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Subject:Re: MS Word question From:Peter Lucas <peterlucas -at- EARTHLINK -dot- NET> Date:Fri, 29 Jan 1999 15:50:01 -0800
>Why do so many people sem to dislike Word? I never have the problems others
>have with the program, so I am curious about it. I hear about the problems
>Word has with large documents. This has not been my experience.
>
>Bob Maxey
Well, you pretty much just shot a bazooka right right through a 50-gallon
drum of worms! That's almost like asking why PC people hate Macs and vice
versa.
First of all, a lot of people just hate Microsatan, er, Microsoft, period,
so that would account for some of the dislike. This is not a particularly
objective stance if you ask me.
I don't dislike Word per se. I actually think it's the best "word processor"
I've ever used, and I've used WordPerfect (used it for many years--more bugs
than Raid Roach Motel), Ami Pro (or whatever it's called now), and yes, the
granddaddy of them all -- WordStar!
I always thought the best version of Word was Word for Windows 2.0. This was
the leanest, meanest, fastest, and least buggy version of Word. Word started
getting hairy around version 6.0 and it has continued to get hairier.
Basically, Word now tries to bite off more than it can chew. It tries to
please too many people with too many features that aren't used very often on
a daily basis. With all this overhead, the program has become top heavy and
fails to handle large or complex documents such as books with hundreds of
images without falling on its face. You may have had good luck with Word,
but I bet there's a hundred people who would say differently -- including
me.
Supposedly, the next incarnation of Word is going to offer a more modular
installation, so you can actually leave out features you don't use. When you
decide you really do want the grammar checker installed, the system
automatically installs it the first time you need it. I'm curious to see how
this works, but I have a feeling it's not going to work as advertised. If it
does, it might reduce some of the overhead in Word.
My advice to Microsoft would be to put Word on a diet and stop trying to
have a product that wants to be like FrameMaker, PageMaker, Quark Express,
and FrontPage all in one. I guess you could say Word is the Sybil of word
processors!
I use Word on a daily basis for small docs and for doing business letters,
correspondence, etc. But when it comes to the real gnarly stuff like user
manuals and the like, FrameMaker is the way to go.
Generally, when I use Word, it crashes on me three or four times a day (much
like the OS I use -- Win 95). FrameMaker crashes about once a year and it's
usually due to something crazy I was trying to do. Also, I have some single
FrameMaker files with about 300 pages of tables full of data -- try that
sometime with a single Word file. Believe me, you are in for a real treat.
;-P
...and that's my two centavos!
Peter Lucas
Sr. Tech Writer
Decade Software Company
