What do you mean "a" word processor?


Word is not necessarily my word processor of choice. A more accurate description might be that it's my word processor by default. Most (probably almost all) Israelis identify Word as the only word processor, hardly knowing that there are others (though many have probably heard stories about Einstein from long ago). I have a copy of Open Office which has a more than passable word processor which I'd be happy to try and even use, but doing so raises two not insurmountable, but all the same real, problems.

Even assuming that learning to use a different word processor is not a particularly difficult task, it would still take time, and that's time that would better be spent writing - or doing other necessary work related tasks. It's been a very long time since I last tried out a new program simply because I wanted to see how it worked. I need a better reason than that for investing the time.

And because Word is pretty much the only word processor in use in Israel, I'd be opening myself up to numerous compatibility problems. Though I'm sure that Open Office overcomes problems of this sort quite easily (using RTF as a generic saving format, for instance) I'm less worried about difficulties that I might encounter, and more concerned about whether this might be a stumbling block for the people with whom I share documents. Sadly, it becomes easier to simply stick to Word. We can at least be consoled by the fact that most of the people using it probably didn't pay for it.



Go to: Tools I've known and loved ... and often abandoned.