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| Microsoft Word for Mac. Version 16.23. Look at that goddamn paste options pane. WTF even is that? Who needs that many pasting options???? |
Writing is important to me. Words are much of my life, whether it’s my day job in marketing or teaching my three year-old seven syllable words (/ˌpætʃɪˌkɛfələˈsɑːrəs/). Words are my trade and like all tradesmen, I need good tools to get the job done.
For paper-based scribing, I use a Lamy Safari fountain pen which is a nice balance between practicality and pretension. For the computer-based input, I use an Apple Extended Keyboard II (I’ve got a few units and the requisite adaptors—enough to have one at home and one at the office). These are good tools—in fact the mechanical AEKII is regarded by some as the “best keyboard ever made”. But moving away from the hardware of writing to the software, things very quickly fall apart.
Word “processing” has, at various stages of the term’s use, meant an electronic typewriter, a piece of software and even a person trained to type. These days, it almost exclusively refers to software and the first piece of word processing software that springs to most people’s mind is the Monopoly Man of the digital word: Microsoft Word.
In which Microsoft Word is a bloated piece of crap
I know, it's fashionable to hate Word. Once upon a time, it was a plucky newcomer, competing with the big boys in the world of word processing. But now it is an ungainly, bloated piece of crap that claims to do too many things and doesn't do any of them particularly well.At uni, I spent several years trying to come to grips with the intricacies of Word. I thought that if Word was everywhere, it must be OK, right? Somehow, it must be my own technical knowledge that was lacking. All I needed to do was learn...and I would win at Word! Hahaha, you poor fool, naive dummy past Richard.
Turned out there wasn't any real level of insight or knowledge that would make Word do as you vainly commanded. I found this out through my own blood, sweat and tears—well sweat and tears anyway—after coming close to losing my sanity writing my parliamentary internship report (complete with tables, breakouts and charts) with Word. Actually writing "with" Word probably doesn't do justice to those months of toil. I completed my report "despite" Word? Wrestling with the keys of fate, linked charts of catastrophe and wretched text wrapping of wickedness, I toiled to complete, against all odds, my parliamentary internship report? Hmm. Better. I mean whose sphincter hasn't irreparably tightened when an attempt to nudge an image one millimetre up the page results in the disappearance and dislodging of 46 pages of carefully laid-out text, charts and tables?
In fact, if I had the power to eradicate something from the surface of the earth, Word would rank highly on any list I dreamt up. Sure, it would probably sit behind war, famine and plague, but it would be higher than most others would place a software package. Why? Because Microsoft Word is a plague. It is like a virus that has infected almost every home and commercial computer.
Word is so bad that this is where I invoke Adobe in a positive light(room)
For me, I’d like to invoke Adobe as an example of one way forward for Microsoft and Word—yep, a I'm citing Adobe as a positive paradigm...the world has gone topsy-turvy. Adobe, like Microsoft, has a bit of a problem with legacy. Where Lightroom was once a revolutionary program for editing and managing digital assets, a dozen years of legacy coding have left recent releases running very slowly, even on blazing fast machines.To address these issues (and ready the program for a cloud-based future) Adobe has released a reimagining of Lightroom called Lightroom CC (Creative Cloud). This version is entirely new and shares only a name with the older software. Developers are unencumbered by 12 year-old code free of the restraints of backwards compatibility. They are free to develop a program for the future of photography, not the legacies of the past. But Adobe hasn’t killed the “old” Lightroom. They rechristened the original version Lightroom “Classic” and are continuing to develop and support both programs side by side. The intention, however, is clear: the future is Lightroom CC, but we’ll have a while to adjust.
Adobe’s solution to the legacy problem is the best of both worlds. Developing for the new paradigm while supporting the old. Now why can’t Microsoft—with their subscription service and large development teams—think about doing the same. Do we really need word processing, charts, tables, mail merge, Word Art, shadows, outlines, address books, templates, ducking autocorrect, auto formatting or “smart” tags in one program? Or do writers want to sit down and write?
Funnily enough, Microsoft have actually done this already...kind of. In moving the focus of Office to the 365 subscription service, Microsoft developed Word Online as part of the package. This allows subscribers to view and edit documents in a web browser without opening the desktop app—so basically Google Docs, but you have to pay for it and it's still the same Microsoft rubbish. It's too baroque for my liking, but it's a step in the right direction.
And yes, Microsoft Word of 2019 is better than Word of, say, 2003, but the improvements are mostly ribbon deep. I still find myself stuck in a type-autocorrect-backspace-retype-autocorrect again-backspace-retype-autocorrect yet again loop, expecting the software to understand after the first two corrections that I did indeed want to begin the next line with a lower case letter. And don't get me started on formatting...that styles pane is a goddamn pain should you dare want anything other than Verdana or that standard bearer of default mediocrity: Calibri. Sure, the menus have been cleaned up, but I'll be damned if I don't spend an inordinate amount of time trying to find how to switch a function off after accidentally turning it on through an inadvertent key stroke.
Beware the Anonymous Capybara...
