Poll: Which word processor do you use?

[Ophiuchus]

Idiots.

I used to work at Curry's, part of the same group as PC World. You're basically told to make stuff up to get the add on sales of things like microsoft word and Norton. I'm fairly confident the staff knew they were talking bollocks but just wanted the sales to get thier possible bonus a little higher.

Stupid as it might sound, if I were working there, I wouldn't be doing any of that even for extra money... such is my hatred of Norton and all of their products.

That said, I'm currently running a legitimate copy of Microsoft Office thanks to the massive reduction on the student edition. I used Microsoft Office in my various office jobs for the most part of a decade between leaving school and finally getting off my arse to go to university, so the brief time I spent using OpenOffice was mostly spent with that slight feeling of unease that comes from seeing something similar to but subtly different from what you're accustomed to.

Of course, if I'm just scribbling quick notes, Notepad is the way forward.

 

[Ancalagon]

I used to work at Curry's, part of the same group as PC World. You're basically told to make stuff up to get the add on sales of things like microsoft word and Norton. I'm fairly confident the staff knew they were talking bollocks but just wanted the sales to get thier possible bonus a little higher.

My sister bought her laptop from PC World, and was told that she didn't need any anti-virus software because 'vista is immune to viruses'. So that particular idiot made something up to do himself out of his commission.

 

[John Galt]

Abiword. I don't want to spend on actual software and it works just as good as Word for me.

 

[Swift Tactix]

Notepad. Wordpad if I'm opening a .txt that opens up kinda ugly in notepad.

What's the difference between the two?

Notepad is for HTML editing and Wordpad isn't.

 

[cleverlymadeup]

openoffice at home, word at work

tho i do use notepad on occasion, it depends on what i'm editing

 

[AlphaWolf13]

I'm the only one who seems to use "WordPad"...
Hahaha... no surprise I guess.

I use it mainly because it doesn't have any "auto-correcting" features.

Which is what I need when I'm trying to type up a "program" into wordpad and where "capitalizing" and other such fuck-tions will screw up a program.

 

[bluemarsman]

Microsoft Works Word Processor.

 

[Tsuki Tanaka]

MS Word 2007.

I'm curious about what program people use for word processing. Do you own a copy of Word? Or are you using a free option such as Open Office or notepad? What features are unique to the product that make you keep it?

Personally I use Open Office at home since I do not want to purchase Word, when I can get the same software online for free. When handing work into University its a simple case of converting the Open Office document into a .doc file or rtf which Word can understand.

The real question here really should be whether or not people own a real legal copy of word. Programs like this are so easily pirated these days. xD

 

[Logan Westbrook]

Just to play the iconoclast card, I usually use paper.

Why typing however, I use Word.

 

[werepossum]

MS Word 2007.

I'm curious about what program people use for word processing. Do you own a copy of Word? Or are you using a free option such as Open Office or notepad? What features are unique to the product that make you keep it?

Personally I use Open Office at home since I do not want to purchase Word, when I can get the same software online for free. When handing work into University its a simple case of converting the Open Office document into a .doc file or rtf which Word can understand.

The real question here really should be whether or not people own a real legal copy of word. Programs like this are so easily pirated these days. xD

All my software is legal, thank you.

 

[werepossum]

Notepad. Wordpad if I'm opening a .txt that opens up kinda ugly in notepad.

What's the difference between the two?

Notepad is for HTML editing and Wordpad isn't.

And Emacs and vi are for proper programming, like C, C++ and FORTRAN. No self-respecting programmer would ever use Notepad to program anything in FORTRAN. And we all should know that Real Programmers use FORTRAN [http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/real.programmers.html].

That proves I'm not a programmer. While I loved FORTRAN and have owned several compilers, I've never owned one that's Windows-compatible.

 

[sneakypenguin]

I use Office 2007 as all my business classes require excel access and powerpoint. It came as a trial on my laptop and i just looked around for a key to make it permanent.

 

[stompy]

Abiword.

Funny story: some idiot came up to address the class for an assessment task, hoping to read off the monitor using his speech. The presentation doesn't start, and I'm called up to fix the problem. The guy had used Abiword, and our school laptops only came with Word and Open Office... yeh, the teacher wasn't too happy...

As for me, I use Open Office at school, but generally Word at home. More specifically, a pirated copy of Word 2003. I would use the Open Office, but for some strange reason, the spell-checker doesn't work on that thing... and I need a spell checker.

 

[internutt]

I was given Microsoft Office 2007 last night. Other than the slightly confusing layout it seemed pretty good. Still, I'll be sticking to Open Office I think, it really depends on the features that I'll start playing around with shortly.

 

[Anton P. Nym]

Office 2007; the 3-computer license to boot. I need some form of Office to stay compatible with stuff at work, and 2007 had some extra stuff in it so that it worked better on my Origami slate... I think it also gave me a discount on a 3-computer license for OneCare too, which doesn't gimp my slate nearly as badly as Norton and McAfee did.

As for FORTRAN, I think I still have my FORTRAN77 for DOS5 compiler on 5" floppies somewhere in a closet... don't miss it, though.

-- Steve

 

[Xaryn Mar]

OpenOffice unless it is for articles/university projects then the excellent combination of emacs and LaTeX (no it is not the material but a typesetting system) and always save the final product as a pdf (usefull feature that OpenOffice had before Word did).

 

[kateatsmouse]

Word 2007. I have to send files to my profs and such, and it makes more sense to have compatible software. Also, I don't pay for any of my school stuff, my parents do so it makes more sense this way. They think I have the best word processor out there, and I didn't pay for it.

 

[Altorin]

I use Notepad when I just need to write something out.. usually I used it as a note pad, lol

I use Word when I need something a little more substantial, or if I need a spell check, or need to do fancy editing.

Basically, if I plan to show it to other people, I use Word, and if it's just for me, I use Notepad.

 

[perfectimo]

notepad, i use it for batch files and writing c++ before compiling. if i needs to do some stuff for uni i use word because unfortunatly they don't think notepad is acceptable for handing in work.

 

[PersianLlama]

OpenOffice when I'm writing fiction, Notepad for everything else. Had to go with my sister to PC World (She's far too stubborn to see sense) to buy her a laptop for university. She chose one of the cheapest ones (Again, she's far too stubborn to see sense. It's a course where she'd have to run Hammer, and she wanted 1GB of RAM... and Vista) and the guy tried to sell us all the additional shit that came with it.

Norton for a year? Fuck off. AVG, Avast, Spybot, ClamWin... Yeah. The staff woman's oh-so-convenient story of "I had a virus that AVG couldn't get rid of, but Norton was the only thing that could" didn't fool me in the slightest, either.

Some form of Microsoft Office? Please, you must take me for a fool. And no, I don't want to tell you why I don't need it. I don't have to tell you. I certainly don't want you to reply as if you instantly "know" I downloaded Office illegally. Why the hell would I need to? Pfft. The guy trying to sell Office to use obviously didn't have a clue what he was talking about, given that he mentioned OO not opening .doc files.

Idiots.

You describe what I go through every time I help a family member with anything related to computers.