MS Word

[Handley_Page]

MS Word deserves DEATH says Brit SciFi author Charles Stross
'A tyrant of the imagination, a petty, unimaginative, inconsistent dictator'
By Simon Sharwood,


British science fiction author Charles Stross has published a mighty rant on the subject of Microsoft Word, which he is attempting to will out of existence.

Stross has form as a critic of Redmond, having penned a Linux column for another outlet. His complaint on this occasion is not just with Word itself, but rather the fact that everyone he works with expects he'll use it.

“Major publishers have been browbeaten into believing that Word is the sine qua non of document production systems,” he writes. “And they expect me to integrate myself into a Word-centric workflow, even though it's an inappropriate, damaging, and laborious tool for the job. It is, quite simply, unavoidable.”

Before he reaches the conclusion, Stross complains that Microsoft kept adding features to Word that were once standalone products, thereby putting a few software houses out of business. He also revisits the old memes of Microsoft changing file formats as a way of inducing upgrades through planned obsolescence.

Along the way he offers some impressive vituperation, such as this passage:

“Microsoft Word is a tyrant of the imagination, a petty, unimaginative, inconsistent dictator that is ill-suited to any creative writer's use. Worse: it is a near-monopolist, dominating the word processing field. Its pervasive near-monopoly status has brainwashed software developers to such an extent that few can imagine a word processing tool that exists as anything other than as a shallow imitation of the Redmond Behemoth.”

His critique of the Word file format is also decent:

“The .doc file format was also obfuscated, deliberately or intentionally: rather than a parseable document containing formatting and macro metadata, it was effectively a dump of the in-memory data structures used by word, with pointers to the subroutines that provided formatting or macro support. And "fast save" made the picture worse, by appending a journal of changes to the application's in-memory state. To parse a .doc file you virtually have to write a mini-implementation of Microsoft Word. This isn't a data file format: it's a nightmare!”

Stross' complaint centres on Word's utility for his profession, creative writing, and there are plenty of dedicated tools for that chore. But his criticism also notes plenty of flaws in the application that afflict others, namely:

“Its proofing tools and change tracking mechanisms are baroque, buggy, and inadequate for true collaborative document preparation; its outlining and tagging facilities are piteously primitive compared to those required by a novelist or thesis author: and the procrustean dictates of its grammar checker would merely be funny if the ploddingly sophomoric business writing style it mandates were not so widespread.”

And let's not even get started on how piteously it handles text styles, the “feature” that led your correspondent away from Redmond's embrace.

================
Personal note.
I think he's mostly right!

 

[hylas_]

Uhm... maybe I'm just too stupid to get it, but... what exactly is his - and your - problem with the program?

For what it's worth, I use NeoOffice, and save as .doc, because the format is widely spread. The spellcheck is a little useless when it comes to swear words and compounds, but that's about the only complaint I can think of.

For shorter, more spontaneous writing, I use TextEdit. If I intend to print it, I write in NeoOffice, then make the layout in Adobe InDesign.

What is everybody using?

 

[PennLady]

I use Word, partly because it's what came with my computer and partly because I'm used to it. If I didn't have Word (which I also need for work), I'd find something else and get used to that.

While I'm willing to agree that Word is not the best program, I still don't find it terribly hard to use. I'd like someone to not only tell me what's wrong with Word, but what about another program makes that better.

 

[TE999]

I'm not exactly sure what Chuck's problem is with MS Word, but he's pretty darn creative in the vituperation department.

I've always used Word since I bought my first 'puter running Win98 OS and have never had a problem with it. You can dial down or just ignore it's grammar Nazi feature, it has a ton of typefaces, dingbats and formats and I find it easy to work with once you know it's quirks.

 

[TxRad]

What most fiction writers find a problem with Word is the fact it was created to do business correspondence and nothing more. It wasn't meant for dialog or for questions. The grammar check wasn't designed for fiction and it has no sense of humor.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

A word processor is a, well it's just that, a word processor. All word processors do exactly the same thing, they allow you to type your words onto a virtual piece of paper. They then provide some rudimentary spell checking and in the case of word, as it original purpose was aimed at the business community, grammar check, vis a vie business letters.

Since Word and Wordperfect, there have been any number of other "word processors" in the marketplace. Some have been freeware - Open Office, NeoOffice...please note the use of Office in the titles, these were predominately business application, not writing tools.

