Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Beta Version of Microsoft Word

This is topic Beta Version of Microsoft Word in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by TMan1969 (Member # 3552) on :

I love it, and the whole office program is awesome and I have had little problems converting files or using the program. Does anyone here use a different word processor program or even something like StoryCraft..?

This is not a plug, just an opinion.

[This message has been edited by TMan1969 (edited July 19, 2006).]

Posted by Jammrock (Member # 3293) on :

Being a true tech geek I've used just about everything. The big four are:

Microsoft Office
Apple iWorks
Corel Office
OpenOffice.org (aka StarOffice)

One of the big treads coming up, or so peoples in the know think, is "online word processors." They are too numerous to list, but the main ones are Writely (which is currently closed as they were bought out by Google and being moved over to the Googlepire), ZohoWriter, ThinkFree and Office Live (the MS version of Office to compete with the likes of Google who already has the word processor and spredsheet apps online).

I personally use the beta version you mentioned, Office 2007 Beta 2 (which can be downloaded from microsoft.com for free right now, just have to register). It is the most robust. But for people that don't use betas and don't want to pay for an office suite, OpenOffice.org is the way to go. It is completely free to download and use. The developers ask that you support the project with a donate if you like it and use it, but that's optional.

Posted by Grijalva (Member # 3295) on :

Sorry, I don't know much about software writing program, but I currently use iwork; which seems like a really good program.

But I was wondering about good story craft programs that can help with outlines and such, if you guys have any suggestions, thanks.

Posted by Pyre Dynasty (Member # 1947) on :

I use Wordperfect 9, I'd still be using 6 if the disks didn't suffer the horrors of bit decay. I love it, I know just how to make it do what I want it to. (and it doesn't tell me what to do.)

Posted by mikemunsil (Member # 2109) on :

yWriter is freeware and is designed to help manage a writing project

Posted by oliverhouse (Member # 3432) on :

This is a little unusual, but I use Textpad to create a custom XML file, which I then use XSLT stylesheets and a smidgen of Perl to transform into text, HTML, and XSL-FO. Then I take the XSL-FO and run it through FOP (Formatting Objects Processor) from Apache to transform it into PDF.

If you understood that, you're a geek, too.

I like it because I can publish lots of different versions of the same thing without changing my source text: submission formats, contest formats, ordinary formats for general readers, etc. Plus I can automatically have it handle things like em dashes (two hyphens in plain text, two hyphens in Courier PDFs, but true em dashes in HTML and New Century Schoolbook PDFs) and italics (_underscores_ in text, underlining in submissions, true italics in ordinary PDF and HTML formats). Similar to what people would have done with LaTeX a while ago.

It's pretty neat if you're into that sort of thing, but I wouldn't recommend it for the general public. If nothing else, most people would find the tagging distracting. Maybe if I were smart I'd productize it, to hide the tagging but still give people some flexibility; but I do it mostly just to play. Since I moved from doing real technology work to doing marketing, I've had to satisfy my geek bug in different ways. This is one of those ways.

Regards,
Oliver

Posted by rcorporon (Member # 2879) on :

I use either RoughDraft or Word (although I have a hate on for Word and it's "bossyness").

Posted by authorsjourney (Member # 3569) on :

I use Word and it's fine, but I've used Word Perfect and that has worked fine too. When OpenOffice is a little more mature, I'll probably switch to that (maybe next time I build a new computer).

I feel like most word processors are unreasonably overpriced considering what you can get for free.

Posted by mikemunsil (Member # 2109) on :

RoughDraft and yWRiter work well for me.

I despise MS Word.

Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

Well, this is the one that came with my computer. Are there others?