Windows 11 is dying....

[Analog Kid]

One of the pitfalls is trying to use a word processor to do (complicated) layouts. A word processor is for creating documents, not desktop publishing.

I agree, but MS Word gets pretty close if you use frames and text boxes.

I can attest to Micro$oft Word being an excellent tool for writing lengthy manuals.

That was my job at the company I worked for in the 1990s, writing user manuals (plus other stuff) for our products, media duplication systems.

I started out using Ventura Publisher, which was kinda-sorta OK for producing manuals, but clearly deficient in many ways.
I even had kind of a direct line to Rick Altman, who was the reigning Ventura guru at the time, since my boss knew him. Rick gave me some very helpful pointers.

But then I thought: why not give Word a spin? I had rejected that program out of hand, thinking it wasn't up to the job. I was surprised to find that I was wrong, and that it was even better in most respects than Ventura. So I switched.

Now this was the earlier version of Word that shipped with the Office that came with Windoze 2000. It was powerful, but also buggy: I remember several times opening my document and finding that all the dozens of pictures I had put in were replaced by boxes with a big red "X" in it. Goddamn it, have to replace all those pics! (This no longer happens with Word.)

My manuals all had tables of contents and indexes which were auto-generated by Word, as well as in-text references (e.g., "see page XX"). Very powerful. Many, many pictures, all with captions, some with graphic callouts, as well as text boxes used for pointers. Once you get used to the somewhat strange formatting capabilities you can do practically anything with Word. Almost as much as, say, with something like Adobe InDesign.

My complaint about the current Word that I use (Word 2003) is that Micro$oft boogered up the user interface, which was laid out just right in the previous version. Typical.

Oh, and I was able to take advantage of Word macros, another very powerful capability.

[BrianHG]

One of the pitfalls is trying to use a word processor to do (complicated) layouts. A word processor is for creating documents, not desktop publishing.

I agree, but MS Word gets pretty close if you use frames and text boxes.

I can attest to Micro$oft Word being an excellent tool for writing lengthy manuals.

I'm using it too.  It is the only one which works properly with my patent agent's files and our highlighted group edit tracking.  Every time I tried using using another word processor such as OpenOffice, tables and page breaks/margins got messed up, highlight colors and editor notes always get all messed up when I try to save it as a .docx.

Though I am using an old offline MS-Word and MS-Excel, I would have to say the original products are very capable.  I do not know about the new online junk, but I can take a guess.

[Tation]

Former hard user of LaTeX here. Thanks to it learned the benefits of separating content from format, and thanks to it now able to use MSWord in a way that produces complex and pretty documents in a simple and painless way. OK, (La)TeX may be perfect, but also a pain in the arse if you want or need to do anything different from using a pre-canned template.

In any case, lately the complexity of the documents I must produce has decreased and now Markdown is enough much of the time (and Typora is a md editor I like. Available in Win/Linux/Mac, not free, but affordable and single payment. In fact it is the only non free software in my Linux machines).

[tatel]

Why do you want to "escape Windows"? It sounds too emotional, too irrational. The apps are where the work gets done, not the OS. And the apps in the Windows world are, in general, better than Linux apps. Why? Because Windows users are willing and accustomed to pay for software, whereas Linux users pretty much insist that their software must be free.

Sorry for the late answer, I just don't feel this matter is worth my time. So didn't check this thread in some days.

I want to escape windows because I don't want to pay for being screwed. Like, having to sign into a microsoft account, being fed with publicity or spied upon. Also I don't want to use any antivirus software. An so on. May be you don't care about these things, but I do.

What about buying an Ipad that couldn't open a PDF, because Steve Jobs hoped to earn more money that way? As you can see, this isn't just about windows. I was a MacOS guy before discovering Linux. If you were in the printing business in 1990, you got a Mac.

OTOH, when I discovered what one could do with the command line, my productivity got about a 10.000% impulse. Any Linux program, even GUI ones, can be called from the command line, and set to do things automatically the way you want. I know, you think that's a geeky thing. And following your thinking, I guess geeky things are bad things. Wrong.

If you need to apply, say, a sharpen mask and resize some hundreds-thousands pictures, having to do one by one is a very big PITA. One can craft a little script in about 20 lines of shell code that will do it all for you. Just an example. No need to look for any app able to work with batches. Just make an script to send the commands you want to your app. So I'm all for that (and others) type of geeky things. I guess, that's not your case. Fine.

