Tag Archives: software

Is Writing a Book Like Riding a Bicycle?

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Is it possible to forget how?

Despite all my blogging about Flying and helicopters, I still earn the bulk of my income as a writer. I’ve been writing computer how-to books since 1991 (depending on which book you consider my first) and have authored or co-authored more than 70 titles since then.

You’d think that by now I could write a book in my sleep. In a way, I can. Or at least I thought I could.

This past week, I began discussions with a publisher I’d never worked with before about two new titles. I you might expect — I certainly did — I was asked to submit an outline for each proposed book. I sat down with Microsoft Word’s outline feature on one laptop and the software I was going to be writing about running on a laptop beside it. And, for longer than I’d like to admit, I felt overwhelmed.

Writing a Book ≠ Revising a Book

Creating Spreadsheets and ChartsYou see, although I’ve got 70+ books under my belt, the vast majority of those titles are revisions. Two of them have been revised at least 10 times. In fact, on consulting my list of books, I realized that the last time I wrote a book from scratch was in 2004 (Creating Spreadsheet and Charts with Microsoft Excel: Visual QuickProject Guide for Peachpit Press), although I did co-author one (with Miraz Jordan) from scratch in 2006 (WordPress 2: Visual QuickStart Guide for Peachpit Press).

And revising a book is not like writing one from scratch.

When I revise a book, I start with the book and its text. There’s no need for a new outline. If the book will need major changes, I might take the existing book’s table of contents, bring it into Word’s outline feature, and modify it to fit the changes into appropriate places. But if the changes are minor — and believe me, quite a few revisions were like that — I didn’t even bother printing the table of contents. Either way, I go through each chapter and read the text, making changes as necessary. I re-shoot all the screen shots — even in books that have hundreds of them. I add sections and remove sections. Occasionally, I’ll move sections around or expand on sections to make them clearer. More and more often these days, I’m asked to remove sections simply to reduce page count. Then I’m done.

But when I write a book from scratch, I’m starting with nothing more than the subject — usually a software program or online service — and a blank outline page. I need to build the outline from scratch, knowing just a few things:

  • The audience. This is usually beginner to intermediate users; I don’t write for advanced users or programmers very often. Knowing the audience is important; it enables me to make assumptions about their experience and goals. My audience has changed in the 20 or so years I’ve been doing this. In the old days, I often had to begin with basics like how to point and click and close windows. Now I can assume my readers know all that and get on with topic-specific content.
  • The series. Most of my books are part of a book series. In the past, I’ve authored the first book in a series, but that’s not common. I like writing series books. They give me an idea of the style and format my editors want. I can visualize the final pages as I write. Heck, for some books — Peachpit’s Visual QuickStart Guide series, for example — I actually lay out the pages as I write.
  • The software or service. That’s my subject matter. I need to know the software or service very well to know what I’m going to write about. Often, I’m working with beta software that’s not quite ready for prime time or, worse yet, changes as I write. I have to explore menus and palettes and dialogs. I have to try things to see what happens. I have to learn so I can teach.
Don’t Torture Yourself
I always write with the software or service I’m writing about running on a second computer. Anyone who tries to write a book without being able to reference the subject matter while writing is putting himself through a lot of unnecessary torture.

The trick is to build an outline from the ground up, knowing where to start and where to end and how to get from one point to the next. Each chapter should have a logical flow, starting with the basics and moving on to more complex topics. I can’t explain how to perform one task until I’ve already explained how to perform the subtasks that are part of it. For example, I can’t write about formatting text until I’ve explained how to select the text to format and why selecting that text is important.

Have I Lost My Touch?

It’s this logical flow of things that had me stalled this week as I struggled with the two outlines. I seemed to have lost my touch. I couldn’t focus on the software and approach it as a new user might.

What made matters worse was that the editor I was working with gave me outlines to start with. I wasn’t sure whether he wanted me to follow those outlines or build my own. The outline for one of the books was very good. I wouldn’t have had any problem using it as a basis for my book. But I felt weird about using someone else’s outline — even if I had permission to do so. It was almost as if I were copying someone else’s work. I didn’t like that idea at all.

That meant I had to come up with an entirely different approach.

And that’s what stalled me. My mind went blank and I simply couldn’t think of another way to do it.

