I have been thinking about how much I dislike certain weaknesses of MS Word. The last time that I had a word processor that I really liked, it was Word Perfect and had a blue screen with white type. I started to look at the cost, and a version that I might like is around $100. Then I began to wonder what sort of passive aggressive hijinks that Microsoft might get up to in retaliation if I jumped ship?
Much to my surprise, WP was originally written for Brigham Young University. I have to admit that their scripture software works better than any I have seen, if you can ignore the now obvious fantasies in it.
I will say that WP functioned almost flawlessly, even on a 90's PC with two floppy floppies.
Lately, I have been wondering if I should just write on an electric typewriter? Or, perhaps I should have a computer that is just dedicated to writing and never hooked to the internet. I could save my story to a thumb drive and take that over to a PC with internet access?
Hmmmm, she mumbles as her body is beginning to feel the pain of a leisurely bike ride. Perhaps a good soak in a salted bath is better than obsessing about computer nonsense? Perhaps a wee pint of Guinness would ease things a bit? Perhaps an IPA?
Comments
It might be worth
having a look at LibreOffice. It is free, open source software that I find more intuitive to use than the offerings from MS.
Libreoffice
I'd heard about that software, but it slipped through my sieve of a brain.
Thank You.
Word Processor
In the mid-80s I taught myself how to use a computer. . .an Apple IIGS.
Up until that time I kept three secretaries busy...full-time. I didn't use a dictation machine, preferring to write everything long-hand for them to type a draft. They used typewriters with limited memory. I would edit what they typed and return it to them for a clean copy. This would repeat until we had a final draft.
Once I had a word processor and a printer at my desk I did away with all the secretarial positions in the office, moving those people to other areas. The process actually took less of my time because most of the editing was done on my screen. I exchanged copy with another executive for final edits as she did with me.
Overall, expenses were reduced forty to fifty percent for document production.
Also in the mid-80s, because I understood the capabilities of word processors far beyond my competitors, I was able to do things in the market that were unheard of previously. Much of this was due to a partner I had with a computer science degree. She was smarter than hell and took people by surprise because she had a one-in-a-million body. No matter where we went, East coast, West Coast, Hollywood, Vegas, etc. she would attract major attention. She was constantly treated like a piece of meat even though she had 4.0 GPA in college.
I was extremely fortunate to own my own business during a time when word processors made quantum leaps. I didn't have to wait for some dumb-ass VP in charge of purchasing to make a "value judgment." I'd suffered through that sort of nonsense my first twelve years in business working for major corporations. e.g. In 1973 and again in 1974 I was the top salesperson in the nation for a major company. Part of my job involved taking pictures with a Polaroid camera. Those cameras were wonderful except for the flimsy material they used for the accordion fold that extended the lens. It would wear to the point that pinholes would develop that marred the picture. Even though I was selling at a pace that earned me the largest raise ever given to someone at my level ($2,750 a year raise in 1974 - comparable to about $15K a year today) the VP in charge of purchasing sent me a nasty memo regarding my disregard for corporate property. Dumbass. Not that I hold a grudge.
Anyway. I agree with you that word processors haven't changed much over the years. Even so, I love them. Probably the best change has been the addition of thesaurus and immediate spell checking. I'm not one to use voice recognition, but I would consider that a huge advancement as well.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
I got into PCs in the early 80s.
Our first PC at the company was an Amber screen 8086 IBM running 123. Later it ran Symphony. Computers were really um developmental and I spent a lot of time on the phone with the parent company of that company and they were astonishingly helpful.
I got my own PC around 1990 and it had the same software. I don't remember where I got Word Perfect, but I grew to love it.
There is something mildly wrong with my brain/body interface and the Military judged me to be incapable of learning to keyboard or do morse code in the late 60's. Thankfully, I did finally learn to keyboard by 2000, though it was a very difficult process, driven by my desire to write. About 2006 someone looked at my stories and offered to teach me to do better. Something about the way they approached me felt too demanding, and I feared that I could not please them because perhaps I am simply not intelligent enough to comprehend certain things.