It’s often noted that George R.R. Martin still writes using WordStar 4.0 on a DOS-based machine. In his words, it does everything he needs and nothing he doesn’t. Plenty of niche developers out there are working on word processing software to meet this criterion—which is fine—but the monopolistic leaders in this space are doing nothing to improve the lot of the rest of us. As much as I'd like to take Ulysees or Scrivener into the workplace, it would not be accepted by the powers that be as a replacement for Word. Where is the business-friendly commercial word processing product that does everything we need and nothing we don't? Oh hi, Google Docs. I see you there. Yep, I think you're about ready for the big time...so long as some anonymous capybara doesn't edit you off course...Instead of burying the bloat in the “ribbon”, perhaps Microsoft can stop and think about their baby from the ground up. Maybe then I’ll shudder less whenever I see a .docx attached to an email in my inbox and I’ll open it without cursing the sender and the medium.
Further Reading
Death to Word by Tom Scocca (2012)
Journalists Just Can't Quit Microsoft Word. But Some Are Trying by Rachel Withers (2018)
Why Microsoft Word must Die by Charlie Stross (2013)
WordStar: A writer's word processor by Robert J. Saywer (1990, updated in 1996)
Microsoft Word Is the Only Word Processor for People Serious About Words by Heather Schwedel (2016)
We're winning the war on Word, fellow writers. Enjoy the freedom by Jason Wilson (2018)
This post was drafted in Notes for iOS on an iPhone XS. Notes is a simple cloud-based word processor which comes with Apple iOS. It's actually pretty useful, as is its MacOS version.
The typing experience on the iOS varies from mediocre to terrible, but I’ve used plenty of laptop keyboards worse than an iPhone’s touchscreen.
It was edited in Google Docs on a desktop computer (with Apple Extended Keyboard II) before making the jump to the Blogger CMS.
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ReplyDeleteI hate Microsoft Word as well because of the fact that it does too many things at once. It is better to instead, write in plain text using a plain text editor which is made more for typing words than a word processor is.
ReplyDeleteThe question is, do you want your words processed, or organic? Think of word documents as highly processed foods, and think of the words that you write in a plain text editor as truly organic. When you use a word processor, you're doing just that, processing words which removes their natualness whereas if you use a plain text editor without all of the fancy styles, font formatting and paragraph formatting, then you're writing something truly organic just like this comment which by the way is written in plain text. I personally love writing in plain text because for one thing, it is far superior to word documents and secondly, plain text documents will far outlast any Microsoft Word documents becuse the formats in which Word uses will eventually disappear and new fancy document formats will replace it. Text will remain the same. Plain text does not go away, and plain text is easy to write and use.
Word just adds too many things to your document that aren't even readable by human beings. Things like paragraph formatting, font styles and all that other garbage that really isn't necessary to be in a document. All that is needed inside any document is the information itself, not all that fancy garbledy gook that makes absolutely no sense to a human being but is only readable by machines. Plain text is all that anybody needs.
IT LAGS I HATE WORD
ReplyDeleteI FUCKING AGREE
DeletePLUS ++ WORD FUCKING SUCKS
DeleteI WAS DOING A IMPORTANT PROJECT WHEN THING THING CAME SAYING 'FILE CANNOT BE OPENED'
ReplyDeleteI WAS SO DEPRESSED WHEN I SAW THAT... NEVER USE WORD
I dont agree I think ur computer is just a trash sack of trash man Word is one of the best word editing app so i dont know what you are talking about man.
Deleteword is so bad it is dogshit it can kiss my juciy ass hole
ReplyDeleteWord is just a fucking useless shit produced by a motherfucker who worked for cleaning dicks related. This app simply ADD confusion and inconveniences to users. Fuck you WORD!
ReplyDeletebro this windows 10 word is actual fucking trash shit dude my chips are more worth than this, however windows 7 word is actually somewhat good
ReplyDeleteMy impression is, first, that Word is not designed by Mrs. Manard, my high school English teacher. She understood how a typewriter should be used to space after periods in an outline, for example. Word cannot keep columns straight, among its many faults. My second impression is that Word was designed by computer engineers or programmers who flunked Mrs. Manard's English class and hate her. They hate to write anything. Their most prolific writing is done on their phones in Text-ese to other 20-somethings. So, they just don't want to put any energy into fixing horrible flaws. I just finished outlining a chapter of a book. At one point the thing left a gap of about half a page and then went on. Why would a program that has been around all these years do something like that? Probably because they threw in some wild upgrades with out thoroughly checking the unintended consequences of their so-called improvements. Why did they do that? Because they hate Word as much as I do and were forced to work on it in order to keep their job.
ReplyDeleteWhen your website or blog goes live for the first time, it is exciting. That is until you realize no one but you and your. Writing software
ReplyDeleteGod I hate Word. I spend more time trying to undo the automatic formatting crap than I do creating the document. I HATE WORD
ReplyDeleteSame for me, too. Very well summed up! That comment is unfortunately painfully timeless, as it keeps on being bad.
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ReplyDeleteMS Word is a steaming pile of crap. As someone who spends many hours a day on it, it has let me down royally. It completely deleted my 17 page SAVED file. I've never in my life had this happen. Once upon a time, it used to be decent. Now it can't be trusted. Its new version is an abomination. Crash after crash. It can't handle anything. It's recommended by schills who say it's "reputable." Only reason why people use is because it's the only one.
ReplyDeleteI cannot believe what a fucking piece of shit msword is. while other programs gradually improve with updates, msword remains a nearly unusable pile of garbage. just truing to make a decent looking table takes hours. 10 word is as useless as the 2003 version. by the way unknown from a couple weeks ago (above) ms word has never been decent. I would have been done with this fairly easy table in wordperfect 2 hours ago.
ReplyDelete