5 ms·

Yes, but... as an author, I’m stuck using Word for working with editors and publishers. (I prefer to use Scrivener.) Using any other application is a bad idea d

Yes, but... as an author, I’m stuck using Word for working with editors and publishers. (I prefer to use Scrivener.) Using any other application is a bad idea due to incompatibilities. This isn’t theoretical. Change tracking is critical and the “mostly correct” support in other applications is not an acceptable compromise.

nwallin 6y ago
Do you use any wysiwyg features of word, or is it literally notepad+git with a UX/UI that people are familiar with? What's unusual about authoring, editing, and publishing such that Word is better than the alternatives? I can't imagine that publishers use Word beyond "ok thanks now I'll arduously convert it into the real format". FWIW, I (as a programmer) would immediately disqualify any job candidate (except interns) who didn't understand why change tracking was important and know how to use one or more implementations of it. I imagine nearly all of the programmers on HN feel similarly. Explaining that change tracking is critical isn't an unusual claim.
- nine_k 6y ago
  WYSIWYG is not relevant here. The structured document format, very much is. Chapters, footnotes, references, quotations, tables, etc. It's more like Org mode + TeX + git.
  - nwallin 6y ago
    I guess I'm misunderstanding then. Word's core feature is wysiwyg. Word as a document format is necessarily unstructured - "hey I'm gonna increase the font size of this text over here by like 12 or 14 pts or whatever and switch it to center identation and write 'Chapter 3'" -- that's the 'killer feature' of Word that defines it. Structural stuff like the idea of chapters or version keeping are all secondary to the defining wysiwyg feature. If the goal is structure+change tracking, it seems like switching from an unstructured document format to a format/combination of formats that provides structure+change tracking is an easy slam dunk. Structure and interoperability with version control systems are both first class features of latex. Structure and version control are secondary features of Word. ...Why?
    - pjmlp 6y ago
      Word supports semantic structuring as well, and one can even disable direct styles manipulation. As for why, industry standards.
      - tinus_hn 6y ago
        How can you disable direct styles manipulation? I’ve looked for that feature and never found it (although in response I just gave up on Wod as a serious tool for anything beyond short letters)
        ubermonkey 6y ago
        Say more about what you can't seem to find here. The idea that Word is not a serious tool, or is not suitable for anything longer than a letter, is just laughably false given how widely used it is in pursuits orders of magnitude more complex than a letter to your Aunt Millie. I'm being a LITTLE snarky, but I also am genuinely offering to help, if you want it.
        ivanche 6y ago
        Not the parent poster, but I believe he asked how you can disable direct (ad-hoc) styles manipulation? That's something I'm also interested in - my ideal Word document would be the one in which I define styles to be used and every paragraph uses exactly one of these styles and the user can't say "I'll make these few words 14pt just because".
        pjmlp 6y ago
        For example, https://www.officetooltips.com/word_2016/tips/protecting_word_documents.html https://www.officetooltips.com/word_2016/tips/protecting_wor...
        ubermonkey 6y ago
        I believe another replier has noted how one may do that.
- rdhatt 6y ago
  I believe kayodelycaon is saying change tracking IS critical - specifically Word's implementation of it (aka "Track Changes"). Many authoring workflows I've witnessed heavily rely on all parties being able to see the changes made in a Word document.
  - nwallin 6y ago