I’ve Still Got It

Putting the other outline aside and concentrating on the software is what saved me. I was eventually able to focus on the software. I started writing Part names, Chapter names, and A-Head names, following the style used in the series. I shuffled heads around. One thing led to another, just like it always had.

When I was halfway finished and clearly comfortable with my own approach, I consulted that other outline to make sure I covered all the applicable topics that it did. Since the other book was about the Windows version of the software (for the same publisher), only about 80% of the topics applied my Mac version book. My outline presented them in a completely different order, building skills along a different path.

Looking back on it, I realize that my outline is more like one of my outlines and wonder what I’d liked about the other outline in the first place.

Back on the Bicycle

I find it more difficult to write an outline than a book. That might sound strange, but it’s true. Getting the organization settled is the hardest part for me. Once I have that blueprint, I can start building pages.

With the initial period of uncertainty mostly behind me — at least on one of the two projects — I’m looking forward to writing a new book and working with new people. I’m hoping I get some good feedback from my editor on the outline and that we can work together to fine-tune it to meet the publisher’s needs. The contract comes next and then the writing. It’s all part of a workflow I’m quite familiar with.

Now if only I could knock out that second outline…

Interlacing Woes

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One part of my current troubleshooting effort.

I’m trying very hard to create an SD DVD based on original 1080i HD footage. I have the latest version of Final Cut Studio, which should have all the tools I need to get the job done. But when I build a DVD, it looks like crap on my HD TV. Other standard DVDs look fine — actually, great — on that TV. For the past two days, I’ve been banging my head against the wall, trying to figure out the problem. Not having a standard TV handy for testing purposes, I have no idea what it looks like on one of those.

I hate learning by trial and error. I watched Lynda.com video courses about Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro and they helped me build my movie and DVD. But they failed to explain how to get my kind of video (1920x1080i60 AVCHD) into standard DVD format. Do I convert video before bringing into FCP? If so what do I convert it to? How about interlacing? Downsizing? What compression schemes? What settings? And what about the anamorphic setting? Does that still apply with current technology?

To make matters worse, answers in forums tend to be vague. They’ll recommend a compression scheme, but when you go to the menu of options, what they mentioned doesn’t appear exactly as they referred to it. Instead, there are four or ten or twelve options it could be. Other times, when you make changes they recommend, the appearance of the video changes drastically; for example, turning on the anamorphic check box in FCP sequence settings squishes the picture, making everyone look short and fat. Do I need to change the shape of the pixels, too?

And what about the contradictions? One guys says do A while another guy says do B, which is completely different.

What I need is a recipe, a starting point, a list of steps that should work. Then, like a chef, I can fine-tune the recipe to see if I can make it any better.

Right now, the challenge is focusing around interlacing. Interlacing is one method of scanning video; progressive is the other. My camera shoots interlaced video. There’s no progressive option. TVs supposedly can de-interlace on the fly; I don’t know if modern HD TVs can, though. Computers can’t. The result is a kind of flicker anywhere there’s motion. Like in a video clip of a cherry orchard filled with trees that have leaves that flutter in the wind. Ugh.

One source says I must de-interlace before the video is downsized to SD for DVD. Another source, supposedly an “expert,” says de-interlacing “doesn’t work.” (WTF does that mean?) How do I know what’s right?

I decided to give it a try. FCP has a de-interlace filter. It took a while to figure out how to use it. FCP’s documentation doesn’t discuss all of its settings, making it just a little bit more challenging to figure out. I wound up running the filter once on the sequence and then again on the same sequence to see if there was any improvement. Here’s a series of three screenshots of a full-sized clip on my iMac monitor:

This is the “before” shot. You can clearly see the interlacing in the picker’s hat:
Interlaced

This is the first “after” shot. In this example, I’ve run the de-interlace filter on the video to remove interlacing. There’s an immediate improvement.
Deinterlaced

This is the second “after” shot. In this example, I ran the de-interlace filter twice. The first time was to remove interlacing (as above) and the second was for “max” flicker removal.
Deinterlaced and Deflickered

I don’t see a difference between the second and third screenshots — do you? I’m assuming the difference would be in motion. But I can’t view both videos at the same time; my computer chokes on the task. (Remember, they’re both 1920×1080 pixels.

And, stepping back to look at the big picture, I’m not even sure I’m supposed to de-interlace this video as part of my workflow. This could be a big waste of time!