I write with my heart, and try to write what "feels" right. I still could not tell you a single thing about sentence structure or the parts of speech, and that nearly has me in tears at times.
I'm writing an "almost" Sci Fi story right now that has American war Veterans and good Arab Muslims that feels really offbeat. The idea that someone could be unkind to me over that story is hard to take.
If we could only look back and take advantage of the kindnesses that we were once offered. And, if we could only have learned to extend kindness to others sooner.
Word is fine for me
As someone who started off with WordStar, then went through WordPerfect and finally settled in on Word, I have to admit to being happy with the Microsoft Product. Of course, I didn't have to pay hundreds for it. I worked at a college, and I think it cost me $25 to buy the full Word Suite. If I had to pay full price on the stuff, I might balk.
I like Word's spell checking. Yes, it makes mistakes, but there are dozens of times in a chapter that it catches something I erred on. It is especially good at catching missing possessives/plurals. Again, it makes mistakes, but it makes me check, and I catch many that I otherwise miss. The grammar checker is less useful, often complaining about things I write. Yes, I knew that was not a complete sentence ... people don't speak in complete, grammatically correct sentences in dialog. But I do even take use of that when it complains about a convoluted sentence, or passive voice (something I often fall into). So in the long run it improves my stories. I like that.
It has great collaborative tools as well, and would work well for revision and team writing, if all sides had it. You can write notes to query the other writer, and it tracks changes well, so the new and old versions appear there, side by side, for comparison. Unfortunately I haven't worked with any other Word users here to use it, and it would be rather rude to tell others to pay hundreds to get those features.
Many of the annoying features of Word can be turned off, if you bother to search out where and how (Google is your friend). I especially hate that it insists on making the st after 1st into superior letters. But it does automatically change teh to the for me, and that more than makes up for it.
Dawn
LibreOffice
Second that. A truly properly done, free and open source software. I do all my office work in it, and love it's work.
Drupal
Does it talk to Drupal?
I can't say for certain,
but LibreOffice is in the standard install of most Linux distros these days, so the potential is there.
Drupal
Nothing talks to Drupal in that sense. Drupal needs HTML and we don't provide any WYSIWYG conversion at this point. We also highly filter what HTML can be used.
We are working on ideas for adding a WYSIWYG Editor to BC for those that want it, but we aren't there yet. Many other projects need to be completed first.
LibreOffice and HTML
I speak Linux and therefore use LibreOffice.
When you first save a file it will default to .odf, but the dropdown under the directory listing will offer you options, including MS word (various versions) and HTML. I always use HTML, since I can simply cut'n'paste the whole thing into the submission form in BC.
LibreOffice can do some dumb things with that HTML, but then MS Office perpetrates far worse crimes on everything it touches. (Try looking at the source of a .rtf file some time!) Since HTML files are plain text, they can be opened in Notepad or similar and be cleaned up, which is what I always do. Of course, I'm familiar with such things, but sending it in as it is should work since Drupal cleans out all the rubbish anyway.
Penny
I'm a linux user too.
I didn't use windows, didn't even touch it until after 22 years of my programming career. I had used Solaris and SunOS until about '94 when I switch to linux.
Currently I use markdown and asciidoc to write my documents.
Since my requirements are limited, it works out great. I can produce html, pdf, mobi from asciidoc text files.
That means I can use any old text editor I wish to. Vi, emacs, atom, intellij, gedit, kate.
I just upgraded to Word Perfect x8 by Corel
I've been on WP forever, much preferring it to MS. I use their version for spreadsheets too.
Boys will be girls... if they're lucky!
Jennifer Sue
As man have said...
Libreoffice is one, there is also Open Office, both are a good alternative for MS office. For actually writer's software there is yWriter, which is free and Scrivener (around 40 buck US)
Personally I use Scrivener as it was the first one I learned about.