    Change tracking is a second class citizen in Word. My question is, if change tracking is so important, why use Word instead of any of the dozens of workflows where change tracking is a first class citizen? I used git as an example in my post; git takes change tracking seriously, (it does _literally_ nothing else) Word does not. Why prefer Word when change tracking matters? The argument of "Change tracking is priority #1 so I choose Word" sounds a lot like "Gas mileage is priority #1 so I choose the Dodge RAM with like the biggest engine ever" to me. If change tracking is priority #1, why not... buy a Honda Fit?
    - jacques-noris 6y ago
      In a perfect world, you would be right. But people in publishing houses are really not technology-savvy, most of them can barely use Word. They’ve been using it for 20 years and they will not use something different. I once worked for a magazine where they did not even use Words change tracking, you had to write the changes into the text with a different color, and they didn’t want to hear that this was a stupid workflow.
    - shakna 6y ago
      > My question is, if change tracking is so important, why use Word instead of any of the dozens of workflows where change tracking is a first class citizen? The simple answer is, and always will be, that it is what your editor uses. I would prefer to use LaTeX for most of my published works. It allows me to be more precise in layouts, and do things that are just downright convoluted in Word. But if the editor uses Word, then you don't have a choice. You're not changing the publishing house.
      - kayodelycaon 6y ago
- chipotle_coyote 6y ago
  From context, I don't think "change tracking" here is being used as a general category of programmers' revision control systems. When you're working with editors at publishing companies or magazines, you need document revision tracking. Embedded comments, being able to see changes the editor made and being able to accept, reject, or modify them. And your program needs to be able to do this in a way that makes round-tripping the document between you and the editor absolutely bullet-proof. If the editor is using Word (and they are), that means you either need Word yourself, or you need something that's so good at doing that round-tripping with Word that the editor doesn't notice you're using something else. And, speaking as someone who really doesn't like using Word and has searched for various solutions, this turns out to be really hard. I haven't looked at LibreOffice in the last two or three years, I confess, so it may have solved this by now -- but neither it nor OpenOffice could consistently manage this. There are other word processors that don't even try. I eventually settled on using Apple Pages, which so far seems to manage this well enough that no editor has called me on it. I can see people raising their hands to object to my assertion that the editor is using Word, because they submitted to a mathematical or engineering journal that accepts submissions in LaTeX. And, sure, there are meaningful exceptions out there, but I can assure you that if you peruse the submission requirements for virtually any non-technical publisher, they are going to either mention Word or just expect Word because it's the industry standard for manuscripts. It doesn't matter how much better any other system is -- Penguin Random House ain't gonna change their workflow to accommodate you.
- kayodelycaon 6y ago
  For the record, I am publishing stories, not writing code. To work with publishers, I need to use their format. That format is Microsoft Word. Specifically, the Windows or macOS versions of Word, _not_ the online or iOS versions. The only workable alternative I know of is Pages on macOS. Word's Track Changes feature is used to show where an Editor or Author wants to make changes, ask questions, or make comments. If you do not use Word, you risk comments or changes going silently missing. Worst case, complete, irreversible corruption of the document. This is not theoretical, publishers have horror stories about authors using Libre/Open Office or incompatible versions of Word. Word is very much the "real format" for most of the process. You may be thinking of typesetting, which uses different file formats depending on which application is used. As an author, I don't see that part of the process.