If you have experience with this and can advise me, please do. Use the comments link. Also let me know if you know of any good, recent online resources to help me understand HD to SD conversion, interlacing, and anamorphic settings. Reading “how-to” information written 5+ years ago doesn’t help much, given the changes in technology and software capabilities since then.

Tax Time = Torture Time

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How did we let it get like this?

Yesterday, I did my own taxes for the first time in four years.

Understand this: I have a BBA degree in accounting. Having that degree always convinced me that I should do my own taxes. After all, if an accountant can’t do her own taxes, who can?

But back in 2005, my taxes were extremely complex. I sold a rental property and bought a helicopter. There were capital gains and losses and all kinds of weird things. Even though I’d been using TurboTax (and MacInTax) to do my taxes for the previous eight or so years — and doing it manually before that — I didn’t feel up to the task. So I handed it off to my husband’s tax preparer and let him deal with it. I’ve been doing that ever since.

TurboTaxBut after last year’s debacle with a new tax preparer who charged me more than $500, I decided to take matters into my own hands again. I bought TurboTax Home & Business. Yesterday, I sat down in front of my computer to do my taxes and my husband’s.

My husband’s taxes were the warm-up exercise. His taxes should be relatively simple, right? After all, he has an employer and gets a W-2 form. He didn’t buy or sell stocks, he doesn’t operate a business. He didn’t purchase or sell any property during the year. Yet even with the software, it took me two hours to prepare his Federal and State return. And when it was done, he didn’t like the answer and said he’d probably take it to a tax preparer anyway.

As we muddled through the process, however, I realized that my husband knows nothing about tax preparation. He didn’t know what any of the forms were and whether he’d filed them in the past. I’m not talking about those weird forms that only tax geeks know about. I’m talking about common schedules like A and C. He was clueless. For his whole life — and he’s in his 50s now, folks — he’d put his trust in a tax preparer, from his dad to local accountants to Hewett-Jackson. Whatever they told him was golden. He write a check or get a refund and be satisfied. After all, he didn’t have to deal with the bullshit of putting together a tax return.

After “completing” Mike’s return, I sat down to do mine. It took 4-1/2 hours. With a computer and software. And it isn’t as if I had to wade through a pile of papers to get the numbers to input. I use Quicken for my personal and business accounting. It does all the math for me. (It can also export to TurboTax, but I admit that I don’t trust them together for that.)

When I was finished, I saw the final numbers. I have to pay — I nearly always do because I’m too stupid to pay estimated taxes like I should — but the numbers weren’t quite as bad as I expected. (Of course, I had no clue what I’d made last year until I actually sat down to do my tax return.) But what’s mind-boggling to me is the forms TurboTax spit out. Here’s this year’s list:

  • Form 1040-ES Payment Voucher. There are four of these for my estimated payments, which I’m really going to try to send in this year.
  • Form 1040-V Payment Voucher. That’s the one I’m supposed to send in with my big check.
  • Form 1040Form 1040 US Individual Income Tax Return. Yes, it’s the long form. I can’t remember the last time I filed a short form. I may have been a teenager.
  • Schedule A Itemized Deductions. I’ve also been filing this one for years, although I’ve never been able to deduct medical expenses. I suppose I should be glad.
  • Schedule B Interest and Ordinary Dividends. I have a variety of investments that are not tax deferred.
  • Schedule C Profit or Loss from Business. I file two of these: one for my writing and publishing business and one for my helicopter charter business.
  • Schedule D Capital Gains and Losses. I sold some stock at a loss.
  • Schedule E Supplemental Income and Loss. This is for a rental property I own and my royalties on copyrights.
  • Form 8889 Health Savings Accounts. This is one way to deduct medical expenses. Save for them in a special kind of account and deduct your savings, then pay your medical bills with that account.
  • Form 8829 Expenses for Business Use of Your Home. I have an entire room in my home that’s dedicated to the mess I call my office.
  • Form 4562 Depreciation and Amortization. This is for my helicopter and other assets used by Flying M Air.
  • Form 8582 Passive Activity Loss Limitations. Apparently, I can’t deduct the tiny loss on my rental property because I don’t dedicate my life to keeping it occupied. Whatever.
  • Arizona Form 140 Resident Personal Income Tax Return. Arizona needs a piece of my pie, too.
  • Arizona Schedule A Itemized Deduction Adjustments. At least I can deduct my medical expenses in Arizona.