We the willing, led by the unsure. Have been doing so much with so little for so long,
We are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
OpenOffice
has been largely rejected now by the Linux/open source community because of its increasing use of proprietary software, which limits what can be done with it.
OpenOffice is now abandonware
OpenOffice is now abandonware. Because of the Oracle purchase, all of the developers abandoned it. So, Oracle handed it over to the Apache Foundation, where it can still be found - but it's still not being developed. Oracle's reputation poisoned it too much.
So, there's LibreOffice for fancy editing, there are a number of decent text editors like Notepad++ (These are windows versions), and there's also Kingsoft's WPS Office. (free for their limited version) Also SoftMaker's FreeOffice (light version) For desktop publishing, such as laying things out for Kindle, Lulu, or Smashwords, there's Scribus.
I guess the real question to ask would be this: "What do you want your editor to do for you?" Notepad++ can do most of what the original WordPerfect (5 and below) did. Another question would be "What operating system do you want to use?" - Linux distributions have a variety of options that Windows doesn't, and vice versa. Apple systems can do some of the Linux software, and some of the Windows software has mac versions.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Opensource
Going slightly off topic, the abandoning of OpenOffice by the developers is why Linux will never be more than a hobbyist's toy, Unfortunately. There are dozens of flavors of Linux that still have compatibility issues with apps between different versions of Linux. (don't believe me? try and see how many games work properly on Steam between different versions of Linux). I'd drop Windows in a hot minute if the Linux community could pull it's head out of it's collective asses and act stop making dozens of different forks, flavors and versions of Linux and concentrate on compatibility and marketable product instead of one-upmanship.
I've been working off and on with Linux since it was a Beta, (has that been almost 30 years now?) and we still don't have a graphics and photo editing program that's worth a pint of piss. there are rumors that Adobe will finally port some of their products over but I'm not holding my breath. Till they can get more professional developers to port over commercial packages, and eliminate some of the "Hobbyist" aspects of Linux, it's always going to limp along, almost ready for prime time. It works great in general, but I just can't make the swap as my primary OS, it's just doesn't have what all I need. maybe next decade...
Forks, flavors and versions
Forks, flavors and versions are how the free software / open source gets developed. It is a disadvantage, but also its greatest strength. Compared to corporate development, it is much like free market compared to central planning economy. The free market is riddled with incompatibilities, changes, uncertainty and much more negatives, but eventually delivers better products than the central planning economy.
15 years ago I faced the same problem as you - wanted to switch to Linux, but it wasn't ready for prime time, couldn't do all I needed. So I ended up installing it as dual-boot, next to Windows. The simple things like using a graphic interface were no-brainer. When I decided I need more, I learned the command line little by little. Took me almost an year - but after that I discovered I don't really need Windows anymore, could already do everything I needed in Linux, and better than in Windows... If your hardware is not produced to block Linux from running (a lot of laptops and even desktop PCs novadays are), it might be worth giving dual-boot a try.
Graphics etc. programs
Decent graphics drivers for Linux exist for Intel graphics. For AMD and NVidia, Linux drivers will probably lag behind for the foreseeable future, as licensing issues and deals between Microsoft and hardware companies block putting latest technologies into Linux drivers. Still, open source drivers based on knowledge hacked out of the commercial ones already have decent performance.
For graphics, you might like to try GIMP and Krita. The interface is not the same as that of Adobe Photoshop, but otherwise their stability and power are commendable. LibreOffice Draw is also good. KolourPaint is a simple program, similar to MS Paint. If you need vector graphics, try Inkscape.
If you need a 3D package, Blender is powerful enough not only for great 3Ds, but also 3D movies. (Check www.blenderguru.com for some manuals and some nice renders, and YouTube for more tutorials and movies generated with Blender - Big Buck Bunny, Tears of Steel, Sintel...)
If you need more info on Linux programs, just ask. :)
Drivers
Drivers improved immensely since the early days, really haven’t had a problem with Nvidia drivers.
I need a good workflow program similar to Lightroom, and GIMP just isn’t anywhere comparable to the professional Adobe software.
