Word Processors: Stupid and Inefficient

[cardinals_fan]

I know this essay (http://www.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/wp.html) is a bit dated, so it may have been posted before (my apologies if it has). But it is definitely worth reading. It lists many of the reasons why I write all my papers in html.

[gameryoshi600]

I find word processors useful.
Abiword is efficient

[cardinals_fan]

I find word processors useful.
Abiword is efficient
Did you read the paper, or are you just responding to my title?

[SunnyRabbiera]

I too user word processors, after all in the work force having a simplistic text editor wont do, especially microsoft's notepad that has no spellcheck.... I dont even think the one for vista has it yet.

[20thCenturyBoy]

LaTeX 24/7.

[gameryoshi600]

Did you read the paper, or are you just responding to my title?

No I did not as it would waste alot of my precious time. I personally think word processors are a life saver!

[SunnyRabbiera]

LaTeX 24/7.

Yes but LaTeX is rather archaic if you ask me.

[FuturePilot]

LaTeX 24/7.

This has become a mandatory comment in threads like this. :lolflag:

[cardinals_fan]

No I did not as it would waste alot of my precious time. I personally think word processors are a life saver!
If you aren't willing to read the essay that is the entire purpose of this thread, please do not reply. I would be interested in hearing educated rebuttals of Cottrell's remarks, but random "I luv word processors" comments really don't add to the discussion.

EDIT: Same goes for random "I luv LaTeX" comments.

[SunnyRabbiera]

Well in the workforce and for us more professional writers a mere text editor does not do the trick.
For one in a simplistic text editor you do not have page tracking, you don't know where page 1 ends and page 2 begins and the same can be said about html editors.
Spell checkers in text editors are also rubbish, even in a linux system there is no capitalization checker.
Then I like to have at least a semi decent grammar checker as a extra measure, I use both MSword and Open offices language tool to help ensure my writing doesn't look like some 3 page mess you find on fanfiction.net... I am as professional.
Now web forums I am not as caring about syntax and stuff, but i take my story writing VERY seriously and to use a simplistic text editor is just pointless.

[cardinals_fan]

Well in the workforce and for us more professional writers a mere text editor does not do the trick.
For one in a simplistic text editor you do not have page tracking, you don't know where page 1 ends and page 2 begins and the same can be said about html editors.
Spell checkers in text editors are also rubbish, even in a linux system there is no capitalization checker.
Then I like to have at least a semi decent grammar checker as a extra measure, I use both MSword and Open offices language tool to help ensure my writing doesn't look like some 3 page mess you find on fanfiction.net... I am as professional.
Now web forums I am not as caring about syntax and stuff, but i take my story writing VERY seriously and to use a simplistic text editor is just pointless.
I don't disagree that word processors can be very useful. However, for most of my writing, I find that they get in my way more than they help. I also like using a text editor (for html) because I can use my favorite text editor: Vim! The Vim keybindings save me a lot of time.

I find that the Vim spellchecker works well, but nothing beats proofreading for grammar errors (I usually get weird complaints from so-called grammar-checkers that miss all my real errors).

[gameryoshi600]

i luv word processors i can't live without them a simple text editor doesn't cut it!

[Mateo]

They both have strengths and weaknesses. Word processors are easier and quicker, markup is more consistent. Since the anti-word processor argument is already represented, I'll point out a few of the negatives of markup:

1) You have to know/remember the code. This is fine if you frequently write, but if not it can be problematic. Personally I keep my resume in 3 formats, latex (which I hand to prospective employers), html (which I upload to websites that will allow it), and word (which I upload to websites that will not allow html). I can remember html fine, I've done enough of it to know how it works. Latex is tougher. If I haven't typed anything in latex for a while I have to go googling to get anything done.

2) Markup is not easily printed. Latex can only be printed if you've pre-"compiled" it. Which is fine. But that forces you to keep track of 2 different files, the source and the typsetted copy.

HTML is even more problematic. Browsers print the way websites should be printed, not the way papers should be printed. Word processors can load html files, but generally do a crummy job of rendering them.

3) Markup files can not be locked. Generally I do not like people other than me editing my files. It's simply not possible to let someone view an html file without being able to edit it. Ditto for latex source.

[cardinals_fan]

i luv word processors i can't live without them a simple text editor doesn't cut it!
You're just trying to irritate me, aren't you? Either explain what you find attractive about word processors (and how that pertains to the original article) or stop trolling. Thank you.

They both have strengths and weaknesses. Word processors are easier and quicker, markup is more consistent. Since the anti-word processor argument is already represented, I'll point out a few of the negatives of markup:

1) You have to know/remember the code. This is fine if you frequently write, but if not it can be problematic. Personally I keep my resume in 3 formats, latex (which I hand to prospective employers), html (which I upload to websites that will allow it), and word (which I upload to websites that will not allow html). I can remember html fine, I've done enough of it to know how it works. Latex is tougher. If I haven't typed anything in latex for a while I have to go googling to get anything done.