I should be clear here: it didn’t take me 4-1/2 hours to fill in these forms. It took me 4-1/2 hours to enter the raw data that TurboTax needed to fill in the forms. TurboTax did the job in seconds, completing just the forms it thinks I need and spitting them out of my printer as if they’d been typed by hand.

Frankly, I don’t think it’s humanly possible to prepare a tax return like mine by hand anymore.

And that’s my point. There are rules upon rules upon rules to the U.S. tax law. I remember studying taxes back in the early 1980s — it was a nightmare then. It’s even worse now. How frustrating is it to enter line after line of financial details on a worksheet or form just to discover that it won’t impact your taxes because it didn’t total more than 2% of line 38? Or perform a convoluted calculation just to see what percentage is taxable or deductible? Or answer questions regarding child care, home expenses, foreign transactions — the list goes on and on. Four and a half hours worth of questions and answers.

In this stack of paper I’m sending the IRS this week, there must be over 500 different numbers. What do they all mean? Do they really matter?

There’s an entire industry built on the annual torture of U.S. Citizens required to complete tax returns. I bought tax software to make filing my own return possible. It cost me $80 (discounted). Other people pay $50 or more to tax preparers to do the job for them. Hell, I paid $550 to get my taxes prepared last year! (That’s more than some people pay in taxes!)

And why? Because the tax laws are so complex and confusing that people with basic math skills simply can’t do it on their own.

Hello? IRS? Are you listening? Whatever happened to the Paperwork Reduction Act?

Spelling Checkers Don’t Work if You Ignore Them

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Reminding my brain not to block out the red underlines that indicate potential spelling problems.

Check Spelling as You Type has been a built-in feature of many word processors for years. It’s now in most applications I use — including my Web browsers, for Pete’s sake! — and the red squiggly or dotted underlines are an integral part of my writing life.

If you’re not sure what I’m talking about — do you live in a cave? — I’m referring to the feature that indicates when a word you’ve typed may have been spelled wrong. This is supposed to flag the word so you can check and, if necessary, correct it.

A Blessing…

I vaguely remember when this feature first appeared in Microsoft Word years ago. It was a blessing — and a curse.

I initially loved the feature because it often identified my typos. I’m a touch typist and can get up to 80 words per minute when I’m tuned in. But those aren’t always error-free words. Check Spelling as You Type was a great feature for finding typos as I worked, eliminating the need to run a spell check periodically or at the end of document creation.

As you might expect, it also found spelling errors. My spelling was always pretty good, so it usually found more typos than actual spelling mistakes. But that’s okay. An error is an error and I want to remove all of them from my work, whenever I can.

…and a Curse

But over the years, I’ve found some problems with the Check Spelling as You Type feature — and spelling checkers in general.

The feature does not identify all typos or spelling errors as errors. For example, suppose you type bit but you really meant but. A spelling checker doesn’t see any problem with that, so it won’t flag it. That means you can’t depend on a spelling checker to proofread your work. (And yes, in case you’re wondering, a grammar checker would likely identify this as a problem. As well as the sentence you’re reading right now, because it isn’t really a proper sentence. And this one, too.)

So you’ve got a feature that makes you lazy by doing about 90% of the proofreading work for you, as you type. If you neglect to do the other 10% of the proofreading work, you could be very embarrassed — especially if you write professionally and editors expect your work to be error-free.

The unflagged error that zaps me most often? Typing it’s instead of its. At least I know what it’s supposed to be.

It’s worse, however, for people who don’t know the correct word. How many times have you seen people use then instead of than? There instead of they’re or their?

The feature has degraded my spelling skills. In the old days, before spelling checkers, I simply knew how to spell. If I wasn’t sure of the spelling of a word I needed, I looked it up in — can you imagine? — a dictionary. It made it worthwhile for me to actually learn how to spell words. Knowing the proper spelling saved me time in the long run.

But now, I simply type the word as I think it might be spelled and wait to see if it’s flagged. If it is, I use a context menu — Control-click or right click the word — to choose the word I meant to type. Yes, it’s convenient. But I seem to be doing it an awful lot more than I used to use a dictionary.