And gaming, well, that’s what really kills it for me, I have a largish Steam library, and only a fraction of that is on the Linux side of steam, and I have issues with some of those on the flavor of Linux I am using (Kubuntu) on my Linux box.
Developers abandoned
Developers abandoned OpenOffice because of Oracle, not because they just felt like it. Oracle has one of the worst reputations of any company in the computer industry. They're like Autodesk - they buy a competitor, cripple the products, then "encourage" their new customers to move to their (often inferior) flagship product, then abandon the products made by that competitor.
Would YOU like to give away your labor for free to a company you knew was going to abuse you and it? I doubt it.
So, OO is a bad example to use if you don't like forking and the way Linux development works. I may not be thrilled with a lot of the distributions myself, but we have been (mostly) moving forward. I'd suspect that most of the problems with STEAM isn't from the distributions themselves - it's from KDE and GNOME. KDE has been actively destroying their own work since 4, and GNOME has always been terrible to work with, for me. I've been working with Linux since 15 floppies to the 'N' series, and Yggdrasil.
Who needs LFS when you had Slackware :)
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Open Office
I use Open Office, from reading these comments, should I dump it and use something else? What drew me to it years ago was the price, FREE.
I hate paying for Microsoft Office, any suggestions?
Karen
Libre is the most alike and
Libre is the most alike and is seamless to transition to, it'll take a bit to get used to some words not getting recognized by the dictionary especially the local words though once they are added it'll be fine
I'm told STFU more times in a day than most people get told in a lifetime
LibreOffice
LibreOffice was branched off of OpenOffice a while back when OpenOffice was purchased by Oracle. All of the open-source devs moved to that project, and it's the one that's now receiving updates. I use it on both my work and personal machines.
My one and a half cents...
'Cause that's more than my thoughts on this are worth. I learned to write on WP 5,1. That beautiful blue screen and the damning blinking cursor. Over the years since, I've used a lot of different word processors. I used Word for many years, but more and more I felt like I was using a four pound sledge for something that only needed a nylon/brass hammer. Sorry for the hammer analogy, but I've listened to a number of different writing teachers make comparisons between carpentry and writing over the last thirty years that it felt natural. One thing that was a part of MS Office back in the day that I thought was genius was a little thing called Binder. Binder let you create master documents that held various other Office docs inside it. So I could do a plot outline doc, individual character bios, research, etc., all in one document. That was great for my process and how I work.
Eventually though, I started to look for something different. Making the switch to being a Mac Girl (and that's a story all its own), I tried Pages (and its predecessors) but never got that intuitive click that fit me and my creative process. I found a program called Ulysses. I liked the idea, and in many ways it reminded me of WP 5,1. It's aim is to help you eliminate things that can distract you like formatting and such and just concentrate on your content.
This worked for the most part, but wasn't the perfect fit. Then I found Scrivener A clean elegant word processor, customizable in layout and feel and it had that master document binder type of organization. Also, this had the ability to open more than one document at the same time, so I could look something up from another doc inside the project and not leave where I was working in the first place. That, a corkboard/outliner tool, a separate notes file attached to each document and a lot more sold me years ago when Scrivener first launched. It is ideal for large projects and small. Plus you can customize the interface to suit you. And, as these kinds of tools go, it's inexpensive. $45 for a license which you can install on multiple machines. $38 if you're a student or teacher. You can try it for a month no questions asked. It's available for Windows and Mac these days. The designer was a Mac Guy and a writer and couldn't find the writing software he wanted, so he made it himself (I love Gordian Knot style solutions). It's won several awards (so has Ulysses, by the way) and continues to get better.
I know there are people who won't even look at this since I'm the one recommending it. I don't care. This is a fantastic tool that you can customize to your creative process. It's a serious writing tool with all the necessary bells and whistles, but without the bloat you get with something like Word. I don't use it anymore, but that's because I gave up on writing. My tattered and torn psyche has more than enough on its hands making sure I wake up each day. It can't handle the hate, rejection and cheap shots that always seem to come from nowhere when it comes to writing.
