5 ms·
I know this probably isn't for most people, but I've gone to emacs' org mode for creating documents and spreadsheets. The cost is nothing, it's highly function
by Ben65 16y ago
I know this probably isn't for most people, but I've gone to emacs' org mode for creating documents and spreadsheets. The cost is nothing, it's highly functional, and can be exported to TEX or html if you want to make it pretty.
- semanticist 16y agoemacs isn't suitable for almost all computer users. Try to imagine telling a non-hacker manager that all their spreadsheet work needs to be done in a command-line text editor/kitchen sink emulator. It's always easy to forget just how much of a minority hackers actually are - there's far far more computer users out there who aren't hackers than are. Orders of magnitude more.
- fxj 16y agothere was a time when lotus 123 was the de-facto spreadsheet and excel was a pale buggy program.
- semanticist 16y agoThat's true, but I don't see the computer accessibility evolution going Lotus 123 -> Microsoft Excel -> emacs org mode.
- listic 16y agoMany people need to also read Office documents, not just write them. If you cannot sign or edit a crucial contract for your company because you are using some Open Source word processor (and all of your partners use MS Word) your decision to move from MS suddenly starts to look very, very stupid. Also, I heard from a writer that Microsoft Office is superior to any word processor (a.k.a computer program you use to write a novel) to the point that he writes novels in Microsoft Word under Wine.
- swombat 16y agoAlso, I heard from a writer that Microsoft Office is superior to any word processor (a.k.a computer program you use to write a novel) to the point that he writes novels in Microsoft Word under Wine. That's insane. Word is a horrible writing environment. It's a passable document editing environment, but to write novels or stories there are a number of infinitely better tools, such as Scrivener or Writeroom (for mac - but there are equivalents on Winblows) on the minimalist side, or some others whose names escape me right now on the "let's have lots of tools to help someone write a novel" side. Word sucks for writing.
- swombat 16y agoAlso, I heard from a writer that Microsoft Office is superior to any word processor (a.k.a computer program you use to write a novel) to the point that he writes novels in Microsoft Word under Wine. That's insane. Word is a horrible writing environment. It's a passable document editing environment, but to write novels or stories there are a number of infinitely better tools, such as Scrivener or Writeroom (for mac - but there are equivalents on Winblows) on the minimalist side, or some others whose names escape me right now on the "let's have lots of tools to help someone write a novel" side. Word sucks for writing.
- jmcnevin 16y agoOh really? I heard from a writer that emacs is the best word processor. http://artlung.com/smorgasborg/C_R_Y_P_T_O_N_O_M_I_C_O_N.shtml http://artlung.com/smorgasborg/C_R_Y_P_T_O_N_O_M_I_C_O_N.sht...
- archangel_one 16y agoI seem to recall hearing that George R.R. Martin writes in Wordstar on DOS. That doesn't make it the best word processor though - you can probably find one fan of nearly any piece of software.
- lsc 16y ago'joe' on *NIX is the tool you want if you like the wordstar keybindings. It was my $EDITOR for a long time because I was used to the wordstar key bindings as used in turbo pascal 3.0. I talk a lot of shit about how useless school was... but I learned a lot in that pascal class in high school.
- Splines 16y agoThe cost isn't nothing - learning emacs and org-mode, while rewarding, isn't trivial.