2) Markup is not easily printed. Latex can only be printed if you've pre-"compiled" it. Which is fine. But that forces you to keep track of 2 different files, the source and the typsetted copy.

HTML is even more problematic. Browsers print the way websites should be printed, not the way papers should be printed. Word processors can load html files, but generally do a crummy job of rendering them.

3) Markup files can not be locked. Generally I do not like people other than me editing my files. It's simply not possible to let someone view an html file without being able to edit it. Ditto for latex source.
These are all very good points. I have never had trouble printing my reports (written in html) through a browser, but I could see how that might cause problems. Point three hits the nail on the head if you have to share documents in read-only situations - I am fortunate not to have this problem.

[Mateo]

cardinals_fan, you need to cool down. This thread and that article both come across as particularly arrogant and patronizing. People are going to pop into threads and give quick opinions without much rationale, you're just going to have to live with that, it's the internet after all.

[%hMa@?b<C]

I can definitely see the points against word processors, but in just means of time saved, you cannot beat the time efficiency of a word processor.

[lisati]

I prefer word-processors to HTML because:
Some circumstances require right-justification (a personal preference, can you do THAT in HTML?)
A WYSIWG text editor saves having to remember tags
Some wordprocessors can save in HTML format
Spell checkers!

[klange]

Only a short way through the essay, but so far I totally agree - but it probably won't keep me from using OpenOffice. I don't know if the essay talks about it (haven't gotten that far yet), but the best thing about writing in HTML is that you don't need to go in and edit everything to get formatting just write - you just write up a CSS style sheet, or get one from some where.

/me keeps reading...

At previous poster:
<DIV ALIGN=RIGHT>
And you can't say "spell checker", spell checking can be done on anything, including regular text editors. If you can't remember the tags <b>, <i>, <u> and <br>, you really need get your mental health checked. And have you ever looked at the code word processors put out and claim is HTML? Hideous.

[cardinals_fan]

cardinals_fan, you need to cool down. This thread and that article both come across as particularly arrogant and patronizing. People are going to pop into threads and give quick opinions without much rationale, you're just going to have to live with that, it's the internet after all.
I'm very sorry if I sound worked up. I've seen MANY threads recently in which the content is totally ignored and people just randomly post things without reading what has been posted. I do agree that the article is a bit over-the-top with some of its opinions, but I was hoping for intelligent debate on this topic rather than unexplained posturing.

I also don't want to single out gameryoshi600 - quickly responding to a thread's title without reading the content is more the rule than the exception these days.

[Tux Aubrey]

OK, I have read the essay and here are my points:

I think the author assumes there is only one way to prepare documents (his way) - get the content down and then "typeset" it.

While that may suit a lot of people, its not how I work. I am a very "visual" person and I really believe that form and function are highly related.

That means I often check how the text will look and adjust content accordingly. Paragraph and sentence length, font type and size, the use of lists (ordered or unordered), quotes, breakouts and headings - all have as much impact on the reader as the content. For me, there is a delicious interplay between the content and the form. Many times I have struggled to get a paragraph or a page to look "just right" and have changed the text to suit. I need to get the right mix of formality and informality in much of what I write and both content and the "look" have equal importance.

I find that there is a kind of "dance" or interplay going on between content and layout as I create a document.

Now that probably sounds weird to some people and maybe people who only do technical writing should stick to the "correct" way of doing things. But most of the writing I do is supposed to be either persuasive or entertaining, or at least give the reader an impression of something more.

And having said that, I don't actually use a wysiwyg editor when I create web pages (although I tend to add CSS formatting as I go, so I guess my brain is doing the WYSIWYG thing for me) and I actually prefer a very simple word processor ("I love Abiword":)) for most other tasks! I agree that programs like Word and OO have FAR too many functions to be regarded as word processors and to be used efficiently for day-to-day use. How's that for contradiction!

[-Phi-]

I think the Qualifications section needs expanding. For example, in office environments it is very useful to have the ability to comment directly on documents. Track changes are exceedingly useful (if equally buggy...).

I think the sort of documents he/she means is academic papers that you hand in, especially large ones involving math equations. For those I agree that LaTeX wins hands down because they require a consistent and straightforward layout.

Then again, if I were creating a magazine I'd use InDesign and that's right back into WYSIWYG territory (though I'd do the actual writing part in a text editor equivalent). It's all about the right tool for the job.

- Phi

[Hooya]

I guess I don't see what the big difference is between LaTeX (what the author of the article is seeming to push) and really anything else. To me the author over-complicates the use of a word processor and tries (unsucessfully to me) to convince that hand typing in style comments is more effecient in some way.