(Perhaps it’s also expanding my vocabulary by making it easier to use words I’m not as familiar with? There’s something there.)

The feature identifies any word it does not know as a potential spelling error. That means that if your document is filled with jargon, technical terms, place names, or other words that do not appear in a dictionary, those words will be flagged as possible errors. The word unflagged, which appeared earlier in this post, was also flagged. Is it an error? Or does my spelling checker simply not recognize it? Seems like a word to me, so I let it go.

And herein lies my biggest problem: I’m so accustomed to seeing words flagged in my documents that I’ve managed to tune out the red underlines. (It’s kind of like the way we all tune out advertisements on Web pages these days.) This happened to me just the other day. I typed the word emmerse in a blog post. My offline editing tool flagged it with a red dotted underline — as it just did here. But for some reason, I didn’t see it. I published the post with the error in it. A friend of mine, who referred to himself as a “spelling Nazi,” e-mailed me to point out my error. I meant immerse, of course. He knew that. Readers likely knew that. But I got it wrong and I shouldn’t have. How embarrassing!

Spelling Checker

Here’s a look at the spelling check feature in ecto, my offline blog composition tool of choice. It works just like any other spelling checker. (And yes, I do compose in HTML mode.)

The correct way to go about this is to look for every single possible spelling error and resolve it so those red lines go away. That means learning or adding the unknown word so it’s never flagged again or ignoring it so it doesn’t bother you in this document. All of this should be done with the appropriate menu command. Simply telling your brain to ignore a problem just sets you up to be blind to it when it occurs. That’s not how the software was designed to work.

The Point

This post has a point — most of mine do — and here it is: spelling checkers, including any Check Spelling As You Type feature, are only as good as allow them to be. Use them, but don’t depend on them. Follow up on any flagged words and resolve them using the software so the red underlines go away.

Spelling checkers are just a tool. Like any other tool, it won’t help you if you don’t use it correctly.

In Defense of Microsoft Word

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It does the whole job.

About a month ago, I was having trouble with my Mac and decided to head off any serious problems by reformatting my hard disk and reinstalling all my software from original program discs. In the old days, before we all had hard drives measured in gigabytes, I did this every single time there was a major system software update. Nowadays, it’s a lot of work and I avoid doing it if I can. My 24″ iMac is just over a year old and shouldn’t have been giving me problems, but I figured I’d try the reformat before bringing it to a genius. (Turns out, it was the swapping out of 2 GB of RAM for 4 GB of RAM that probably fixed the problem.)

For some reason, I didn’t do a typical install of Microsoft Office 2004. I thought I’d save disk space by omitting the proofing tools for the languages I don’t speak — which is every language except English. Word, which I use daily, worked fine — until I noticed that it wasn’t checking spelling as I type. Although my spelling is above average, I count on Word to put red squiggly underlines under my misspellings and typos. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get this feature to start working.

I sent an update to my Twitter account about this as I went about troubleshooting the problem. The result was an outpouring of suggestions from my Twitter friends for replacing Word or Office with other software, ranging from Open Source Word or Office replacements to Google Docs.

Whoa!

I fixed the problem by uninstalling and then reinstalling Word. Life went on. But it got me thinking about Office and Word and why so many people go out of their way to avoid both.

Word and Me

I should probably start off by saying that I have been using Microsoft Word since 1989 or 1990. Although I got Microsoft Works with my first Mac, I soon learned Word and began teaching it in a classroom setting. It was Word 4 for the Mac in those days; I don’t know what the corresponding version in Windows was because I didn’t use it or teach it. I’m not even sure if Microsoft Windows was a player back then.

I’ve used every version of Word for the Mac since then.

My first book about Microsoft Word was The Macintosh Bible Guide to Word 6. Word 6 sucked. It was a processor hog. I remember working with it in beta as I wrote my book about it. I remember whining to my editor, asking if he thought they’d fix the performance issues before the software went out. They did, but not very well. I disliked Word 6 and the way it handled outlines and “master documents.” Everything seemed to be “embedded.” It seemed as if they’d prettied up Word to look more Mac-like and had done the job by pouring maple syrup all over the inside of my computer, bogging things down.

