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From: norman@sdics.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Suggestions for Replacing Word 3.0
Message-ID: <354@sdics.ucsd.EDU>
Date: Tue, 5-May-87 10:31:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: sdics.354
Posted: Tue May  5 10:31:59 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 7-May-87 02:12:38 EDT
Reply-To: norman@sdics.UUCP (Donald A. Norman)
Organization: UC San Diego Institute for Cognitive Science
Lines: 50
Keywords: text editors
Summary: I have had it with Word 3.0.  Any suggestions?

References:


The last straw has broken my back.  I give up on Microsoft Word 3.0.
I am looking for suggestions for replacement.  (See end of message)

Personally, WORD is an unbelievably crappy design. I can live with the
bugs because, after all, those can be fixed.  But not poor design
decisions.  Style sheets that don't allow for variation in fonts.
Style sheets for which I can never figure out where my laboriously
constructed styles will show up (the "default" style sheet seems called
in mysterious ways).  None-WYSIWYG columns.  None-WYSIWYG formatting.  

I could go on, but I won't.  The main faults are that the design
philosophy fails to follow the direct manipulation principles of
visibility and acessibilility.  No consistent "system image".
Impossible to develop a good mental model of what is going to happen.
Arbitrary and weird command sequences are required.  This is my
profession, so why should I use a system that violates the fundamental
rules that I teach and preach?   And these are fundamental design
errors, so no bug patches will cure them.

QUESTION: What are the alternatives.  I need a professional program,
one that can do footnotes at both the bottom of the page and the end
of the chapter/book. One that makes it easy to use a wide variety of
indentation styles, with realtively frequent changes or going
back-and-forth on any single page.  I do NOT need camera-ready copy,
so I don't need a publishing program.  I need something I can mail to
my publisher.  That can handle books and technical papers (Where a
single chapter might be 150,000 byutes or > 100 pages).

The only two candidates I know of are T/maker's Write Now and Ann
Arbor Softworks Fullwrite Professional.  I have seen neither.  Do they
really exist?  Do they work as advertized (well, obviously not: but
are they any good -- do they follow the Mac guidelines -- Word
violated them).  Are there any others?   

I need it immediately.  My book is due at the publisher in 1 month. So
no vaporware.  (It is now all in Microsoft WORD 1.05.  I now believe
it would be a serious mistake to switch to 3.0.  I might just stick to
1.05.)

Suggestions? Comments?  Preferences?

don norman

Donald A. Norman
Institute for Cognitive Science C-015
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla, California 92093
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