Reid’s “Year Zero”. If Bill Gates had not existed, it would have been necessary to invent him, just to save the human race.
The only kind thing that can be said about MIcrosoft Office is that it drives people so insane they feel the need to spend their weekends away from the computer, with sunshine and puppies and all that kind of stuff.
2 Likes
Yes, probably Scrivener. Which is, on every level, a superior tool for writing. Those of us that use it are jonesing desperately for an iPad version.
1 Like
The author doesn’t understand the technology. Office has used OpenXML file formats for Word and Excel since 2007. That release was over six years ago. As of 2013 all of the major Office applications including Visio use OpenXML.
It sounds like this guy is just another ABM’er (Anything But Microsoft) fanboy. So boring, and really becoming dated. Next please.
Edit Menu > Paste Special… > Unformatted Text.
Yes, it’s annoying, but less annoying than interstitially pasting to Notepad.
1 Like
I’m sure Charles Stross understands Microsoft Office just fine. Have you read the essay? Do you know how much Office costs?
Mr. Stross states very clearly that the reason these frustrations apply to him is that misguided publishers insist on having work sent to them in Word format. Office costs a lot of money. It’s not a one-time expense either because some publishers consider themselves “cutting edge.” So you’ve got to keep up with it. You have to continuously pay buckets of money to Microsoft for something most writers would rather not use.
I write a fair bit (including several novellas) and I would rather write in Notepad than write in Word because Notepad doesn’t fight me every inch of the way. Instead, like Stross, I also use Scrivener (and Notepad++). It gives me what I need and doesn’t fight me over shit I don’t need to be worrying about when there are paragraphs to be written. Rather than poorly-formatted pamphlets to be produced.
It’s not an ABM issue. Stross didn’t say anything about his opinion on anything else to do with Microsoft. Just his opinions on Office and its actual suitability to the job of writing.
1 Like
Word processing software is one of those rare bits of technology that peaked around 1992 or so and has gotten progressively worse ever since. It’s so bloated now that its original purpose seems an afterthought.
8 Likes
or ctrl-shift-V
I use it for everything.
You don’t have to. You also don’t have to deal with people who think that anyone sending you a file made in Office 97 is some sort of weirdo. It does mark you out as a cantankerous prima donna, though. Unless you’re Harlan Ellison or Alan Moore, it’s more than a liability. And, in some cases, you can’t even get past the submission form unless you can generate the specific file type the publisher is asking for.
I’d love to know where you’re getting it for $100, by the by. I’m seeing it available as download-only for ~$116.11. At any rate, for a lot of people that is a lot of money. I mentioned Scrivener in my post. It costs ~$35-40 for PC. I used an early beta of it (which was pretty bad but let me know how awesome it was going to be) and it was really hard to part with that $35.
Pay even $99 for software I hate which fights me all the time? Really hard to justify that even once. Let alone every ~5 years.
2 Likes
Long live Ami Pro!!!
(long dead, I know)
1 Like
