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Why does Word persist?
Authored by: asmeurer on Dec 31, '08 09:49:14AM

I only use it for its Grammar checker anymore. I only do plain text, as the more formatting I try to do, the more it screws up for me. Maybe someday Apple will beef up its rudimentary grammar checker so I can ditch Word forever. Even then, I will need to find a program that does decent formatting, unless I am going to type everything in LaTeX.

By the way, if you've ever had the misfortune of using Word 2008 for Windows, you will realize that Word for Mac isn't that bad. For some reason, Microsoft decided to completely eliminate the menu bar in that program. I spent five minutes in it just trying to find the "Show header" option in the toolbar, which is what replaced the menu system.



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Why does Word persist?
Authored by: bauldrywc on Dec 31, '08 10:13:34AM

After doing my first book in MS Word in '88, I switched to LaTeX—and have never gone back. TeXShop (free!) in OS X as a front end to TeXLive is, by far, the best document processor—I even use it for exams, quizzes, and memos.

Every time I've been forced to used Word since then (usually by administrators who don't comprehend that text based docs don't have to be in Word file formats!), it's been incredibly painful.



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Why does Word persist?
Authored by: frgough on Jan 01, '09 09:18:34AM

Whatever rocks your boat, I guess. The idea of having to hand code formatting as I'm writing my document seems totally asinine to me. Talk about distracting you from putting down content.



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Why does Word persist?
Authored by: simonm on Jan 03, '09 02:35:50PM

I disagree, trying to maintain consistent formatting in Word is the BIGGEST hinderence to productivity I've ever encountered in an application. The whole styles system is a joke. Even turning off all the auto-format options can't save you. The only way I can manage to write large documents/reports now (as a previous commentator suggested) using text only until the very end and then applying minimul necessary formatting manually.

Yes it would be ideal not to have to type codes. Perhaps there are other LaTex compatible processors I'm not aware of.



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