Writing tools do exist, from the rudimentary yWrite to the sophistication of screen writing application such as Trelby(it's free by the way) to others such as Scrivenor($40 USD) developed just for writing.

I have looked at the lot. Tried them out. My tools of choice, well for short stories, under 10,000 words, I reach for Word first. For stories longer or complex enough, I go to yWrite(absolutely no grammar checking here, nor real-time spell checking although the bits are saved in RTF format and easily loaded in to word for the spell checking bit).

All the applications mentioned have their pros and cons and it really boils down to what you are used to.

 

[Handley_Page]

Ah, OK.
Perhaps I was a trifle short in explanation (I had a visitor and it screwed up my plans); sorry 'bout that.

Upon reflection, I think that it ain't what the users sees so much as the complete screw-up behind the screen; it's more to do with HOW as thing gets done. In stead of keeping a "core" of a WP and adding extras for a new version, or maybe doing it differently due to hardware changes, the whole code seems to be re-written and in doing so, looses some (important) aspect of a familiar tool. For example: Word97 managed different styles of wording a sentence (Formal, Legal, Business, Casual, etc..). After v2003, "Style " means Fonts changes, etc., and it's all business and as has been said, no sense of humour. The 'suggested' word changes are very strange, too (certainly if you are not within the USA).

At one time, an author could write a story in almost anything (Word Star, Boreland Swift, Word Perfect, etc..) and the resulting file stored would likely be fairly straightforward, being the text and some guide to whatever necessities were required, such as a change in font style. And you could probably read it with almost any of the others. If you wanted to make a really good job of the presentation, you could use Pagemaker or Ventura (even Quark if you were lucky) and lay the page out as you wanted. Word seems to think you do not need to do that; it's got it covered. Not quite, it hasn't. Ventura seems to have dropped off the twig; what's happened to Pagemaker is anyone's guess, although I see it's on version 7.

A word DOC file is the only one I found which featured an "End of File" marker in the middle of the file, making a DOC file very hard to get at (well, back in the days of DOS, anyway!). And '.DOC' was in use by WordStar, so people could get Very Confused.

Don't get me wrong. I use WORD every day, and more by choice than not.
Libre Office is good but is too much of a clone to be 'different'; there's an opportunity for some useful features being missed, I think.

It's another example of Bill Gates' legacy being pushed onto a wider circle of users.

Because there's no simple alternative. . .
.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Years ago a colleague of mine described MSWord as the word processor of choice for people who had no idea what they were doing. It was a WYSIWYG program, and that suited most people who wrote and printed on just one machine.

It didn't run on commands as much as on appearance, and so, when you went to another machine or tried to merge files from different sources, it became a complete mess. In those days, academic journals were reluctant to accept, and some even refused, MSWord documents. WordPerfect was the preferred processor since it was command-driven and could merge seamlessly with the new desktop publishing programs publishers were using.

I started on Word Star myself, but shifted to WordPerfect. I still use it for almost all my work - and it's still far better and more convenient for my academic writing than is MSWord, but I do often save copies in RTF for posting for students, since the vast majority of them use Microsoft.

 

[sr71plt]

I'm pretty sure the complainers never had to live in the era when there were just typewriters.

Word is just fine for basic writing presentation, storage, and organization--which is all publishers want the author to be doing anyway.

 

[R. Richard]

I use LibreOffice, but I save in Word97 format, because that's what my publishers insist on.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

I miss the sensuality of the typewriter, Pilot. There was mass and form and touch to them, each a different personality, but I'm more than content with the convenience and versatility of my word processor for doing the job. I have a few typewriters around, but only to show the unbelieving grandchildren that such things really existed.

 

[sr71plt]

I miss the sensuality of the typewriter, Pilot. There was mass and form and touch to them, each a different personality, but I'm more than content with the convenience and versatility of my word processor for doing the job. I have a few typewriters around, but only to show the unbelieving grandchildren that such things really existed.

I found typewriters very frustrating. They couldn't keep up with the flow of my thought. Also, I cringe at the thought of all of those trees that died and all that correction time wasted for me to get clean manuscripts to send to agents and a publisher for my first six mainstream novels.

