Some mornings, I just want to kill my computer

[Doogs]

What dark sorcery powers Mircosoft Word?

This morning I powered up the laptop, opened my revision file, and discovered that, for whatever reason, Word had decided to double-tab EVERY SINGLE ONE of my paragraphs for three consecutive chapters.

WTF?

[Kentuk]

Have you been getting interesting emails with MSWord attachments?

[mscelina]

Yeah, I wanted to kill my computer too...and DID. Thank the gods it's still under warranty.

And yeah...there are LOTS of interesting email viruses going around right now.

[Doogs]

Have you been getting interesting emails with MSWord attachments?

Nope. The laptop I use for writing spends most of its time offline, and when it is online the only e-mail getting checked is GMail.

The computer has been stripped down to run lean and mean(ish). No viruses of any kind.

Just Word being Word...

[NicoleMD]

I don't know what I clicked on yesterday, but suddenly all of my chapter headings were left justified, not bolded, and in the wrong font. I didn't notice right away, or I would have quit and reopened it, but I'd done a good bit of editing before I noticed. So I had to fix them all by hand. Pain.

Nicole

[ZannaPerry]

I feel like that too sometimes. At least I did when my computer was infected with a virus...Now it's clean! :) And I love turning my computer on in the mornings.

[Azraelsbane]

I hate Word. I hate it! I need to find something better. Any suggestions?

I hate how it takes my paragraphs and randomly separates them out 1.5 space...when I don't push anything, and when I try to backspace it changes fonts and the crashing and the argh! :Soapbox:

[heyjude]

WordPerfect rocks. SO much better than Word. I've found it to be more intuitive.

[ZannaPerry]

I use the very simple Microsoft Word. I don't have office...anymore...and the word I have...which I think was the first edition works wonders.

[Writer14]

Shhhh...you regret it when you kill your computer.

My friend once got so mad at his computer's 'dark sorcery' that he punched the moniter xD


It shattered...

[Azraelsbane]

Shhhh...you regret it when you kill your computer.

My friend once got so mad at his computer's 'dark sorcery' that he punched the moniter xD


It shattered...

I broke my first laptop by punching the screen. I was a very violent child, well, teen (14).

I once had a computer almost hit me on the head when someone threw theirs out of a 3rd floor dorm room. I was coming around the back to go up the fire escape ramp (since the front wasn't accessible, I had a key). The damn thing landed right behind me!

[Writer14]

I broke my first laptop by punching the screen. I was a very violent child, well, teen (14).

I once had a computer almost hit me on the head when someone threw theirs out of a 3rd floor dorm room. I was coming around the back to go up the fire escape ramp (since the front wasn't accessible, I had a key). The damn thing landed right behind me!


Ah-ha! I must be mature! I'm 15 and have yet to break a computer!!! =]]]

[ZannaPerry]

Oh, believe me....we have a big two-story house and our first computer I wanted to chuck off the balacony and into the street below so cars can run over it. It was that bad.....besides, there were three people working it at the time, and thank God I have my own computer. Nobody can screw it up but myself.

Violent teen? I know....

[Torgo]

WordPerfect rocks. SO much better than Word. I've found it to be more intuitive.

But publishers (in my experience) loathe it, because their offices tend to be tricked out with Micro$oft Office [This Year-5]. When you open a manuscript that's been saved in WP format in some horror like Word 97, it's like decrypting the Rosetta Stone. Can you save in RTF with WP? Beginning to think something really portable is the way to go.

My particular WP horror story is when we bought in a series of Australian novels from about 10 years ago. The Aussie publishers only had the manuscripts in WordPerfect format, and when I finally managed to get them opened up, I discovered that every single piece of punctuation had been stripped out. The IT dept. was no help, so I spent the next week with an old copy of the book, laboriously adding the punctuation back in...

[Zara Ravenwood]

But publishers (in my experience) loathe it, because their offices tend to be tricked out with Micro$oft Office [This Year-5]. When you open a manuscript that's been saved in WP format in some horror like Word 97, it's like decrypting the Rosetta Stone. Can you save in RTF with WP? Beginning to think something really portable is the way to go.


EEK I've been using rtf files? Will I have to convert them all to MS?
Heres my story.

Frist my Destop gose so I use My roomate laptop for nanaowormo with then dies, then the *disk* I was using dies.. that winter I got my self a Jump Drive...

[Ravenlocks]

WordPerfect (at least the version I use) will save in Word or RTF format relatively well, except it sometimes strips out the headers. When I converted my novel from WP to Word, it also added in some footers I didn't want, and Word wouldn't get rid of them no matter what I did (and I'm good with Word!). I've recently just switched over to Word. I hate it, but pretty much everybody seems to use it, so I won't have to worry about conversions.

I don't know what I clicked on yesterday, but suddenly all of my chapter headings were left justified, not bolded, and in the wrong font. I didn't notice right away, or I would have quit and reopened it, but I'd done a good bit of editing before I noticed. So I had to fix them all by hand. Pain.

Nicole

Word may have defined a style based on your formatting (not sure why it changed your font and formatting, but that's Word for ya). To fix it everywhere, you'd have to go into the style and modify it.