Am I shilling for Scrivener? Yep yep. It's the best tool for writing I ever found in thirty some years of playing at it.
~And so it goes...
White on Blue text
I know at one point that MS Word offered that mode (I got in a lot of trouble once in school when I forgot to switch it back to B&W after writing a paper), but it looks like they removed it back in like 2003.
As far as a current text editor that lets you set background and foreground colors easily, check out WriteMonkey. It's a free, stripped-down editor that's designed to produce minimal distractions.
Typewriters
Don't go back to a typewriter! You'll regret wasting the money.
The keys on a typewriter are much heavier than those of a computer keyboard and your finger, hands and wrists will not thank you for having to mechanically move the letters again. Even 'electronic' typewriters typically have a much greater depression distance for each key.
I started out writing at the age of 14, using a typewriter. This continued for about 10 years, and during that time I changed careers to what is now IT and had to start using computer keyboards. At the beginning these were all mechanical: Teleytype 33s, IBM punch card machines, etc. Once we went all electronic I discovered that it became very hard to transition from electronic during the day to mechanical during the evening. So, sadly, I gave the typewriter away to a friend.
That doesn't even get onto the subject of correction. Do you enjoy buying lots of typing paper and then throwing most of it away? The ability to change things without having to retype whole pages is a godsend.
Penny
I've been meaning to drop the
I've been meaning to drop the 200 or so to get an electromechanical keyboard (IBM AT style). I'm a touch typist, I often type standing up, and I prefer actually having feedback for my typing. I've found that when I get up to full speed, "normal" keyboards are crap.
Fingers, and wrists adjust easily, as long as you have them in the right position - most don't. Due to groups like OSHA, they blame businesses and equipment for things like carpal tunnel, rather than telling the people using the equipment to use it _correctly_. My mother has spent 55 some years at a keyboard, and doesn't have carpal - and I'm a computer consultant, and I don't have carpal - I've been pounding at keyboards (typewriter and then computer) for 30 years now. Having your hands whacked with a ruler teaches you to keep those wrists straight! :) Two finger typists also don't tend to get carpal :)
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Word Processing isn’t just word processing anymore...
Word processors in their current iteration are more collaborative tools. MS Word basically intergrated functions focused on collaborative content creation (multiple authors) and proofing. Basically, it’s more operationally friendly to researchers and technical writers. For story authoring, it’s bloated and clumsy.
WordPerfect and Libreoffice maintain an environment friendly to the traditional functions of what I call ‘paper-processing’. I find them functional for a print and submit situation with a single author. Again for story authoring, they’re still bloated and clumsy.
Scrivener and Ywriter are generally more ‘storywriting‘ oriented. Both are rather intimidating at first. As with anything, familiarization of the features and adapting your writing style/methodology help improve the writing experience.
What I’ve learned is that, in general, writers just want to write. A distration-free paperspace has become something cherished among most authors. Electronic typewriters and simple wordprocessing software/apps aim for this experience, but only if you have a firm grasp of authoring. (Knowing what you want to say and how you want to say it.)
What has been lost is the pen and paper experience. Tablet/Tablet PCs with Pen/stylus support are something that have been vastly improved over the last 3-4 years. Programs such as Nebo and iOS “notes” offer handwriting recognition and a distraction free space that mimic the pen and paper experience. These will no doubt improve more as the technology advances.