Let's put it this way: On a word processor it is way easier to hit Enter and get a new paragraph break than to put the <br> tag there. It's also easier to hit Ctrl+I to get italics, then Ctrl+I to get italics off while I'm in the middle of typing rather than adding the tag in text form. I haven't done the "highlight text then pull a dropdown menu" action to do a simple bold, italic or underline in years and years. The people who do are not computer savvy enough to bother with remembering code required to put that style in there.

In the case of the "headings" point in the article, personally, I hit Enter, type the heading, hit Enter again (well, probably twice both times to get visual space in there) and go on with my typing. I will then just type and make typical paragraph breaks but not worry about much else formatting. When I'm done typing I'll go through and quickly see those headings, spaced out like this:

Heading

more text (see, pretty quick to spot, isn't it) and do the highlight, Ctrl+B and select my font type and whatever else after I'm done writing everything or when I've hit a writer's block to kill time. I'll then do that for each of the headings. I've never encountered a situation where this becomes a major time consuming process. At some point I'll do the double spacing or whatever else is required by simply doing Ctrl+A and hitting the button to double space.

So honestly I don't see how what I do is any different than what the author of the article is trying to propose, except I do it all with keyboard shortcuts in my WYSIWYG editor.

I do wholehartedly agree with the MS Word closed format issue, and never more so than lately when a lot of people are getting .docx files that they can't read because they haven't upgraded their version of Word. Luckily MS offers a free download that lets old versions of Word read 2007 version files, and the latest version of OpenOffice does just fine with opening them although the formatting is typically off. For this reason I typically send documents in .rtf because that maintains pretty much any formatting you'd tpyically use while being small, effecient and readable by any computer. If it is too complicated a document to use .rtf I'll send it in PDF and be done with it. If the people need to edit the file I'm sending obviously they'll need compatible software, LaTeX included if you're sending TeX files, which I've never heard of anyone actually using.

So yeah, that's my reaction.

[init1]

I always write things with Word or Google Docs mainly becuase of the spell check. Yes, I do realize that there are plain text editors with spell checkers, but it's never occured to me to use them. I suppose I could since I usually don't worry to much about typeset beyond font face and size. The problem is that .doc has become the standard and most people expect it. They might be somewhat confused if they got a paper in .html.

[Icehuck]

I know this essay (http://www.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/wp.html) is a bit dated, so it may have been posted before (my apologies if it has). But it is definitely worth reading. It lists many of the reasons why I write all my papers in html.

I read this article and one of the things I chuckled at was the typesetting. If you are using MLA or APA like you are supposed to, these things aren't even relevant. If you are an author, your job is to write and layout is done by the editors at the publishing company to meet the needs of the different media your story is distributed across.

[aysiu]

Instead of being buried at the bottom of the essay, the qualification should be at the top:
4 Qualification

I have attempted to make a strong pitch for the ``ascii plus typesetter'' alternative to word processors. I will admit, however, that there are some sorts of documents for which a WYSIWYG word processor is indeed the natural tool. I'm thinking of short, ad hoc, documents which have a high ratio of formatting ``business'' to textual content: flyers, posters, party invitations and the like. You could do these in TeX, but it would not be efficient. The standard LaTeX document classes (report, article, etc.) would be of little use to you. And while LaTeX is very smart at handling automatically the range of fonts that you're likely to want in a formal text, it's not geared toward the sort of ``mixing and matching'' of jolly fonts that you might want in a casual production. Logical structure is not really an issue: you're interested in ``raw formatting''. You want to know, for instance, If I put that line into a 36-point font, will that push my last line onto the next page, which I don't want? WYSIWYG is your man.

If most of your word-processing work is of this kind, you probably stopped reading a long time ago. If most of your text preparation work involves the production of relatively formal documents, this qualification doesn't affect the essentials of my case. For most people's purposes, "stupid and inefficient" is actually appropriate.

[cardinals_fan]

instead Of Being Buried At The Bottom Of The Essay, The Qualification Should Be At The Top: For Most People's Purposes, "stupid And Inefficient" Is Actually Appropriate.
+1

[SunnyRabbiera]

yes but I say text editors are archaic and old fashioned.

[cardinals_fan]

yes but I say text editors are archaic and old fashioned.
How?

[geoken]

I hate this method. I created a WYSIWYG online XML editor specifically because modifying my content by directly editing the XML was extremely cumbersome, slow and in-accurate.

My XML files were formatted for flash which supports a subset of html tags for formatting text (bold, underline, italic, font, color, img, justification, and a few others)

I would liken reading HTML formatted text to reading a hand written document which was authored by one person then had a slew of unrelated jargon written all over the place by a second person. Trains of thought are broken. Attempts to emphasize with formatting don't convey their intent.

Unless your documents are trying to convey little emotion, and the use of formatting doesn't go beyond bolding/underlining a heading and putting quotes in italics I don't see why you wouldn't want to view your document precisely as your readers are viewing it.

I also would argue that entering tags is no faster than clicking a bold or italic toggle button. Also, the act of highlighting text is made to seem cumbersome but anyone truly concerned about speed is highlighting text by placing their cursor at one point, then shift+clicking at a different point (or double clikcing for a single word).