I always turn off the "define styles based on your formatting" option, since I like to be in control of what I'm doing instead of having the program try to take charge. That option is under Tools/AutoCorrect/AutoFormat As You Type.

[Doogs]

I hate Word. I hate it! I need to find something better. Any suggestions?

The new Pages in Apple's iWork isn't half bad. Got it installed on my MacBook. But that puppy's too new and shiny for me to tote around to write with. And Pages default saves in a proprietary format. You can export to Word, rtf and pdf formats...but that's exporting, which is a much more layered process than clicking the little disk icon.

[Red Robin]

I'm using Open Office. It works quite well, except that the thesaurus function does't always work. It saves in a whole range of different formats, and reads them very well. I suppose I will get MS Office when I am ready to send out manuscripts, just so I can be sure that the files are formatted well enough.

[Torgo]

EEK I've been using rtf files? Will I have to convert them all to MS?

Heavens no - RTF is lovely and portable. It's the .wps files that can be problematic, as WP doesn't have so much of the market. If you're having trouble with backups and things, you could also consider Google Docs, which is stored online, so that short of California falling into the sea, there's no way you can lose your work. It even backs you up every few minutes, just to be on the safe side. Only a good solution if you have broadband on tap, though.

[wayndom]

But publishers (in my experience) loathe it, because their offices tend to be tricked out with Micro$oft Office [This Year-5]. When you open a manuscript that's been saved in WP format in some horror like Word 97, it's like decrypting the Rosetta Stone. Can you save in RTF with WP?
Any word processor can save in RTF format. That's the whole idea of RTF, that it's a format that can be read or written-to by any WP.

I'm a WordPerfect loyalist. It does all the same things Word does, but just seems easier and more intuitive in use.

As for computers, I HATE Windows Vista. It takes FOREVER to fire up, and if you don't wait for it to load every stinking little idiotic subroutine it has, and just go ahead and start your WP, you'll type a word, then wait ten seconds before it appears on the screen.

PLUS, all the anti-malware in Vista, intended to disallow rogue programs from messing with your 'puter, interfere with your programs' ability to save subtle changes.

When I installed WordPerfect, I forgot to put all my favorite shortcuts on the toolbar, so a few weeks later, I tried to add some. They added fine, but the next time I fired WP up, they were gone. I had to re-add them every time I used WordPerfect. Arrrrrrgh! I finally uninstalled it, wrote down a list of all the shortcuts I wanted, re-installed it and immediately added all the shortcuts. FINALLY, it's where I want it to be (never had this problem with Windows 95, 98se, or Windows 2000 Pro).

And just so I don't forget how slow it is starting up, it also takes about five minutes to shut down! THANK YOU BILL GATES.

[amber_grosjean]

I used to have a lot of problems with Word but a lot of that had to do with jumping from one computer to another. I even lost my whole disk once cause it had to be formatted and I didn't know what formatted even was. Luckliy, I had a back up disk so I didn't have to retype every chapter. Just the last five or so that I had worked on.

Now I have my own computer so I can just use one edition of Words. And I back up things on a cd so I don't have to use disks all the time, which I still use some but it's not as bad since I am using the same program all the time.

If something goes wrong with Words, I have the disk for it so I can wipe it out of my computer and redownload it. That always helps just in case. I've been lucky so far on that lol.

Amber

[Xx|e|ph|e|me|r|al|xX]

Open Office and Microsoft Works Word are the two I use. OO has a thesaurus, but no dictionary! So I use MW word's. Thank God they both have a recovery mode. :tongue And OO saves automatically every 5 or so minutes and once it's saved, it makes saving it unavailable so you know that's it been saved. Then add so much as a dot, you can re save it. I still have XP. I've heard too much bad stuff about Vista.

But I do SO hate this thing sometimes. Especially when I'm, say, trying to play piano and time it right by playing it with the real piece and it turns off in the middle of it. Or when for no reason it shuts down of its own accord...gah.

It's good in between those things, at least. XD

[Shadow_Ferret]

Wow, I've never met so many whiners. :tongue

I've never had any problems with MS Word in regard to my personal stuff.

Now let me get to my job for about an hour and then see what my opinion of Word is.

[Writer14]

Wow, I've never met so many whiners. :tongue

I've never had any problems with MS Word in regard to my personal stuff.

Now let me get to my job for about an hour and then see what my opinion of Word is.

Psh..I'm so not whining. I was just saying my friend broke their computer. xD

[Dave.C.Robinson]

I'm sure there are mornings my computer wants to kill me.

[Vomaxx]

I hate Word. I hate it! I need to find something better. Any suggestions?

I have been using MS Works, which is their "cheapo" combined word processing/spreadsheet item. Mine is several years old and came on floppy discs. It has served me well. Both the processor and the spreadsheet are simple to use, and lack the incredible number of options that make MS Word so complicated (for me, at least--I have to use Word at work) but for which I (and, I suspect, most other people) have no use. It is sort of a "Word for Dummies", I guess, but I like it very much. And on the two occasions when I have had to e-mail a 350-page novel, the recipients were able to read it, and print it, with no trouble, as MS Works is compatible with MS Word. I am on the whole an ignoramus when it comes to word-processing programs, but Works works for me. Does anyone else use it?

