[news] 'Utterly unusable' MS Word dumped by SciFi author Charles Stros

[unixman_again]

While not an especially interesting story, unless you're interested in Stross, the reader's comments posted about the story are interesting, especially as the fifth comment is by Stross himself, rebuffing an earlier poster.

 

The story: 'Utterly unusable' MS Word dumped by SciFi author Charles Stross

[abillybob]

I don't get why everyone complains about Word on Mac I for one actually really like it and have never had a problem. It's nice as well because it's cross platform and saves automatically as a .doc file with no need to export or faff about.

Though LibreOffice is very good also but so is OpenOffice. They're all pretty much the same to me, I can't see how one can "drive him to distraction" and not the other.

[localzuk]

I have to say, it seems like a user issue to me - he chooses to write his stuff in a different program, his publishers expect Word. So, he has to do conversion back and forth for it. That's his choice. He could have stuck to Word... Charles Stross writes fiction - which is just text, so realistically he doesn't need a full blown word processor or that sort of thing. Its just text. When I want to write a lot of text, without software interfering, I just write it in Notepad++.

[PotNoodleTech]

So the guys job is to write some stuff in a format that his editor and publisher can use and this seems to be too onerous a task?

 

Perhaps he should get another job?

[Arthur]

it seems like a user issue to me

I think so too.

 

realistically he doesn't need a full blown word processor or that sort of thing. It's just text.

As a longtime Linux user, why isn't Charles using something like LaTeX or Markdown and a text editor?

 

When he has finished writing he could convert the file into Word format using Pandoc.

[localzuk]

Apparently he uses Scrivener. His problem is that the publishers deal with Word, and send back changes in Word and on paper with ink. So, he's trying to use multiple bits to do the task that one piece of software could do.

[LeMarchand]

If he ever gets as popular as George R R Martin, maybe he too can produce his work in WordStar on a DOS machine. Not sure if the publishers have to like it or lump it or if a lackey converts it to Word later. Also not sure why he can't use an emulator as surely that machine can't last until he finishes ASOIAF (if he ever does).

[hardtailstar]

Google docs?

 

You can then export it out as a .doc file, then open it again within google docs.

 

 

Its what I use for text

[TechMonkey]

Surely the bigger WTF is that an editor from a large publishing company is still printing out to annotate changes to scan back in and make the writer wade through the changes. OK I can understand wanting to read from paper, some much prefer that. But either submit the edits to the poor intern who will translate into electronic format or have a secretary that will transcribe.

[Gibbo]

Never heard of him, is this why he's stomping his feet, to get a bit of free publicity?

[abillybob]

Never heard of him, is this why he's stomping his feet, to get a bit of free publicity?

 

I winge about stuff all the time But me no get publicity.

[sonofsanta]

I can understand his issue, but it's not with Word, it's with his publisher's workflow.

 

Once you get to a suitable level of complexity, Word becomes untenable for a large writing project, because you can't easily skip around and back and forth. I think authors that do use Word still will create a separate file for each chapter to stop it becoming unwieldy. But Scrivener will cross-reference characters and locations and tie in with outlines etc. so is actually built for the job. His description of it as an IDE for creative writing isn't far off; while you could write a quick ASP in Notepad, once you ramp up to a full project you want Visual Studio to keep track of all your assets.

 

So really, his editor should learn to deal with Scrivener, because it is relevant and useful software to their profession.

[localzuk]

I can understand his issue, but it's not with Word, it's with his publisher's workflow.

 

Once you get to a suitable level of complexity, Word becomes untenable for a large writing project, because you can't easily skip around and back and forth.

 

I disagree - the navigation pane makes moving about really easy!

 

I think authors that do use Word still will create a separate file for each chapter to stop it becoming unwieldy. But Scrivener will cross-reference characters and locations and tie in with outlines etc. so is actually built for the job. His description of it as an IDE for creative writing isn't far off; while you could write a quick ASP in Notepad, once you ramp up to a full project you want Visual Studio to keep track of all your assets.

 

So really, his editor should learn to deal with Scrivener, because it is relevant and useful software to their profession.

 

I think that's the key here. His problem is with his publisher and editors.

[synaesthesia]

Dont know or care who he is, he is clearly a muppet. I'd use a stronger word but not on this forum. Using office, whether MS or Libre, on a Mac? He is a prat.

[CAM]

All these formats, what happened to RTF for simple text?

[Andrew_C]

I LOATHE word. Trying to do something a bit complicated, and you can expect a whole pit of pain.