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When your word processor begins openly mocking you, it's time to call it a day

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iphigenie:
and for the curious here's some I found, havent checked them all yet

Xiosis Scribe
Jarte (odd concept with some clever ideas I havent seen elsewhere)
Atlantis
Scrivener windows beta

of course a few of the open source ones - and I should revisit softmaker, good point

I tried some of the "idea managers" "mind mappers" and other outliners that can export to word, because capturing reusable elements and reusing/reordering/fleshing out is a great idea... but havent found one that could do that without the mother of all  messes (i.e. you can't edit a thing once in word without the whole thing going ridiculously so messed up you might as well retype). That includes onenote up to 2007.

tomos:
Yeah, it would be interesting to hear how other office software compares.

I use Softmaker but normally only minimally.
I did try using the 2008 version to do a sample layout of a chapter of a book (!) - double-column, lots of illustrations. I did run  into a few bugs with the combination of full-page-width illustrations with the double-column text - but, in fairness, no office word processing program is really designed for that.
Didnt have any problems with text formatting though :-\

40hz:
I did try using the 2008 version to do a sample layout of a chapter of a book (!) - double-column, lots of illustrations. I did run  into a few bugs with the combination of full-page-width illustrations with the double-column text - but, in fairness, no office word processing program is really designed for that.
-tomos (June 21, 2011, 06:16 AM)
--- End quote ---

It amazes me the amount of calls I've received from clients that ran into very serious problems (as in permanently garbled documents) trying to use a wordprocessor (especially MS Word) as a desktop publishing app.


What do you mean it's damaged and do I want to
try to recover it? It's 600 pages and took 3 months!

I know Microsoft says you can because Word has "desktop publishing features" built into it. But IMO it's a prescription for disaster with WP apps. At least from what I've had happen to me. And also from what I've seen happen to people who are far more expert in Word than I'll ever want (or need) to be.

If you need to do serious page layout, do yourself a favor - get a DP app. It doesn't need to be something as heavy duty as Quark or InDesign. But even an inexpensive SOHO type desktop publishing program is a safer bet. Especially once you decide to start using columns or footnotes.
 :)

superboyac:
Yeah, I'm really interested in learning a new way to write and publish stuff.  As some of you know, I've created several threads related to Indesign, Word, typography, etc.  Last year, I really learned about Word's styles which made me like Word a little better.  But I still can't shake the feeling with Word that something bad can happen at any given time.
After reading Zaine's word processor review, I'm interested in going back and checking out Wordperfect.  It was my preferred program back in the 90's.  I also like Softmaker, but never got around to using it regularly, but it's portable!  I'm not that big a fan of OpenOffice, although for no real good reason.  I like Atlantis as a simple alternative for quick n dirty work.

But for me, I like the idea of styles so much, that I'm in the middle of figuring out a good workflow involving database, xml, and indesign.  Indesign will give me the frontend preview and fine tuning ability that we expect from our word processors today, but xml and a database will give me a powerful way to organize content and keep the idea of "styles" and structure without all the issues Word has with such things.

40hz:
I liked WordPerfect too. It had a powerful feature where you could look at, and directly edit, the text strings and and tags in what was almost a debugger window. It was great for fixing things and doing stuff beyond what the primitive wysiwyg of the time would allow...  :Thmbsup:

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