nwallin 6y ago

Do you use any wysiwyg features of word, or is it literally notepad+git with a UX/UI that people are familiar with? What's unusual about authoring, editing, and publishing such that Word is better than the alternatives? I can't imagine that publishers use Word beyond "ok thanks now I'll arduously convert it into the real format". FWIW, I (as a programmer) would immediately disqualify any job candidate (except interns) who didn't understand why change tracking was important and know how to use one or more implementations of it. I imagine nearly all of the programmers on HN feel similarly. Explaining that change tracking is critical isn't an unusual claim.

nine_k 6y ago
WYSIWYG is not relevant here. The structured document format, very much is. Chapters, footnotes, references, quotations, tables, etc. It's more like Org mode + TeX + git.
- nwallin 6y ago
  I guess I'm misunderstanding then. Word's core feature is wysiwyg. Word as a document format is necessarily unstructured - "hey I'm gonna increase the font size of this text over here by like 12 or 14 pts or whatever and switch it to center identation and write 'Chapter 3'" -- that's the 'killer feature' of Word that defines it. Structural stuff like the idea of chapters or version keeping are all secondary to the defining wysiwyg feature. If the goal is structure+change tracking, it seems like switching from an unstructured document format to a format/combination of formats that provides structure+change tracking is an easy slam dunk. Structure and interoperability with version control systems are both first class features of latex. Structure and version control are secondary features of Word. ...Why?
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    Word supports semantic structuring as well, and one can even disable direct styles manipulation. As for why, industry standards.
    - tinus_hn 6y ago
      How can you disable direct styles manipulation? I’ve looked for that feature and never found it (although in response I just gave up on Wod as a serious tool for anything beyond short letters)
      - ubermonkey 6y ago
        Say more about what you can't seem to find here. The idea that Word is not a serious tool, or is not suitable for anything longer than a letter, is just laughably false given how widely used it is in pursuits orders of magnitude more complex than a letter to your Aunt Millie. I'm being a LITTLE snarky, but I also am genuinely offering to help, if you want it.
        ivanche 6y ago
        Not the parent poster, but I believe he asked how you can disable direct (ad-hoc) styles manipulation? That's something I'm also interested in - my ideal Word document would be the one in which I define styles to be used and every paragraph uses exactly one of these styles and the user can't say "I'll make these few words 14pt just because".
        pjmlp 6y ago
        For example, https://www.officetooltips.com/word_2016/tips/protecting_word_documents.html https://www.officetooltips.com/word_2016/tips/protecting_wor...
        ubermonkey 6y ago
        I believe another replier has noted how one may do that.
rdhatt 6y ago
I believe kayodelycaon is saying change tracking IS critical - specifically Word's implementation of it (aka "Track Changes"). Many authoring workflows I've witnessed heavily rely on all parties being able to see the changes made in a Word document.
- nwallin 6y ago
  Change tracking is a second class citizen in Word. My question is, if change tracking is so important, why use Word instead of any of the dozens of workflows where change tracking is a first class citizen? I used git as an example in my post; git takes change tracking seriously, (it does _literally_ nothing else) Word does not. Why prefer Word when change tracking matters? The argument of "Change tracking is priority #1 so I choose Word" sounds a lot like "Gas mileage is priority #1 so I choose the Dodge RAM with like the biggest engine ever" to me. If change tracking is priority #1, why not... buy a Honda Fit?
  - jacques-noris 6y ago
    In a perfect world, you would be right. But people in publishing houses are really not technology-savvy, most of them can barely use Word. They’ve been using it for 20 years and they will not use something different. I once worked for a magazine where they did not even use Words change tracking, you had to write the changes into the text with a different color, and they didn’t want to hear that this was a stupid workflow.
  - shakna 6y ago
    > My question is, if change tracking is so important, why use Word instead of any of the dozens of workflows where change tracking is a first class citizen? The simple answer is, and always will be, that it is what your editor uses. I would prefer to use LaTeX for most of my published works. It allows me to be more precise in layouts, and do things that are just downright convoluted in Word. But if the editor uses Word, then you don't have a choice. You're not changing the publishing house.
    - kayodelycaon 6y ago
chipotle_coyote 6y ago
From context, I don't think "change tracking" here is being used as a general category of programmers' revision control systems. When you're working with editors at publishing companies or magazines, you need document revision tracking. Embedded comments, being able to see changes the editor made and being able to accept, reject, or modify them. And your program needs to be able to do this in a way that makes round-tripping the document between you and the editor absolutely bullet-proof. If the editor is using Word (and they are), that means you either need Word yourself, or you need something that's so good at doing that round-tripping with Word that the editor doesn't notice you're using something else. And, speaking as someone who really doesn't like using Word and has searched for various solutions, this turns out to be really hard. I haven't looked at LibreOffice in the last two or three years, I confess, so it may have solved this by now -- but neither it nor OpenOffice could consistently manage this. There are other word processors that don't even try. I eventually settled on using Apple Pages, which so far seems to manage this well enough that no editor has called me on it. I can see people raising their hands to object to my assertion that the editor is using Word, because they submitted to a mathematical or engineering journal that accepts submissions in LaTeX. And, sure, there are meaningful exceptions out there, but I can assure you that if you peruse the submission requirements for virtually any non-technical publisher, they are going to either mention Word or just expect Word because it's the industry standard for manuscripts. It doesn't matter how much better any other system is -- Penguin Random House ain't gonna change their workflow to accommodate you.
kayodelycaon 6y ago
For the record, I am publishing stories, not writing code. To work with publishers, I need to use their format. That format is Microsoft Word. Specifically, the Windows or macOS versions of Word, _not_ the online or iOS versions. The only workable alternative I know of is Pages on macOS. Word's Track Changes feature is used to show where an Editor or Author wants to make changes, ask questions, or make comments. If you do not use Word, you risk comments or changes going silently missing. Worst case, complete, irreversible corruption of the document. This is not theoretical, publishers have horror stories about authors using Libre/Open Office or incompatible versions of Word. Word is very much the "real format" for most of the process. You may be thinking of typesetting, which uses different file formats depending on which application is used. As an author, I don't see that part of the process.