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It Just Works

Entry 592, on 2007-08-22 at 21:00:16 (Rating 4, Computers)

I don't do much word processing because I'm a very Internet-centric person. I haven't written a letter for years but I send and receive 100 emails a day. I haven't written any paper documentation or other material (apart from one exception I'll mention next) for a long time but I write blog entries, on-line documentation and web material almost every day. The only word processing I do now is lessons and other material for my wife, who is a teacher.

I installed Word for her when she started using a computer many years ago because it was a fair program at the time and it made it easier for her to interact with her colleagues who also used it. That means I usually create documents for her using Word. Big mistake!

Tonight I finished off a document she had started in Word and what a mess it turned into. Word is slow, awkward, unpredictable and just badly designed. When I use it everything just feels wrong and, even though I'm a computer consultant and programmer with over 20 years experience, I usually have problems getting anything except simple documents looking the way I want.

So what could I use instead? Enter Apple's latest word processor Pages '08. Its a beautiful program in every sense of the word. The layout is attractive and logical, it prints exactly what you have on the screen, and its alignment and other tools are brilliant.

Within 5 minutes I had the Word document converted, composed the way I wanted, made to look a lot better, and printed perfectly. When it comes to word processing I have a choice. Use an ancient ugly Microsoft abomination just because its what everyone else makes the mistake of using, or use something that just works.

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