Word 98 was a vast improvement. From then on, each version of Word was an improvement. The interface remained basically the same but features were added and solidified. Some of the features worked with Microsoft server software, which I didn’t have, didn’t want, and certainly didn’t need. All I cared about was that Word did what I needed it to do, using the same interface I knew from years of experience as a user.

The End of the World as We Know It: Office 2007

Then Office 2007 for Windows came out with its ridiculous “ribbon” interface. What the hell was Microsoft thinking? Take a standardized interface that your existing user base knows by heart and throw it out the window. Force them to learn a whole new interface. Keep telling them that it’s easier and maybe a handful of morons will believe you.

I had to use Office 2007 for two Excel books. The only good thing I can say about it is that the complete, radical interface change — I’m talking menus vs. ribbon here, not spreadsheet basics — made a book about the software necessary. How else would users figure out how to get the job done? Fortunately (for users, not authors) Office 2007 adoption is slow.

Woe is Me: Office 2008

Word 2008 Splash ScreenOf course, I’m a Mac user and use the Mac version of Office. I held my breath when Office 2008 came out. Thank heaven they didn’t get rid of the menu bar — although I don’t understand how they could. Office 2008 retains much of the Office 2004 interface. It just adds what Microsoft calls “Element Galleries” and the usual collection of features that 1% of the computing world cares about. Fortunately, you can ignore them and continue using Office applications with the same old menus and shortcut keys we all know.

I would have switched to Office 2008 — I even had it installed on my MacBook Pro — except for two things:

  • Its default document formats are not compatible with versions of office prior to Office 2007. That means someone using Word 2003 for Windows or Word 2004 for Mac can’t open my documents unless I save them in an Office 2004-compatible format. This isn’t a huge deal, but it is something I’d have to remember every single time I saved a document. I’d also have to remember not to use any Office feature that only worked with Office 2007 or 2008.
  • It does not support Visual Basic Macros. One of my publishers makes me use a manuscript template that’s chock-full of these macros. Can’t access the macros, can’t use the template. Can’t use the template, can’t use Office 2008.

(I wrote about these frustrations extensively in a Maria’s Guides article.)

So I’m apparently stuck with Office 2004 — at least for a while.

But do you know what? I’m perfectly happy with it.

Why I Like Word

I like Word. I really do. It does everything I need it to do and it does it well.

Sure, it has a bunch of default options that are set stupidly. I wrote about how to set them more intelligently in an article for Informit.com. (Read “Three Ways Word Can Drive You Crazy[er] and What You Can Do About Them.”) It certainly includes far more features than the average writer needs or uses. And despite what Microsoft might tell you, it’s probably not the best tool for page layout (I prefer InDesign) or mail merge (I prefer FileMaker Pro). But it does these things if you need to.

I use all of the basic word processing features. I use the spelling checker — both as I type and to correct errors. I like smart cut and paste, although I have the ridiculous Paste Options button turned off. I like AutoComplete and love AutoCorrect (when set up properly). I use all kinds of formatting, including paragraph and character styles, tables, and bulleted lists. I rely on the outlining features when preparing to write a book or script for video training material. I use the thesaurus occasionally when I can’t get my mind around the exact word I’m looking for, although the word I want is usually not listed.

I’ve used some of the advanced features, such as table of contents generation, indexing, and cross-references. These are great document automation features. Trouble is, I don’t usually use Word to create documents that require these features. I use InDesign for laying out my books, which are usually illustrated. (And I admit that I’m looking forward to trying out the new cross-referencing feature in InDesign CS4 for my next book.)

I don’t jump on board with every new Word feature. I prefer the Formatting toolbar over the Formatting Palette. I write in Normal view rather than Page Layout view. I create my own templates but don’t use the ones that come with Word.

I don’t use the grammar checker; I think it’s a piece of crap designed for people who know neither grammar nor writing style. I don’t like URLs formatted as links. (Who the hell wants links underlined in printed documents?) I don’t use any of the Web publishing features; I’d rather code raw HTML than trust Word to do it for me. I very seldom insert images or objects or anything other than text in my documents. I have InDesign for serious layout work. I don’t use wizards. WordArt is UglyI think WordArt is ugly and amateurish. I keep the silly Office Assistant feature turned off.

I admit that I don’t use any of the project features that work with Entourage — although I’d like to. I decided a while back to switch to Apple’s e-mail, calendar, and contact management solutions (Mail, iCal, and Address Book respectively) because they’d synchronize with .Mac (now MobileMe) and my Treo. Entourage probably does this now, but I really don’t feel like switching again. Am still thinking about this.

