13 ms·

Lawyers historically are notoriously linked to Microsoft and its formats as a somewhat unintentional industry side standard. Moves like this hearten me as for

by evolve2k 11mo ago

Lawyers historically are notoriously linked to Microsoft and its formats as a somewhat unintentional industry side standard. Moves like this hearten me as for certain lawyers the formats and standards they now will be expected to follow has just shifted, towards open source no less.

mikestew 11mo ago
I remember when lawyers historically used WordPerfect for the same reasons. Now, I don’t know the details of how that industry shifted (MS dominance and WP shitting the bed with their GUI versions would be my guess), but it shows that it is possible.
- jeffwask 11mo ago
  I did MS Word support in the long long ago during its transition to dominance. There was nothing worse than getting a call from a lawyer who was forced off Word Perfect.
  - JumpCrisscross 11mo ago
    > a lawyer who was forced off Word Perfect My lawyers at big firms still use it, though they export .doc(x).
    - mikestew 11mo ago
      But how are they exporting such a modern document format? Holee crap, because it's still being sold an updated! https://www.wordperfect.com/en/ https://www.wordperfect.com/en/ And the suite includes Quattro Pro, for those that are itchin' for that spreadsheet-flavored blast from the past. If I didn't already have the Apple suite on my Mac (which does all I need out of an office suite), I'd spend the $50 for home/student version just for the lulz.
      - p_ing 11mo ago
        https://www.wordperfect.com/en/product/professional-edition/ https://www.wordperfect.com/en/product/professional-edition/ Look at those screenshots! It's still a Windows 95 look'n'feel (which some HN users might enjoy).
        Telaneo 11mo ago
        I'd imagine the lawyers who have worked with it for 10-20 years or more are very grateful that its layout hasn't changed since 95. They've got better things to do than to hunt down a button that moved between Office 2016 and Copilot 365 (if that's what it's even called today).
      - Theodores 11mo ago
        You have got the trial version of Wordperfect for free, not sure it has everything (Quattro Pro) since you have to hunt around for other Corel products to get the trial versions (Corel Draw). It is amazing to think how valuable Wordperfect originally was, for Microsoft to be mean to them, meaning they went from worth billions to worth nothing.
      - prmoustache 11mo ago
        I tried it a few years ago just for the heck of it and it wasn't bad really.
  - dctoedt 11mo ago
    I loved Word Perfect 5.1 for MS-DOS (I wrote an emacs keyboard emulator for it). And when Windows 3.1 came out and everybody was moving from MS-DOS, most of our lawyers said, "of course we should move to Word Perfect for Windows, it's what all the law firms use." But our clients were all using Word for Windows, and so the group looking into it said, "who GAS what other law firms are using, let's use what the clients are using." And we did.

mikestew 11mo ago

I remember when lawyers historically used WordPerfect for the same reasons. Now, I don’t know the details of how that industry shifted (MS dominance and WP shitting the bed with their GUI versions would be my guess), but it shows that it is possible.

jeffwask 11mo ago
I did MS Word support in the long long ago during its transition to dominance. There was nothing worse than getting a call from a lawyer who was forced off Word Perfect.
- JumpCrisscross 11mo ago
  > a lawyer who was forced off Word Perfect My lawyers at big firms still use it, though they export .doc(x).
  - mikestew 11mo ago
    But how are they exporting such a modern document format? Holee crap, because it's still being sold an updated! https://www.wordperfect.com/en/ https://www.wordperfect.com/en/ And the suite includes Quattro Pro, for those that are itchin' for that spreadsheet-flavored blast from the past. If I didn't already have the Apple suite on my Mac (which does all I need out of an office suite), I'd spend the $50 for home/student version just for the lulz.
    - p_ing 11mo ago
      https://www.wordperfect.com/en/product/professional-edition/ https://www.wordperfect.com/en/product/professional-edition/ Look at those screenshots! It's still a Windows 95 look'n'feel (which some HN users might enjoy).
      - Telaneo 11mo ago
        I'd imagine the lawyers who have worked with it for 10-20 years or more are very grateful that its layout hasn't changed since 95. They've got better things to do than to hunt down a button that moved between Office 2016 and Copilot 365 (if that's what it's even called today).
    - Theodores 11mo ago
      You have got the trial version of Wordperfect for free, not sure it has everything (Quattro Pro) since you have to hunt around for other Corel products to get the trial versions (Corel Draw). It is amazing to think how valuable Wordperfect originally was, for Microsoft to be mean to them, meaning they went from worth billions to worth nothing.
    - prmoustache 11mo ago
      I tried it a few years ago just for the heck of it and it wasn't bad really.
- dctoedt 11mo ago
  I loved Word Perfect 5.1 for MS-DOS (I wrote an emacs keyboard emulator for it). And when Windows 3.1 came out and everybody was moving from MS-DOS, most of our lawyers said, "of course we should move to Word Perfect for Windows, it's what all the law firms use." But our clients were all using Word for Windows, and so the group looking into it said, "who GAS what other law firms are using, let's use what the clients are using." And we did.