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Microsoft Word 5.1 on the Macintosh was published in 1992 and was generally seen as the best word processor ever invented. It's UI was perfect. It won a lot of
by lkrubner 7y ago
Microsoft Word 5.1 on the Macintosh was published in 1992 and was generally seen as the best word processor ever invented. It's UI was perfect. It won a lot of praise in the press, all of it deserved. Sadly, after version 5.1, Microsoft began to focus on the integration of the Office Suite, which meant re-doing all the apps so that they'd be open to programming. And more features got added, and the UI became cluttered. For those of us who sometimes use Word, but don't need the rest of Office, Word 5.1 remains the high point.
Also, as others often said, 5.0 seemed like a broken release, and the ".1" was a much bigger upgrade than is normally implied by a non-major-version number. So it is version 5.1, and not version 5.0, that is remembered fondly.
- noir_lord 7y agoOffice has gotten worse for me since 97, they added more and more crap that I didn't need and then put it front and center with a "look at the crap we added you don't need" design. These days I write in markdown and it it has to be pretty format it in libre office (mdpdf works fine for 99% of my uses though).
- Angostura 7y agov.X was pretty nice when OS X came along. Since the, not many improvements.
- Doctor_Fegg 7y agoMacWrite Pro was also released in 1992 and its UI was streets ahead of Word 5.1’s. Unfortunately its performance was laggy and, even by then, Word was so much the incumbent that it was hard to compete. But I loved MWP.
- avip 7y agoCounterpoint: Was generally seen as the best word processor unless you had to use it with an RTL language. In other words, it was perfect for (WORLD.population - 500mm) What's bloat for you may be an essential need for your fellow worder. #funfacts: https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-boosts-languages-proofing-tools-in-office-2011-for-mac-unicode-right-to-left-support-missing/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-boosts-languages-pro... https://caniuse.com/#search=dir https://caniuse.com/#search=dir