[SunnyRabbiera]

How?

Lack of diverse functionality, PDF exporting, a limited amount of fonts.
And text editors are horrible for office use.

[hugmenot]

Dealing with markup directly encourages writer to use proper logical structure.
Especially in heavy, advanced and long documents.

Case 1. Seen a biology PhD girl dissolved in tears close to handing in her dissertation because the Word layout was so messed up that any change would corrupt her newline and white space based layout.
It ended in her paying an unemployed teacher for formatting it anew for 200 EUR.

Case 2. Watch a colleague type out 100+ references manually. Then traverse the text to resolve the citations manually.

My case in point: If you learn a new system, you learn to be systematic. To great effect in efficiency. So, the author is right.

[hugmenot]

Lack of diverse functionality, PDF exporting, a limited amount of fonts.
And text editors are horrible for office use.

Huh, the author talks about plain text plus text layout processor. All your points are not true if you work with a modern LaTeX workflow.

[qazwsx]

Lack of diverse functionality, PDF exporting, a limited amount of fonts.
And text editors are horrible for office use.
Have you ever tried kate? Easy for newbie and lots of functionality. Embedded terminal (can be handy for creating pdf files but ASCII text should be ASCII), HTML export and stuff.

I use word processors but LaTeX documents looks much more professional. It should be if someone writes lots of documents.

Text editors are for pros ;)

[geoken]

Dealing with markup directly encourages writer to use proper logical structure.
Especially in heavy, advanced and long documents.




You should change that 'ecpecially' to 'only'. In shorter blocks of text, inline/visible formating breaks up the sentence very obtrusively and is an extreme detrement to maintaining a good train of thought, and by extension a properly structured logical argument.

[aquavitae]

I've read that before! But I agree that for long systematic documents nothing beats latex. I did my thesis in latex in half the time anyone else did it in word because I didn't need to constantly tweak formatting.

And to the people complaining about remembering and typing codes: kile. Unless its a really obscure code, you just click a button or use a shortcut and its inserted.

[shifty2]

Lack of diverse functionality, PDF exporting, a limited amount of fonts.
And text editors are horrible for office use.

Have you ever used emacs? or vim for that matter. If you took time to understand how they worked you would understand that they are actually much more powerful than a word processor.

[geoken]

And to the people complaining about remembering and typing codes: kile. Unless its a really obscure code, you just click a button or use a shortcut and its inserted.

So how is that superior to doing the exact same thing in your word processor?

[aquavitae]

Its not, but its the same - that's my point.

[hugmenot]

You should change that 'ecpecially' to 'only'. In shorter blocks of text, inline/visible formating breaks up the sentence very obtrusively and is an extreme detrement to maintaining a good train of thought, and by extension a properly structured logical argument.

Yeah, but arguments are laid out and elaborated on in ›body text‹ and should not be cluttered up with formatting in any system to start with. In an argument you convince the reader with words not with marking sstuff as bold or underlining.

So a block of body text looks the same in word processors and in a markup workflow.

The point that in short documents you find structured thought, but not in long documents, seems really weird.

The thing is that in a markup system you can leave all the meta-hassle to the system and concentrate on the essentials, i.e., your thoughts. I know that good word processors can achieve this as well, but barely anybody uses these extended features.

[50words]

The last time I tried a LaTex editor--Kile, I think--it made no sense at all. Unintuitive, unclear, and therefore, for me, stupid and inefficient. I wasn't focusing on my writing, but on how to get the stupid thing to work (and how in the world do you export to PDF?).

A WYSIWYG editor is far more efficient for the average user.

All that markup just makes it more difficult to read your own document. I run into this problem frequently when drafting blog posts. For any longer article, I wind up using the WYSIWYG editor in WordPress, because I cannot read the HTML.

For my professional (legal, in my case) documents, AbiWord is about right. Nothing extra, all the basics. If it would only convert its default file format to ODF, I would use it. As it is, OOo works great for what I do.

[Alasdair]

The problem I have with word processors is that I can never get anything to format consistently across longer documents. The last time I tried to use MS word, I needed to get several numbered lists to coexists within each other... god it was the most painfull computing experience I can imagine. No-matter what I did, word just tried to second-guess what I was doing and kept changing it's settings every two minutes. Sure I got what I saw (WYSIWYG), but I didn't get what I wanted (WYWIWYG?). Markup languages allow you to specify exactly what you want, without bothering with the silly little details of exactly where every character is going to appear on the page. Word processors succumb to the problem of forcing massive complexity upon the user, while LaTeX (and markup in general) allows one to think about the end result in a more controlled, abstract manner. And on the subject of editors Emacs + LaTeX (AUCTeX) is really just the best there is for LaTeX, you even get the fancy red squiggly-line spellchecking, just like word processors (M-x flyspell-mode), plus graphical display of equations and tables etc.