The biggest microsoft success was to sink Nokia, i think. IIRC, it was the number1 cell phone OEM back then? Put windows on them ant down the drain it goes. The most unforeseeable thing 20 years ago was desktop PC becoming a niche, down from mainstream. That's the only niche where windows remains leader. And losing market share with each new version. There's a reason for that. So much for you 1.4 billion users argument.

Come on, man. Get over it and give us a break.

Well, that's enough from me on this matter. Your arguments only reflect your bias towards windows and can't be taken seriously.

Have a nice day.

[SteveThackery]

I have been using Apache OpenOffice for years and it's MS word compatible. It's basically a clone of MS Office with most of the same features. I'm running it on windows right now but have also loaded it on a Linux system/Raspberry Pi.

https://www.openoffice.org/

I tried it a long time ago, so I can't remember what put me off it now. Now that I've paid SoftMaker I must resist the temptation to keep trialling other options. 😄

By the way, there is this in Wikipedia:

"As of July 2025, the Apache Software Foundation has classed its security status as "red" with multiple unfixed security issues over a year old."

[SteveThackery]

I can't dump MS Office altogether, though, because I'm a serious fan of OneNote, and nobody has come close to cloning it.

Are you using it for handwriting?
Xournal++!

Yes. It offers an infinite sheet upon which I can put handwriting, typed text, pictures, voice notes, hyperlinks, diagrams. It will OCR text in pictures and my handwriting in the background. It has vector drawing tools... Basically I think it is brilliant. However, I will take a serious look at Xournal++. Thanks for the tip. 👍😀

[shapirus]

I have been using Apache OpenOffice for years and it's MS word compatible. It's basically a clone of MS Office with most of the same features. I'm running it on windows right now but have also loaded it on a Linux system/Raspberry Pi.

https://www.openoffice.org/

BTW LibreOffice is a fork of OpenOffice, which in turn was a successor of StarOffice.

Apparently at some point OpenOffice started to be considered not good enough from the whatever kind of purity standpoint, so they had to fork it.

[paulca]

GIMP = GNU Image Manipulation Program

It's really not the same kind of application as "Paint".  It has got freehand tools, but they are not really for drawing, they are for masks, overlays, tints, burns, etc. while editiing images/photos.

I tried to use it for drawing things and quickly gave up.

For image processing I moved to RawTherapee though.

For basic diagrams I use "dia". 

[SteveThackery]

And losing market share with each new version. There's a reason for that. So much for you 1.4 billion users argument.
<... >
Your arguments only reflect your bias towards windows and can't be taken seriously.

I think it's more true to say that I'm biased towards Windows applications, and that is based on years testing out various Linux distros, most frequently Mint.

I haven't explored the command line much at all, but your description does sound impressive. I wonder if the Windows equivalent has any similar functionality.

Is it true that Windows is losing market share? It rules only on the desktop, and I haven't seen a massive move towards Linux or MacOS in that segment. And although you are sniffy about the 1.4 billion number, it is still a seriously big number.

[Zero999]

Apparently at some point OpenOffice started to be considered not good enough from the whatever kind of purity standpoint, so they had to fork it.

That's not true. A bit of history:

Star Office's developers (Star Division) was purchased by Sun Microsystems, because it was cheaper for them to buy the whole company, rather than an MS Office licence for all of their employees. They then decided to release an open source version, OpenOffice.org, whilst selling the propitiatory Star Office.

Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems who abandoned the development of OpenOffice.org and discontinued Star Office. The voluntary developers forked it and continued working on it under LibreOffice. They couldn't use the name OpenOffice.org because Oracle owned the trademark.

Oracle donated OpenOffice.org to the Apache Software Foundation, who continued working on it, under the Apache OpenOffice name.

Well, that's enough from me on this matter. Your arguments only reflect your bias towards windows and can't be taken seriously.

Have a nice day.

Being objective. Both of your arguments are emotional and that's not a bad thing.

[Siwastaja]

WYSIWYG sucks. Works well for super simple one or two-page documents only. LaTeX is the ultimate solution.

WYSIWYG: Can't get images where you want them, can't get text flow like you want it. Fight and rage click randomly for 30 minutes until satisfied. Then don't touch anything.