[Ava Jarvis]

Scrivener.

http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.html

But then I'm on a mac.

I have gotten off of Word and Pages entirely. I used to work in TeXShop but that was because I was a geek.

If money is a problem, then you might want to stop by http://zoho.com . I hope Google buys them. They have the concept of Real Word Processor Features and Offline Applications down pat. Google Docs is Notepad in comparison.

[SirTimberWolf]

I'd highly reccomend Open Office, using 2.1 right now and have been for quite some time. Or if you're a space freak (or want a good portable program you can fit on a usb key) you might want to look into Abi Word.

I'm a big fan of open source programs, not just because they're free but sometimes they do a better job than something you'd pay 500+$ for, can't argue with that.

[BuffStuff]

Word can be a pain, yes, but try being stuck for months upon months of only being able to use the Microsoft Works word processor.... I swear to God, it's a good thing I wasn't stuck with Shelley Duvall in a remote hotel up in Maine or I'd have pulled a Jack Torrance by now.

Incidentally, I destroyed by first computer when I was...oh, 21, I believe. I powered it on and there were tons of files missing upon startup (I was guilty of shutting the PC off with the 4-second hold too much in those days..I know, I know!) and so I beat the tower rather mercilessly with my fists, and then laid it on its back and stomped it over and over again before taking a hammer to it.

I then drove to Walden books in the mall and picked up a copy of Les Miserables from a plucky little store manager I still talk to to this day.

Never got beyond page 50 though...

And I no longer do the 4-second count power button shut down...

Ahh..the memories.

-BS

[Jamesaritchie]

Conversion between Word and WordPerfect isn't nearly the problem it used to be, and I doubt any serious publisher out there is still using Word '97.

I know a pretty fair number of writers who use WordPerfect, and have no problems at all. I do, for one. The trick, like with any software, is staying up to date. If you do, there should be no problem using pretty much any word processor you wish, be it Word, WordPerfect, OpenOffice, or even WordStar, which a fair number of pro writers still adore.

I have Word 2003, Wordperfect X3, and OpenOffice 2.2, and have never had a problem with converting ordinary files from one to another.

[Torgo]

Conversion between Word and WordPerfect isn't nearly the problem it used to be, and I doubt any serious publisher out there is still using Word '97.

I know a pretty fair number of writers who use WordPerfect, and have no problems at all. I do, for one. The trick, like with any software, is staying up to date. If you do, there should be no problem using pretty much any word processor you wish, be it Word, WordPerfect, OpenOffice, or even WordStar, which a fair number of pro writers still adore.

I have Word 2003, Wordperfect X3, and OpenOffice 2.2, and have never had a problem with converting ordinary files from one to another.

No, but I know plenty of publishers using Word 2002, which is pretty crufty. And as you know, while it's certainly true that word processors are more interoperable than they used to be, the text of books is more often than not archived by publishers and printers digitally these days. I often find myself looking at text files for reissues and buy-ins that were saved on whatever diabolical engine lost the format wars in 1997. Equally, if you use a word processor that has a small market share and a proprietary file format, there is a slight but real risk that it might not be around in 2017 and nobody will have bothered writing legacy converters for it.

It's not a huuuge problem, granted, but I think the best practice is to use whatever software you like and to save to something simple and portable like .rtf. There's less to go wrong in the long term.

[Julie Worth]

I always turn off the "define styles based on your formatting" option...

Most people who have a problem with Word have never heard of styles. Which is why they have a problem

[JoniBGoode]

What dark sorcery powers Mircosoft Word?

This morning I powered up the laptop, opened my revision file, and discovered that, for whatever reason, Word had decided to double-tab EVERY SINGLE ONE of my paragraphs for three consecutive chapters.

WTF?

Two words: Windows Vista. Don't let it happen to you.

I bought a new laptop with Vista on it. Suddenly, everything else in the universe has to be upgraded. The print driver that comes loaded automatically...doesn't actually drive the printer. Vista is not compatible with my email. Or my Palm pilot. Or anything else that you want to do.

Even worse, my all-in-one printer, copier, fax now mysteriously tries to send faxes by itself about 6 times a day. To a number that's been disconnected. And it won't quit, no matter how often I press the "cancel job" or "stop" buttons. Even in the middle of the night. Even when it's in sleep mode and the computer is turned off. I'm not kidding.

It's so annoying that I just want to pitch the whole thing through the patio window.

[ljcblue]

I'm a Word refugee. :) One of the things I like about Open Office is that it stores files more compactly. The WIP that was 700+kb in Word was about 100kb in open office.

That tells me something about the inefficient code built into word. I've had no problems moving between open office/rtf/ and doc formats.

[Julie Worth]

Two words: Windows Vista. Don't let it happen to you.

I've had Vista in my in-basket for six months. I put a skull and crossbones on the case, to remind me not to get drunk and open the damn thing.