[aysiu]

It's all about the right tool for the job and the return on your investment of time.

If you have a quick document to type up with basic formatting and nothing fancy, you should use a word processor.

If you have an extremely long document with complicated formatting, it may be worth looking into something like LaTeX.

My big beef is actually with people using word processors to make flyers and then complaining when they can't get elements justified properly. Word processors are not meant to be layout programs. You use programs like Scribus, Microsoft Publisher, or InDesign for such things.

[geoken]

Yeah, but arguments are laid out and elaborated on in ›body text‹ and should not be cluttered up with formatting in any system to start with. In an argument you convince the reader with words not with marking sstuff as bold or underlining.

So a block of body text looks the same in word processors and in a markup workflow.

The point that in short documents you find structured thought, but not in long documents, seems really weird.

The thing is that in a markup system you can leave all the meta-hassle to the system and concentrate on the essentials, i.e., your thoughts. I know that good word processors can achieve this as well, but barely anybody uses these extended features.

Your initial comments hold true for professional and academic documents, but in advertising or promotions it's very common to use text formatting in a manner which attempts to mimic some of the dynamics of speaking (ie. emphasizing words, speaking introspectively, using body language to emphasize words/phrases).

My point wasn't that structured thought is absent from long documents. My point was that long documents (papers, articles, books, etc) usually use simple formatting. You can look through a block of text and easily read it without being interupted by various formatting tags. The mediums that you usually find short documents in(flyers, brochures, etc), are more prone to using formating within the body of text (ie. different colors of text, different text sizes for a single word and even a single letter, etc).

Also, for most people, there is no meta data associated with the documents they're writing. Drafting up a memo for the upcoming brabeque or writing out the schedule for your business doesn't require meta data.

[MONODA]

I use OOo for the sole reason that I need compatibilty with microsoft word. Word is terrible at organizing a formatting a document the way you want it in my experience but OOo writer is a bit better. I have used LaTeX and was quite impressed. I will use it whenever I dont need compat. with MS word (eg: maybe for a document I write for myself like a story :P).

I dont care much for spell checkers or grammer checkers, I find that they cripple us (seriously). I found this site which talks about why to use LaTeX, it is quite interesting: http://nitens.org/taraborelli/latex
EDIT: However, I wish there could be a LaTex plugin for the forums, it gets quite hard to format a long post in such a small box.

[hugmenot]

I found this site which talks about why to use LaTeX, it is quite interesting: http://nitens.org/taraborelli/latex


Nice link. Thanks!
Something that wasn't mentioned yet at all. It's hard to impossible to achieve a professional look with word processors.

[cardinals_fan]

I just reread that article, and I wasn't nearly as impressed with it as I was yesterday. It leaves out what I see as the most important advantages of text editors / markup languages. So here's my explanation:

1. I find Vim incredibly useful. I know the keyboard shortcuts in Vim well enough that I can process my text vastly more effectively than with any other software. It's easy to create HTML in Vim because of syntax hilighting and auto-indentation.

2. I can see the markup. Often, when editing documents in a word processor, I accidently get caught up in some markup that I can't see. That's the irony - a What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get word processor doesn't show you the actual markup. At first glance, that's a good thing. You don't have to learn any variety of markup; just type. However, when I go through a document created by someone else, I routinely get caught up in formatting that I don't even know is there. When I write in HTML, on the other hand, I can see exactly what I'm writing and I can tell just what is marked up.

3. Nothing is more portable than HTML. I often have to write something both at school and at home, and it's awkward. I have two 'conventional' choices:

I can write my document in word processors. However, this gets very messy very quickly. On one day, I might be in a Mac lab at school which has Microsoft Office 2004. I then take my document home and edit it in Kword (or any other Linux word processor). Some of the formatting usually gets screwed up. I then return to school with my modified document and use it in a Dell lab with Office 2003. Again the formatting is different. I often have real problems trying to switch between systems.
I can use Google Docs. Unfortunately, the word processor is a bit buggy and the internet connections at school are very slow.

HTML, on the other hand, transfers perfectly and can be viewed anywhere with a browser.

There are a few cases when I don't use HTML for my documents. Here are two examples:


A couple months ago, my history teacher, in a fit of creativity, assigned her classes a 'creative' project. Lacking both artistic skills and an interesting imagination, I picked a relatively text-based project - an artificial ship's log from the 1500s. Most of the project was writing, but I needed to make it look fancy (and then bake it for age!). When I needed to change fonts frequently, modify margins so that log entries fit on pages correctly, and change spacing often, a word processor fit the bill perfectly. I used Kword and was happy.
If I need to make a flyer, brochure, poster, or other more visual project, Scribus is the way to go. It is incredibly powerful and allows the creation of truly incredible projects.