Most of those who complain about Word are folks trying to use all those bells and whistles the geeks pile on top of the system, much of it irrelevant to writing. I'm running four different Word systems on my computers, right up to Word 2013. All of them do what publishers want me to do in composing, storing, and transmitting manuscripts. I'm an author, not the book designer.

There also was a time with WordPerfect worked fine with me. I only shelved it because publishers wouldn't accept either my editing or my own manuscripts in that system.

I work in the real publishing world.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Uhm... maybe I'm just too stupid to get it, but... what exactly is his - and your - problem with the program?

Stross's original post may do a better job of explaining it: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/10/why-microsoft-word-must-die.html

"Microsoft Word grew by acquiring new subsystems: mail merge, spelling checkers, grammar checkers, outline processing. All of these were once successful cottage industries with a thriving community of rival product vendors striving to produce better products that would capture each others' market share. But one by one, Microsoft moved into each sector and built one of the competitors into Word, thereby killing the competition and stifling innovation. Microsoft killed the outline processor on Windows; stalled development of the grammar checking tool, stifled spelling checkers. There is an entire graveyard of once-hopeful new software ecosystems, and its name is Microsoft Word."

He also discusses some other issues (poor choice of formatting paradigm that breaks interoperability, regular changes to the file format that hurt back-compatibility, etc etc).

Some commenters on his post note additional problems. It doesn't cope well with long documents - I remember having to chunk my thesis up into three separate .docs which then breaks things like automatic page numbering/referencing. One commenter notes that the Word users' manual could not have been produced in Word! And various other things.

For what it's worth, I use NeoOffice, and save as .doc, because the format is widely spread. The spellcheck is a little useless when it comes to swear words and compounds, but that's about the only complaint I can think of.

I've used NeoOffice, OpenOffice, Pages, and the Lotus one. On their own, they're all functional word-processors; as far as I can tell they're all designed on the philosophy of "as much like Word as possible, only cheaper" (which Stross notes as a problem in itself; competition is on the basis of price alone, rather than offering better ways to do stuff). They will all read and write .doc.

But I had to shell out for MS Office recently, because I don't work alone. I do technical editing for a commercial publisher who uses Word. If I open their .doc and it doesn't look right, I'm left wondering - is this because they made a mistake, or is it because my word-processor isn't rendering the .doc quite the same way as Word does? (I'm no expert on the inner workings, but I suspect that "poor choice of formatting paradigm" mentioned above is one of the reasons why it's so difficult for the competitors to render a .doc consistently. It would be against MS's interests to make it easier.)

Plus, Word file formats change every few years. If $PUBLISHER starts sending me .docx instead of .doc, I need to be able to read that. I can't afford to wait until the (unpaid) team who make open-source stuff catch up with the new format.

While I'm willing to agree that Word is not the best program, I still don't find it terribly hard to use. I'd like someone to not only tell me what's wrong with Word, but what about another program makes that better.

"The reason I want Word to die is that until it does, it is unavoidable. I do not write novels using Microsoft Word. I use a variety of other tools, from Scrivener (a program designed for managing the structure and editing of large compound documents, which works in a manner analogous to a programmer's integrated development environment if Word were a basic text editor) to classic text editors such as Vim. But somehow, the major publishers have been browbeaten into believing that Word is the sine qua non of document production systems. They have warped and corrupted their production workflow into using Microsoft Word .doc files as their raw substrate, even though this is a file format ill-suited for editorial or typesetting chores. And they expect me to integrate myself into a Word-centric workflow, even though it's an inappropriate, damaging, and laborious tool for the job. It is, quite simply, unavoidable. And worse, by its very prominence, we become blind to the possibility that our tools for document creation could be improved."

 

[Handley_Page]

Stross's original post may do a better job of explaining it: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/10/why-microsoft-word-must-die.html

"Microsoft Word grew by acquiring new subsystems: mail merge, spelling checkers, grammar checkers, outline processing. All of these were once successful cottage industries with a thriving community of rival product vendors striving to produce better products that would capture each others' market share. But one by one, Microsoft moved into each sector and built one of the competitors into Word, thereby killing the competition and stifling innovation. Microsoft killed the outline processor on Windows; stalled development of the grammar checking tool, stifled spelling checkers. There is an entire graveyard of once-hopeful new software ecosystems, and its name is Microsoft Word."

He also discusses some other issues (poor choice of formatting paradigm that breaks interoperability, regular changes to the file format that hurt back-compatibility, etc etc).
. . .