I don’t know whether your ponderings of using a electric typewriter or an offline PC were or were not a bit of ‘tongue and cheek’ or a lament of what has been lost with the advances in content creation software; but it brings with it a bit of nostalgia of what the writing process was and what the tools of our modern day genius have unintentionally corrupted. Sometimes a clean desk, a pint of Guinness, a pen and a stenopad are just the ‘write thing’ :)
Hugs,
Leila
Stand alone computer
It was a Christmas special at Walmart. A HP laptop, six hundred dollar machine for a little over two. I brought it home and started disabling everything in it. It can't connect to the net, auto update, no cloud, no password protection, absolutely nothing Win 10 had built in by MS to do regularly. Loaded MS Word and it became my friend on my trips as I write, rewrite, and read stories. Long disgusting boring waits in various appointments take no time at all. Amazing how much time can quickly pass when writing, or editing stories. Even an hour wait is too short now. It has a three hour battery but I always take my adapter with me and usually find a place to sit and plug into the wall. I'm a lot happier camper with my laptop. There never was any decent magazines in any waiting room I ever was in. Now I don't care what they think is reading material. I bring the best reading material with me. My stories needing finishing or editing.
I have threatened several times to reformat and install Win 98 and Ubuntu. Problem is HP is very persnickety about it's initial boot sector. It will not boot unless it has HP in its boot drive. I lost one laptop after the HD went bad and I couldn't get a replacement for the HP boot instructions. HP itself wasn't willing to share.
A word of caution to everyone who gets a new computer. Make a restore disk and put it someplace you can find later. These damn things like to go south when they have all your data and your life in their dark innards. I swear they hate us!
Life is a gift. Treasure it until it's time to return it.
always
Barb
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
Easier than you think
I also bought a cheap, second hand laptop, an HP 620 with a largish screen, too big to take with me as you do. It was originally intended to replace an old Samsung laptop being used as a net-booted thin client, but it seems to have other uses for the moment.
But I digress.
I took out the original Win 7 hard disk (500Gb 2.5"), one of the other reasons I got that particular item[1], and put in a brand-new 120Gb SSD (2.5"). Then I installed Debian Linux on it with the LXDE desktop option. This particular desktop looks somewhat Windows-like and uses much fewer resources than other choices while still being familiar.
I can use this wired or wireless. Whenever we go away I take it and although I don't write on it, it has a full LibreOffice install so we can do ad hoc documents as required. It is mostly used for web and email access. If I boot it with F12 I can even use it as a thin client at home.
So it is possible, provided you don't get something bleeding-edge. If I need to go back to Windows, I have to open up the base and swap disks, but that is very infrequent. The last time, in fact, was when I bought a new gaming mouse[2] and the setup program was Windows-only.
Penny
[1] I have some peripherals that need older versions of Windows to accommodate their drivers. (I even have a W2000 box!)
[2] The gaming mouse has a scroll wheel that can withstand extended use both writing and web browsing; most others fail within a few months.
Oklahoma born
Texas raised
OpenOffice vs. LibreOffice
I've been using OpenOffice pretty much since I started being active again online, which was early 2005.
As noted by others here, OpenOffice was shunted around and is now under Apache Foundation.
Someone here mentioned that OpenOffice is now "abandonware". I don't really actively watch stuff like OpenOffice for updates and things, but it was getting periodic updates of some sort from Apache as recently as a couple of months or so ago, if I remember correctly.
Just took a quick look through Google, it seems LibreOffice has been making versions for Mac for OSX 10.8 or higher.
As my system is currently running on OSX 10.13.4, I should be able to use it.
So should I dump the OpenOffice and switch over to LibreOffice for the foreseeable future?
If I do switch, will doing that affect current OpenOffice documents I have on my system at all?
I would definitely switch.
Before I switch, I'd make copies of the docs and then try them out in libre, no matter how much anyone assures you it'll be seamless.
It should
Port over easily. I moved to Libre Office about 6 years ago to get certain backward compatibility, I E I had oooooooold files, stuff that I'd written in the late 90's on my computer that I'd moved to a thumb drive that I wanted to recover, but nothing that didn't cost two arms and a leg was available until I started looking at Libre Office. I had experimented with OO, and liked it and made the transition seamlessly. Now I would not use any other WP.
google docs does fairly well
on all platforms, not sure it'll meet your needs or not.
Never
ever give more of your data than necessary to alphabet!
you might try freeoffice.
I've never tried it.
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2018/05/softmaker-freeoffice-201...