Lack of diverse functionality, PDF exporting, a limited amount of fonts.
And text editors are horrible for office use.
Large numbers of fonts are only needed for more artistic projects, such as the one listed above. PDF exporting is perfectly available - when I open my HTML in a browser, I just print to a PDF document. I would argue that word processors lack 'diverse functionality' because they don't have full keyboard control like Vim. The only point I agree with is your last one - it's hard to make an HTML document read-only (besides actually messing with the permissions of the file).

[geoken]

Nice link. Thanks!
Something that wasn't mentioned yet at all. It's hard to impossible to achieve a professional look with word processors.

Who's doing professional layouts with word processors? People are using word processors to write the articles, but the layout/final display is being done in apps like Quark and InDesign.

[geoken]

1. I find Vim incredibly useful. I know the keyboard shortcuts in Vim well enough that I can process my text vastly more effectively than with any other software. It's easy to create HTML in Vim because of syntax hilighting and auto-indentation.

2. I can see the markup. Often, when editing documents in a word processor, I accidently get caught up in some markup that I can't see. That's the irony - a What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get word processor doesn't show you the actual markup. At first glance, that's a good thing. You don't have to learn any variety of markup; just type. However, when I go through a document created by someone else, I routinely get caught up in formatting that I don't even know is there. When I write in HTML, on the other hand, I can see exactly what I'm writing and I can tell just what is marked up.

3. Nothing is more portable than HTML. I often have to write something both at school and at home, and it's awkward. I have two 'conventional' choices:

I can write my document in word processors. However, this gets very messy very quickly. On one day, I might be in a Mac lab at school which has Microsoft Office 2004. I then take my document home and edit it in Kword (or any other Linux word processor). Some of the formatting usually gets screwed up. I then return to school with my modified document and use it in a Dell lab with Office 2003. Again the formatting is different. I often have real problems trying to switch between systems.
I can use Google Docs. Unfortunately, the word processor is a bit buggy and the internet connections at school are very slow.

HTML, on the other hand, transfers perfectly and can be viewed anywhere with a browser.

There are a few cases when I don't use HTML for my documents. Here are two examples:


A couple months ago, my history teacher, in a fit of creativity, assigned her classes a 'creative' project. Lacking both artistic skills and an interesting imagination, I picked a relatively text-based project - an artificial ship's log from the 1500s. Most of the project was writing, but I needed to make it look fancy (and then bake it for age!). When I needed to change fonts frequently, modify margins so that log entries fit on pages correctly, and change spacing often, a word processor fit the bill perfectly. I used Kword and was happy.
If I need to make a flyer, brochure, poster, or other more visual project, Scribus is the way to go. It is incredibly powerful and allows the creation of truly incredible projects.



1. Word processors have equally quick shortcuts for changing formatting. If someone can enable bold text in VIM with a keypress yet must traverse a menu system to do the same in their word processing software it's because the user failed to learn their WP's shortcuts and not because WP's are stupid and innificient.

2. I totally disagree with this. If you can see a tag, yet there is no visible difference in the text how does this present an advantage. All it does is make you think you've changed something even though the change is imperceptable. For example, if you change text color but your new color is too close to the default color a WYSIWYG will immidiately relay this information to you while a tag based approach will not reveal your mistake until you preview the document.

3. Agreed.

[cardinals_fan]

1. Word processors have equally quick shortcuts for changing formatting. If someone can enable bold text in VIM with a keypress yet must traverse a menu system to do the same in their word processing software it's because the user failed to learn their WP's shortcuts and not because WP's are stupid and innificient.

2. I totally disagree with this. If you can see a tag, yet there is no visible difference in the text how does this present an advantage. All it does is make you think you've changed something even though the change is imperceptable. For example, if you change text color but your new color is too close to the default color a WYSIWYG will immidiately relay this information to you while a tag based approach will not reveal your mistake until you preview the document.

3. Agreed.
1. I don't mean bold text. If I want to delete two lines in Vim, I enter 'd2d'. If I want to delete to the end of a line, I hit 'd$'. To find the next occurance of a word, I position myself over the word and press the * button. All matching words are highlighted and I can switch between them with the 'n' key. I can jump to the end of a document with 'G' and to the beginning with 'gg'. I know that all this can be done in a word processor, but not with the keyboard. Reaching for the mouse slows me down when I'm typing something.

2. I think that you misunderstood me. For example, consider some italicized text in a word processor. I can't tell exactly where the markup is located, and if I start typing after the italics, I may or may be typing in italics. With <i> tags, it's easy to tell where formatting starts and ends.

3. It's nice to agree :)

[MONODA]

1. Word processors have equally quick shortcuts for changing formatting. If someone can enable bold text in VIM with a keypress yet must traverse a menu system to do the same in their word processing software it's because the user failed to learn their WP's shortcuts and not because WP's are stupid and innificient.
this makes me think that you have never used vim nor bothered to learn how to use it. Vim has many key shortcuts that make everything SOOO much faster, and syntax highlighting rocks!