Thank you for finding that. It is exactly what I feel about WORD.

 

[oggbashan]

My wordprocessor of choice, if I had a choice, would be WordStar 2000+ for DOS.

It did everything I wanted a wordprocessor to do. It let me build my own dictionaries for specific styles e.g. sexual words for Literotica, and could convert anyone else's wordprocessor format to WordStar 2000+, or .txt, and back again.

Its files were very small when that mattered. I could put all my then current drafts and most of my completed stories on one 3.5 floppy.

If writing for Literotica was all I did, WordStar 2000+ would still be feasible.

But I don't have a choice:

I write letters to the Press, comments on other people's documents (usually local government papers), and representations to many official bodies. To read what they send me, I have to have a modern version of Word (and the ability to read .pdf files). To add comments on the documents and to ensure that the recipients of my missives can read what I write, I have to have Word. (Or a clone of Word)

At their most basic, all my wordprocessing needs to write stories were met, and could still be met, by WordStar 1512 running on an IBM XT with two 5.25 floppy drives and no hard drive. That now seems like Steam Punk.

 

[PennLady]

I used WordPerfect for a while through college and into when I started working for my last job. I used other things along the way as necessary, including a scientific word processor b/c it had Russian characters. That was a little messy. Using Word wasn't a huge switch for me, and I guess I just don't do enough with it most times that it makes a difference to me. I break my stories up myself, for ease of thought, reading and posting, so the length of a file is rarely a problem for me. I am willing to use something different -- although I couldn't quite make yWriter work for me -- but so far, Word's okay.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I actually like Word and Office, but then I have used all the bits and pieces of Office for most of my life. Word, Excel, Access, Power Point, Publisher, Outlook, etc.

The only one I hated out of the bunch was Outlook, not that it didn't do what it was programmed to do, it just was full of security holes.

Likewise with Internet Explorer...it just seamed to always be behind the times...a dollar short and a day late.

Word on the other hand...I can drive Word and drive it well. And Publisher, yes I can.

As for anyone's likes/dislikes, well they have there reasons, maybe some I share, but other I might not.

 

[AliciaRabbit]

My writing tool of choice is the LaTeX typesetting system and a text editor. I avoid Word at all costs.

My problem with Word is largely the file format. It isn't amenable to any kind of post-processing. I store my writings in a version control system where I can revert to older versions, obtain differences between versions, and merge different versions. This is all easy with LaTeX, which stores the text as plain text, but requires expensive add-ons with Word.

It is also easy with LaTeX to produce documents with consistent styles and then to update those styles later. I understand that Word supports styles but the user interface does not encourage people to use them. Also I find styles hard to use in Word, but I admit that may be because I don't use Word regularly.

LaTeX also handles enormous documents easily. For collaborative work it's a wonderful tool since people can be editing different parts of the document at the same time and yet still get consistent styling under central control. I've been involved in the construction of several multi-hundred page documents created by a group, and with LaTeX the last thing on our mind was ensuring consistent numbering and formatting. We focused on content. When coupled with version control it's easy for writers to explore alternate approaches in different branches, merging the best approach into the "master" branch later with little or no disruption to the work of other writers.

I don't know how well Word stands up in such an environment, but I've heard not very well. So, in summary, there are definitely better writing tools out there than Word. In fact, I'd even say Word is not very optimal for the very task it purports to support: large scale business writing.

 

[Recidiva]

I have to use Word for work. It doesn't do a LOT of things I'd like it to do. Making macros is ridiculously difficult and spontaneously disappear enough so that I've stopped trying.

You can't go in and edit certain words out of the dictionary reliably. For instance proper names. If I needed the spelling Smythe for a few years and now I need the spelling Smith, I will be stuck with it checking for both Smythe and Smith and that's just too damned bad for me.

It will never understand the phrase "acute on chronic" as a valid choice no matter how many times I ask it to do so.

 

[vliberty]

From a Linux user

Once upon a time, I used Word, back in the day, when all I knew was the Windows OS, and I faithfully paid, every three years, for the latest version. Then on top of that paid for updated versions of all the software I needed to replace, because older versions wouldn't run on the newer OS. But, for the last nine years, I've used Linux, exclusively, to run my network of computers, since that time I've used OpenOffice, and now use LibreOffice.

