Word Fails Me - Why doesn’t Microsoft’s writing tool actually help writers?

I basically live in Word, both at work and at home, and have done so since elementary school (well, word processors, at least) -- as a result, I probably know how to use Word better (or I should say, more powerfully) than 98% of users, if not more. That means I <i>do</i> know all the obscure features and formatting, how to fix and manipulate them, and most importantly, I have a good sense of when something's possible within Word and when it's not. I've also grown up with Word as an integral part of my writing process, and it's influenced how I compose documents and communicate in general, so I'm totally at home within it.<p>I'll admit most people aren't like this -- yet. I had a good teacher (my dad, not my school), and I grew up with the software, rather than having to learn it after my thinking and writing processes were already formed. But going forward, more and more people will be like me. There is a lot of room for improvement in Word, yes -- it could be more transparent, more flexible, with more overt features -- but several of the things he was complaining about have never been a problem for me, and I could probably figure out solutions to them in a few minutes. (For example, why was he creating section breaks to reorder a novel? Section breaks are more for style/formatting than for content. Why not go for the easy solution and just copy and paste, either within the current doc or putting it together in a new one? It may not be as flashy but it would get the job done easily.)<p>If he has to use Word as much as he says he does, and he's not suggesting any alternatives, it might be worth it to learn the program better.

Basically, he says the "word processor" is not geared to help the workflow of writing. I agree.<p>When I was a journalist, I would take notes in one or more files. When I was ready to write the story, I'd put the notes in one window and the story in the another and go back and forth. Only my filename conventions told me which notes went with which stories.<p>I imagine lots of people do similar things - students researching for papers, etc. It would be nice to have a file format that encapsulates notes and finished story/paper, and a program that easily lets you tab between notes and work things into the finished product as you go. If you needed to share the file, you could export just the finished thing.<p>In other ways, like making side notes and sharing and collaboratively editing, Google Docs really is doing novel things with "word processing." Which is one reason why it's putting some pressure on MS Office.

The author should look into Microsoft OneNote. It's a great tool for laying out and reorganizing documents. Tags, pictures, screen captures, internal and external hyperlinks can easily be incorporated as well. Once the basic structure of the document is finished, it can easily be copied and pasted into Word. If you have a tablet PC, you can even scribble on the document using pen input.

It's telling that the article doesn't recommend any alternatives. Building an easy-to-use yet flexible WYSIWYG word processor is a huge challenge, and no one has nailed it yet. I like Apple's Pages, but it's less powerful than Word and still has a steep learning curve. What else is there? Is anyone going to seriously suggest that OpenOffice has a way better UI than Word? Or Google Docs, or Zoho?<p>It's true that Microsoft isn't innovating in the word processor market. Neither is anyone else.

It's funny. He bitches that MS Word has not improved since 1997. The 1997, hell, the 1990 version, had all the features he is asking for. The features were not hard to learn, and the thing has always come with a manual that is not hard to follow. All they've done lately is mess with the interface and make it so it doesn't freak out on large documents.<p><i>creating documents with several sections that can easily be moved around</i><p>Outline. Learn styles.<p><i>just wants to type most stuff with single or double spacing and a comfortable serif font</i><p>Default template. Again, styles.<p><i>Does Word, say, have a scratchpad where you can save sections of writing to use later?</i><p>How about a second document?<p><i>mark where certain thoughts or paragraphs come from that will not turn your text into an unreadable jumble of pink “comments”?</i><p>Toggle View Markup to hide the comments.<p>What bothers most people is the behavior Word exhibits when you use it as a WYSIWYG word processor. It is based on a stylesheet and if you learn to use it that way it will not surprise you.<p><a href="http://achewood.com/index.php?date=05182004" rel="nofollow">http://achewood.com/index.php?date=05182004</a><p>"Thank you Microsoft Word for continuing to be a good program."

Granted, my print layout needs are modest, but these days I do nearly all my writing in Markdown in a text box on a web form, and save my documents to a database with version control.<p>I use python-markdown2 to convert it to HTML, and I wrote a simple library that generates a table of contents with anchors for whatever heading levels I want to capture.<p>I get spell check for free when I use Firefox, I can drop into HTML when I need more structure than Markdown provides, and if absolutely necessary, I can copy the formatted output and paste it into OpenOffice Writer if someone really needs it in .doc or .docx format.

My favorite way to write is with Emacs running on one of the virtual terminals under Linux. A fullscreened Putty session sshd into a Unix box will also do in a pinch.<p>My co-workers, by contrast, even paste code into Word documents.

Non-"print now" link: <a href="http://www.thebigmoney.com/articles/money-trail/2010/05/17/word-fails-me?page=full" rel="nofollow">http://www.thebigmoney.com/articles/money-trail/2010/05/17/w...</a>

Does <i>anyone</i> who writes words (or code) for a living know <i>anyone</i> who would <i>ever</i> consider using such a tool in the first place?!<p>Please. The <i>best</i> writing tools are a good text editor, a simple meta/mark-up ontology, and a focused mind.

Exactly why I prefer to start with feature sparse apps like TextEdit. Even for the small volume of writing I do I find it much easier to focus on the substance before worrying too much about the exact layout or formatting of the document. This usually includes multiple TextEdit windows. In the final stages I will use Pages or Word to play with the final structure and formatting. I would imagine for a larger document this workflow would work well also. It almost requires multiple monitors or enough screen space in general to display a few windows at once side-by-side. I think the author of this article is probably looking for something like Scrivener on the Mac which I've never tried but lots of people seem to adore it.

These posts are always interesting, but usually not all that informative. For every one of these posts there are probably 100 writers who are fine with Word.<p>There are some minor things I'd like out of Word, but the main thing is probably to start up faster. Takes about 3s on my computer. I'd love to see sub 1s startup.<p>With that said, OneNote is always running so I use that for a lot of the type of writing that this author refers to.

This is why <a href="http://thebookpatch.com" rel="nofollow">http://thebookpatch.com</a> just launched: To specifically address the writing needs of (book) authors with tools and features dedicated to, for example, character development. (IE users only. Not my product, though I did some contract work for them.)

Has anyone taken a look at Tinderbox? <a href="http://www.eastgate.com/Tinderbox/" rel="nofollow">http://www.eastgate.com/Tinderbox/</a>

He is complaining that a business word processing program is not ideal for use by a professional writer writing books/articles. That is a bit like complaining that a minivan is not a sports car.