Much of my work time these days is spent writing. Until maybe about a year ago I used TextEdit Plus, then I switched to BBEdit. When I’m writing I don’t want to be distracted with bold, and fonts and margins and bullet points — I just want to get the words out, in the right sequence, correctly spelt, and conveying what they need to.
Text editors work perfectly for me, while I find MS Word clumsy, annoying, intrusive and distracting. In fact, even when I’m required to produce a Word document I’ll avoid Word as far as possible, often writing in BBEdit and then pasting into Word at the end.
Now, to be quite honest, I’m actually often writing directly into HTML, as my output often ends up on a web page, but even when I’m not I still head straight for the text editor.
The other day when I wiped my Macs and installed Leopard, Microsoft Office was one of the bits of software I held back on reinstalling. I still don’t have it on either machine. I figure I’ll install it when and if I need it.
Meanwhile Maria Langer has been setting up a 12″ Powerbook and ponders in A Computer without Word?:
But the real question is: Do I need Microsoft Office on it?
…I definitely need a Word processor. I’m a writer and I use the computer to write. (I use most of my computers to write.)
But Mac OS X comes with a perfectly good word processor: TextEdit.
[Via : An Eclectic Mind : A Computer without Word?.]
Since installing Leopard I’ve had to hand in several documents as Word files. For one I used Apple’s Pages.app to open the template I’d been given, paste in and format my text, and then export in Word format. My client made no comment and perhaps didn’t realise I’d taken this unorthodox route.
For another I uploaded the document I was given into Google Docs. Again I did the work there and finished by exporting into a Word format. Again, there were no comments or complaints.
These were pretty straightforward documents, but then most of my work is. I rarely need any of the advanced features available in Word.
And as for Excel spreadsheets, I open files into Numbers.app or Google Docs.
BBEdit is very powerful. It’s a wonderful piece of software for someone who wants to edit text. While MS Word can do Grep replaces for example, they are tricky and just weird. In BBEdit I use Grep all the time, often in conjunction with Applescript to do powerful transformations on documents. Not a day goes by that I don’t use both Applescript and Grep in a document I’m working on.
When I use Word the interface just gets in the way. I get distracted by all the junk, and driven insane by Word’s erratic behaviour. How many times have I (or anyone) leapt up and cried out: “Noooo, I don’t want the entire document bulleted!!!!”?
For me, Word has its place — and that’s on a shelf in the cupboard.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
It’s amazing to me how many people have commented on my post to say that they’re trying to get away from Word.
I’ve been tempted to try Google’s software, but I simply cannot be tied down to an application that requires Internet access. I do too much traveling off-the-grid.
I’m going to try the NeoOffice software that everyone’s been raving about. And I really do need to install and try Pages.
Anyway, thanks (as always) for the link!
It’s amazing how little we really need MS Office or any other Office program as such. I moved away from MS Office products privately 2 years ago. And guess what, I haven’t missed them at all.
I’ve finally thrown MS Office physically off my machine with my (forced) rebuild for Leopard. I still have iWork and NeoOffice installed. But I really don’t use them either. The only thing that i might use is a spreadsheet program to juggle some numbers.
As for work I think MS Office has done more harm than good. Spreadsheets make mediocrity the norm. We use them far too often to replace (needed) process and dedicated software. And who hasn’t resented PowerPoint for giving even the worst presenter a tool to do presentations even worse! Word-processing is nice but (seriously) in a working world wouldn’t it be nicer if we still had text only and people would focus 80% of their time on content and not on layout and bug-fixing?
There’s one thing to say for Google-Docs though. They are great for collaboration. Multiple people can edit the same document nearly real time. So if you’re working cross continent on (e.g.) a book take Skype and Google Docs and away you go.
So my tipp is, just chuck the software off your drive and install it when you need to use it. Or if you know that you will need it have a list handy (can be a sticky on Dashboard – DON’T use Excel!) and note when you use what software. After a few months go through the list and weed out/replace what is not used.
Cheers Oliver
@Maria: Try pages and skip NeoOffice. NeoOffice is just another MS Office (though free). iWork is so much more fun! And who doesn’t want fun when working?
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