LibreOffice imports DOC files, I then do my editing and save the finished work as a DOC. When anything is written for myself it's saved in the native ODT format. As to layout, I use Scribus, which I believe is available in a Windows flavor, too.

Just my two cents...

 

[hylas_]

So, as I understand it, MS Word is not particularly elegant "behind the curtains" (which doesn't surprise me, since it's a Miscrosoft product); and it's hard to avoid, because it has a monopoly. Ok, both valid complaints. But that, to me, doesn't explain this kind of stuff:

"Microsoft Word is a tyrant of the imagination, a petty, unimaginative, inconsistent dictator that is ill-suited to any creative writer's use."

 

[Zeb_Carter]

My writing tool of choice is the LaTeX typesetting system and a text editor. I avoid Word at all costs.

My problem with Word is largely the file format. It isn't amenable to any kind of post-processing. I store my writings in a version control system where I can revert to older versions, obtain differences between versions, and merge different versions. This is all easy with LaTeX, which stores the text as plain text, but requires expensive add-ons with Word.

It is also easy with LaTeX to produce documents with consistent styles and then to update those styles later. I understand that Word supports styles but the user interface does not encourage people to use them. Also I find styles hard to use in Word, but I admit that may be because I don't use Word regularly.

LaTeX also handles enormous documents easily. For collaborative work it's a wonderful tool since people can be editing different parts of the document at the same time and yet still get consistent styling under central control. I've been involved in the construction of several multi-hundred page documents created by a group, and with LaTeX the last thing on our mind was ensuring consistent numbering and formatting. We focused on content. When coupled with version control it's easy for writers to explore alternate approaches in different branches, merging the best approach into the "master" branch later with little or no disruption to the work of other writers.

I don't know how well Word stands up in such an environment, but I've heard not very well. So, in summary, there are definitely better writing tools out there than Word. In fact, I'd even say Word is not very optimal for the very task it purports to support: large scale business writing.

Gee, Word does all that. And quite well, I might add for such a loathsome application.

Like I said, it ALL depends on what you are used to.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

So, as I understand it, MS Word is not particularly elegant "behind the curtains" (which doesn't surprise me, since it's a Miscrosoft product); and it's hard to avoid, because it has a monopoly. Ok, both valid complaints. But that, to me, doesn't explain this kind of stuff:

"Microsoft Word is a tyrant of the imagination, a petty, unimaginative, inconsistent dictator that is ill-suited to any creative writer's use."

This is because the guy never bothered to learn how to use it. He was above the use of such a program. He thinks everybody should conform to his idea of perfect, even Microsoft. In other words, he sorry he didn't think of it first.

Just my opinion.

 

[Handley_Page]

This is because the guy never bothered to learn how to use it. He was above the use of such a program. He thinks everybody should conform to his idea of perfect, even Microsoft. In other words, he sorry he didn't think of it first.

Just my opinion.

I don't think so; not quite that way, anyhow.

One can learn to "make the best of it" and learn to use a particular package without actually liking it. One can get quite skilled with something, but it do not make it any better.

To my mind, hylas was quite right:
So, as I understand it, MS Word is not particularly elegant "behind the curtains" (which doesn't surprise me, since it's a Miscrosoft product); and it's hard to avoid, because it has a monopoly.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I don't think so; not quite that way, anyhow.

One can learn to "make the best of it" and learn to use a particular package without actually liking it. One can get quite skilled with something, but it do not make it any better.

To my mind, hylas was quite right:
So, as I understand it, MS Word is not particularly elegant "behind the curtains" (which doesn't surprise me, since it's a Miscrosoft product); and it's hard to avoid, because it has a monopoly.

While that is true...most people could care less what is happening behind the curtain, so to speak. Do I care what is in the damn file while it sits in memory or after it is saved to my disk drive...hell no. I only care that the publisher, publishing site wants it in .doc format and not .docx format or some other format for which I have no way of saving my work. Although the .docx format would be easier for them to manipulate as it's in XML format.

But, instead I have become proficient in it's functionality and while some still complain, yes I too have had complaints about Microsoft Word, it's functionality has improved over the years. Yes the UI has been lacking and has changes made that confound those who use the app, it still remains a useful tool of a writer.

If you pig is a prize pig and you decide to put lipstick on it, does that change the fact that it is a pig or even a prize pig?