2. I think that you misunderstood me. For example, consider some italicized text in a word processor. I can't tell exactly where the markup is located, and if I start typing after the italics, I may or may be typing in italics. With <i> tags, it's easy to tell where formatting starts and ends.
yeah that is really annoying with WYSIWYG editors

[aysiu]

1. I don't mean bold text. If I want to delete two lines in Vim, I enter 'd2d'. If I want to delete to the end of a line, I hit 'd$'. To find the next occurance of a word, I position myself over the word and press the * button. All matching words are highlighted and I can switch between them with the 'n' key. I can jump to the end of a document with 'G' and to the beginning with 'gg'. I know that all this can be done in a word processor, but not with the keyboard. Reaching for the mouse slows me down when I'm typing something. If I want to delete to the end of a line in a word processor, I hit Shift-End, Delete.

If I want to find the next occurrence of a word, I press Control-Shift-Right Arrow, Control-F, and Enter. Every time I hit Enter after that, I can find the next matching occurrence.

If I want to jump to the end of a document, I press Control-End and jump back to the beginning with Control-Home

See? All of this can be done in a word processor with a keyboard. Reaching for the mouse slows me down, too, but I don't need to reach for the mouse.

[cardinals_fan]

If I want to delete to the end of a line in a word processor, I hit Shift-End, Delete.

If I want to find the next occurrence of a word, I press Control-Shift-Right Arrow, Control-F, and Enter. Every time I hit Enter after that, I can find the next matching occurrence.

If I want to jump to the end of a document, I press Control-End and jump back to the beginning with Control-Home

See? All of this can be done in a word processor with a keyboard. Reaching for the mouse slows me down, too, but I don't need to reach for the mouse.
I prefer the Vim method because it keeps most of the keyboard shortcuts on the letter keys. I don't know my way around the Delete/Home/End key area, so I have to look at the keyboard to use those commands. But I see your point :)

[aysiu]

I'm sure vim can be used more efficiently once you get used to it, but there are pretty extensive keyboard shortcuts built into most word processors. Unfortunately, most people don't learn them.

What frustrates me more is when people don't bother to learn keyboard shortcuts on spreadsheet programs like Excel, and they try to use their mice to highlight cells and end up overshooting and undershooting and overshooting and undershooting instead of highlighting exactly what they want... with the keyboard.

[acelin]

I see what the OP was saying, as I use simple text editors to take down notes, build code, look at code, edit code- no need for Oo, Abiword, Word, or Pages.

But man do I love my Office 08...

[koenn]

It's not really about keyboard shortcuts or hand-coding tags. I know of html-editors where you can write just as you'd write in a word processor, where you apply formatting with buttons / menu items / keyboard shortcuts ... just as you do in Word, and that enter paragraph tags when you hit [Enter], just as a word processor would include its own End_of_Paragraph marker. Yet they produce standard compliant html and use CSS. That's not what it's about.

The article is about separation of content and representation. I'm all for it (*), it makes perfect sense to me. Html + css is a good example, but you can do exactly the same with MS Word (or a similar word processor) and styles : i.e. define a style for paragraphs, titles, section headings, ... and apply them to your text.

The auther seems to have a beef with word processors because the encourage to mix content with formatting/layout, which they do, but it is equally easy to write html with inline formatting tags ( typically : font tags, bold, italic, etc) in stead of applying styles defined in a css.


---
(*) ... although I agree with Tux Aubrey in post #20 that form and content are related. Somethimes you'll want to change the content to better fit the form, so the form can add meaning to the content, and so on.

[geoken]

2. I think that you misunderstood me. For example, consider some italicized text in a word processor. I can't tell exactly where the markup is located, and if I start typing after the italics, I may or may be typing in italics. With <i> tags, it's easy to tell where formatting starts and ends.



If that's a common problem then I can understand your issue. I'd still prefer to be able to see that an attempt to format some text has failed by producing text which is indistinguishable from the rest of the text.

I guess in the end it depends on how common a certain problem is. For me, the problem described above isn't worth the hassle of using two apps (one to write text, and the other to preview formatting changes).

[Antman]

i luv word processors i can't live without them a simple text editor doesn't cut it!
I guess this would depend on the task at hand. When I am in the mood to "write," Word processors get in my way and I find myself too focused on how it looks on the paper (font, size, etc).
So I either take out me freakin' notepad and fountain pen (yes I own a fountain pen..:)) and start writing. Or I open up geany, nano, gedit, etc., and start.
I must admit, I did agree with some of the author's statements.
And I too can't stand binary word processor files. Hell, give me an OPEN standard to send stuff in that EVERYone can read without having to buy MS Office.
Html anyone?!?

[joninkrakow]

The article is about separation of content and representation. I'm all for it (*), it makes perfect sense to me. Html + css is a good example, but you can do exactly the same with MS Word (or a similar word processor) and styles : i.e. define a style for paragraphs, titles, section headings, ... and apply them to your text.


