Alternatives To Microsoft Word

[QP1]

Word is actually pretty awesome, its just that most people don't take the time to learn it and understand why some of the stuff they're doing is going wrong. Word Tables are very powerful when you know what you're doing.

My advice (having written a number of lengthy docs in word) don't worry about replacing it and find an online tutorial that shows you how to use it properly.

This. If you are not familiar with styles, sections and templates then you will struggle. There are (or were, I'm not so up to date on newer versions) annoying bugs with some features (e.g paragraph numbering) especially in longer documents but on the whole it is very good if you take the time to learn it and set it up how you want/need.

Always amazed at work when I see people whose jobs resolve around creating or editing documents who don't have a clue how to use Word - creating tables of content by hand and hitting return to start a new page.

[MrPin]

I just scribble things on a piece of paper, and post them to the "typing pool". It comes back a week later with loads of speeling and formatTing errors!

[stormymonday_2011]

I just scribble things on a piece of paper, and post them to the "typing pool". It comes back a week later with loads of speeling and formatTing errors!

Have to say I rather miss getting my letters produced in the typing pool,

There was even one typist who used to insist typing all the documents on an old manual machine. She used to hit the keys so hard that quite often the centre of the letters 'a' and 'o' were punched clean through.Letters would often come back looking like doylies or as though they had been written in braille.

Of course, the effort required to dictate or write out the drafts by hand did encourage people to keep things to the point when it came to producing documents

The worst aspect of software such as Word is that it just encourages people to produce never ending stream of huge, unwieldy and unreadable documents that clogg up servers and document management systems across the land. Maybe if people were forced to use the formidably unfriendly word processing applications of yesteryear such as DisplayWrite ( always called Dismaywrite by those who had to use it) then I would be spared from having to read so much verbose crap.

[OnionTerror]

Have to say I rather miss getting my letters produced in the typing pool,

There was even one typist who used to insist typing all the documents on an old manual machine. She used to hit the keys so hard that quite often the centre of the letters 'a' and 'o' were punched clean through.Letters would often come back looking like doylies or as though they had been written in braille.

Of course, the effort required to dictate or write out the drafts by hand did encourage people to keep things to the point when it came to producing documents

The worst aspect of software such as Word is that it just encourages people to produce never ending stream of huge, unwieldy and unreadable documents that clogg up servers and document management systems across the land. Maybe if people were forced to use the formidably unfriendly word processing applications of yesteryear such as DisplayWrite ( always called Dismaywrite by those who had to use it) then I would be spared from having to read so much verbose crap.

...and to a certain extent, people don't really need to spell properly, as the auto correct feature on them are fairly good...

[Scunnered]

The worst aspect of software such as Word is that it just encourages people to produce never ending stream of huge, unwieldy and unreadable documents that clogg up servers and document management systems across the land.

... plus you can get caught up in a constant cycle of revision: write your document, read it over, make some changes, decide section 2 could do with a bit of clarification, revise it, show it to someone else ...

In the good old days the difficulty of editing typewritten documents meant you had to get it right first time, and if it wasn't completely perfect then too bad.

[thecrashingisles]

... plus you can get caught up in a constant cycle of revision: write your document, read it over, make some changes, decide section 2 could do with a bit of clarification, revise it, show it to someone else ...

In the good old days the difficulty of editing typewritten documents meant you had to get it right first time, and if it wasn't completely perfect then too bad.

With things like Kindle it could get to the stage where authors can redraft their books as you're reading them. It will be impossible to say what the definitive finished version of something is until the author dies.

[frozen_out]

It is more that the layout goes wrong

When your document is 60 pages and you replace 1 figure and then you have to check every other page incase its ****** it up

I have read that LaTeX is good, and in fact a course was advertised saying that Word is obsolete for scientific reports and it was reading this advertisement that made me consider whether there are easier alternatives than word

I.E in word I spend most of my time trying to get the format right - I just want to write and have all the format neatly done for me or at least with minimal fuss

Definitely not using it properly. What you've written here are the classic troubles of thise who don't understand that the basic unit of a word document is the paragraph. Once you get this and understand it all the things you mentioned go away.

[OnionTerror]

With things like Kindle it could get to the stage where authors can redraft their books as you're reading them. It will be impossible to say what the definitive finished version of something is until the author dies.

AFAIK, with Google Docs, you can have upto 20 people editing a document at the same time...

https://support.google.com/docs/answer/2494891?hl=en

[FallingAwake]

I just scribble things on a piece of paper, and post them to the "typing pool". It comes back a week later with loads of speeling and formatTing errors!

You should never have used your typing pool for signing you up to this forum, Mr Penn.

[FallingAwake]

To really learn Word properly would need about 4 or 5 days of full time training rather than the 10 minutes which most people get.

Should it really take 4 or 5 days of full time training to learn to create a decent word processing document, or is that "the Microsoft way"? I can understand that for something like Adobe Photoshop, but to move paragraphs of text around in a couple of colums, create a couple of tables, and have graphics moved around a bit... 4 or 5 days? (Obviously it depends on how sophisticated your document needs are.)

[porca misèria]

With things like Kindle it could get to the stage where authors can redraft their books as you're reading them. It will be impossible to say what the definitive finished version of something is until the author dies.

Sometimes it's equally impossible to say that even long after the author's death.

Look at the number of "original" versions of Boris Godunov, for instance.

[porca misèria]

AFAIK, with Google Docs, you can have upto 20 people editing a document at the same time...

https://support.google.com/docs/answer/2494891?hl=en

Why is there any limit?

Change control systems have been around a lot longer than the web, and support unlimited numbers of collaborating authors. Subject of course to permissions.

[OnionTerror]

Why is there any limit?

Change control systems have been around a lot longer than the web, and support unlimited numbers of collaborating authors. Subject of course to permissions.

Who knows? Although I think its probably the only one out there that does that sort of thing, so I spose its better than nothing..

[thecrashingisles]

Why is there any limit?

Change control systems have been around a lot longer than the web, and support unlimited numbers of collaborating authors. Subject of course to permissions.

Google Docs (and Office 365) show the changes live to all users as they're made so it has different scaling challenges to a change control system.