The point is, I use a bunch of Word features and I completely ignore a bunch of others. The features are there if I need them but, in Word 2004, they’re not in your face, screaming for attention. (Wish I could say the same about Word 2008.)

iWork with Apple Computers

iWork '09Lots of people think that just because I’m a Macintosh user — an enthusiast, in fact — I should be using Apple’s business productivity solution: iWork. For a while, I thought so, too.

I own iWork ’08. I just bought iWork ’09. I’ve tried Pages. I’ve really tried Pages. I wanted to use it. I wanted to break free of Microsoft Word.

But old habits are hard to break. No matter how much I tried to use Pages each time I needed to create a document, when I was rushed, I reached for Word. No learning curve — I already know it. After a while, I just stopped trying to use Pages.

Why Use a Bunch of One Trick Ponies?

I know a bunch of writers who swear by one software program or another for meeting their writing needs. They use special outliners to create outlines. They use special “writing software” that covers the entire screen with a blank writing surface so they’re not distracted by other things on their desktops. They use special software to brainstorm, footnote, and index.

I’ve tried these solutions and do you know what? They don’t make my life easier. Instead, they just give me another piece of software to learn and keep up to date and interface with other software. They make more work for me.

I’m not going to forget my Word skills and Word isn’t going to suddenly disappear off the face of the planet anytime soon. In fact, it’s far more likely for one of these one-trick ponies to disappear than a powerhouse with millions of users worldwide like Microsoft Office.

Thought PatternI remember ThoughtPattern, a program by Bananafish Software. I saw it demoed at a Macworld Expo in the early 1990s and thought it was the greatest thing in the world for organizing my thoughts and ideas. I was sure it would make me a better writer. I was so convinced, I bought it — and it wasn’t cheap. I used it for a while and rather liked it. Evidently, I was one of very few people who’d joined the ThoughtPattern revolution. In April 1993, it was discontinued. I was left with software that wouldn’t work with subsequent versions of the Macintosh system software. Worst of all, the documents I created with ThoughtPattern were in their own proprietary format. When the software stopped working, the contents of those documents were lost. (Do you think it was easy to find a screenshot from software that was discontinued 16 years ago?)

So perhaps you can understand my aversion to one-trick ponies that promise a better writing experience.

Will the same thing happen with Microsoft Word? I don’t think so.

I Don’t Compute in the Cloud

Google Docs was one of the solutions suggested to me by my Twitter friends. I guess they think it’s better to avoid the evil Microsoft empire in favor of the “we’re not evil” Google empire. Along the way, I should give up the interface and features I know from almost 20 years of experience with the software and rely on an online application that could change its interface daily. Oh, yeah — and keep my documents on someone else’s computer.

Yeah. Right. Good idea.

Not.

Until I’m part of a multinational corporation that requires its employees and consultants to keep all their documents on some remote server for collaboration purposes, I will not be computing in the cloud.

One of the things I like about keeping my documents on my own computer — rather than a remote server accessible by the Internet — is that the Internet is not always available. What do I do then? Stop working?

Security is an issue, too. While I don’t usually write much of a confidential nature, I don’t like the idea of not having control over my documents. Servers get hacked. I don’t want my work suddenly accessible to people who I don’t want seeing it.

I will admit that I use MobileMe’s iDisk feature to keep some documents on an Apple server. This makes it a tiny bit easier to access them from my laptop when I’m away from home. But I’ve recently moved to a new strategy. I bought a pocket hard drive that’s bigger than my computer’s Home folder. Before I hit the road with my laptop on a trip for business or pleasure, I sync this portable drive with my Home folder. I then have every single document on my computer with me when I’m away. The added benefit: complete offsite backup.

That’s My Case

That’s my defense of Microsoft Word. I rest my case.

Please understand that I’m not trying to convince a non-Word user to switch to Word. If you’re happy with something else, stick with it! That’s the precise reason I’m sticking with Word. I’m happy with it.

I guess the reason I wrote this post was to assure other people like me that there’s no reason to be ashamed of being a Word user. You do what’s right for you. There’s nothing really wrong with Word. If it makes your life easier, why switch?