Before I even read the article, I suspected it would be about separating the content from the format, namely using markup, and would push latex. ;-)

However, while he tries hard to make his case, the truth is, he is making a case why _he_ would prefer to use markup, yet, he is presuming his own method of working and thinking upon everybody. Tux Aubrey got it right when he said that it is not always possible to separate content from form. Many people, myself included, are more visual, and prefer being able, at least to some extent, to be able to modify the form on the fly. It helps the creative process.

I've never used tex, but from all I've read, it's somewhat like the ancient Compugraphic typesetting system I used to use years ago. One _major_ disadvantage of that system was that if you made a syntax error, you wouldn't know until the output. And if you made a mistake, you were either forced to output the whole thing again, (or, which was more common for me) print out corrections, and literally paste them into the layout. Granted, with electronic text, the complications are much less, but without WYSIWYG, you still are forced to go through a thorough proofing process, to verify even the most minor formatting.

Granted, markup has some wonderful benefits. In particular, I think of how CSS can allow re-purposing of text. One supreme example is the S5 presentation system. One file can be formatted for the on-screen slide show, outline view, handouts, and printing. All possible because of the beauty of markup and CSS. :-)

However, if one's output is rather set, markup is not necessarily a panacea.

For instance, when I create a document, I use the same procedures used years ago before word processors. I write, concentrating on the content, adding minor formatting when necessary (typically bold, italic and font--but not necessarily). If I know beforehand what I want, I will actually set up the paragraph and character styles to start with, and add those in as I go, formatting on the fly. One advantage of this approach is that I know exactly how many pages, and where to break those pages. With markup, I would not know have this knowledge, and would probably be forced to make content changes after the fact. blech.

But armed with paragraph and character styles, I can accomplish the exact same result with a word processor as with markup, and with equally the same effort. I've used both, so I am speaking from personal experience here. (I also cut my teeth with electronic text on WordStar in DOS, which was based on markup, not WYSIWYG)

Problems with word processors as they are used:

1. Microsoft Word--dump it! It forces its own way on you, constantly trying to think for you, and often, will not allow you to do what you want.
2. Simple formatting as you go. The tendancy is strong, but it is much to ones advantage to learn to use paragraph and character styles, and stick with them. At this point, the program very much comes to the fore. A good word processor will make these both simple to set up, (preferably with WYSIWYG setup) and to modify. They should also be relatively "flat", not relying on nested modal windows and arcane systems and terms that don't make sense.
3. Lack of true typographical control. Proper leading, character spacing, word spacing... etc. I get so frustrated working in most word processors, because they don't allow separate word spacing from character spacing within words. Also, single and double spacing options are not sufficient. Much better would be leading by points or less. Most word processors create either crowded test, or too open. Good typesetting requires the ability to create visually pleasing line spacing, which is not mechanical, in the sense that all fonts look the same with the same line spacing. (descenders, ascenders, x-height are all different, and create a different density on the page.)
4. Lame, lame, lame keyboard shortcuts! ;-)
5. Obscure interfaces that hide all the power that _could_ be right on the surface.

OpenOffice.org shares some of these problems, but I am ignorant of other apps like KOffice or Abiword. I've never liked Abiword, because on the Mac OS, it can't do sub-pixel rendering, and does horrible things to character spacing and worse, shapes. I've noticed that it does better on Linux, however, but I haven't spent enough time with it.

Needless to say, I have yet to find a perfect word processor. WriteNow, years ago on the Mac was nice--excellent styles support. Nisus on Classic was also excellent--but I don't know any modern computer that can run either of these, and neither is available on Linux. :-)

So far, I haven't really needed good quality output on this Linux box, but I'm looking, which was why I read this thread. ;-)

BTW, excellent conversation. I only hope I've been able to add something to it!

-Jon

[Mateo]

I got tired of keeping skeleton cover letters when I was looking for a job, so I created a web/database program where all I had to do was enter a few fields and it kicked out a PDF and Word document for me. That way if I was mailing it I would use the more professional PDF copy and if I was submitting it to websites I used Word (since that's what most requires). So I guess the best solution is not to worry about typsetting at all until you've already finished your document.

[original_jamingrit]

If you want a more efficient word processor (they refer to it as a "thought processor"), you should take a look at this project. It's supposed to be a more efficient word processing tool, but with a steep learning curve. It's called HyperScope, and it's open source.

http://hyperscope.org/

It's still largely in development.

[-gabe-noob-]

cardinals_fan, you need to cool down. This thread and that article both come across as particularly arrogant and patronizing. People are going to pop into threads and give quick opinions without much rationale, you're just going to have to live with that, it's the internet after all.


Excuse me sir, but as I read it, he was just saying that they should read the article then reply.

You sir, come off as arrogant insisting that the quick, unrationalized opinions should be written off as fine.