LaTeX: Can't get images where you want them, can't get text flow like you want it. Google for Stack Overflow posts and apply them randomly, only to see nothing works and there are 9001 different ways to achieve what you want. Find snarky comments that you are not even supposed to choose where you want your images and how your text flows. It is apparently fine and normal that a Figure related to text on page 9 is on page 36. Finally, one of the proposed solutions nearly works and you spent half a day.

I'm back to WYSIWYG editors. Yes, they suck almost as much as LaTeX but not quite.

[nctnico]

One of the pitfalls is trying to use a word processor to do (complicated) layouts. A word processor is for creating documents, not desktop publishing.

I agree, but MS Word gets pretty close if you use frames and text boxes.

I can attest to Micro$oft Word being an excellent tool for writing lengthy manuals.

I'm using it too.  It is the only one which works properly with my patent agent's files and our highlighted group edit tracking.  Every time I tried using using another word processor such as OpenOffice, tables and page breaks/margins got messed up, highlight colors and editor notes always get all messed up when I try to save it as a .docx.

Though I am using an old offline MS-Word and MS-Excel, I would have to say the original products are very capable.  I do not know about the new online junk, but I can take a guess.

Google docs works excellent for collaborating on documents. You can work on the same document with multiple people at the same time. It has been made for collaboration from the ground up.

[ebastler]

WYSIWYG: Can't get images where you want them, can't get text flow like you want it. Fight and rage click randomly for 30 minutes until satisfied. Then don't touch anything.

I find that, when I always use the pre-defined formats in Word (headlines, pictures, figure legends...) and adapt them to my needs, I get consistent and predictable outcomes.

I do adjust the position of larger figures and tables relative to the text manually, to ensure they are in meaningful positions and don't cause stupid page breaks -- which means I might have to move them slightly when revisions make the text significantly longer or shorter. It would be neat to have an automatic formatting option to "keep this figure as close as possible to text marker X, while maintaining good text flow across page boundaries". Maybe that option even exists. But the need for manual adjustments arises rarely enough for me not to care...

[Siwastaja]

The biggest microsoft success was to sink Nokia, i think.

Well, Nokia was already spiraling to death at that point due to earlier mistakes (and to be fair, keeping that sort of company running when technology changes all the time and you need to react correct and timely, is not easy task at all). Just maybe it could have been saved (as a large scale mobile phone manufacturer) with some genius-level management changes, but Microsoft involvement was obviously a conscious decision to do the opposite: to kill it deliberately, pull the plug so to speak.

And "being nasty" is definitely in Microsoft's DNA.

IMHO doing anything just to be able to avoid using Microsoft products is morally a sensible thing to do; I won't make fun about those "linux fanboys" whose primary motivation of using linux is only to avoid Microsoft, even though my motivation isn't. I'm pragmatic enough to keep using MS products when I clearly see the benefit of doing so. So I'm closer to the mindset of Torvald's himself: linux happens to quite suitable for the things I do with a computer, it's not an anti-MS statement.

But for some, it is, and that's alright.

One thing in this linux vs. Windows discussion is forgetting the Mac ecosystem. Many of those supposedly "Windows-only" programs (as enumerated in this thread) are available on Mac and work well there, in fact some were originally considered Mac-only (even though Windows versions existed, but professionals did not prefer to use them) - basically all related to photography, publishing, video editing etc. But clearly Apple lost some of the professional market dominance there.

[PlainName]

WYSIWYG sucks. Works well for super simple one or two-page documents only. LaTeX is the ultimate solution.

WYSIWYG: Can't get images where you want them, can't get text flow like you want it. Fight and rage click randomly for 30 minutes until satisfied. Then don't touch anything.

LaTeX: Can't get images where you want them, can't get text flow like you want it. Google for Stack Overflow posts and apply them randomly, only to see nothing works and there are 9001 different ways to achieve what you want. Find snarky comments that you are not even supposed to choose where you want your images and how your text flows. It is apparently fine and normal that a Figure related to text on page 9 is on page 36. Finally, one of the proposed solutions nearly works and you spent half a day.

I'm back to WYSIWYG editors. Yes, they suck almost as much as LaTeX but not quite.

Laughed out loud to that one. Sorry if I disturbed anyone!

I think there are really two issues here that we see also in programming. First is that driving via text (a la LaTex) was the only choice since there were really no graphics around, and certainly no WYSIWYG. It's not that it was better; it was the only choice.

But WYSIWYG suffers from the author/developer thinking at the WYSIWYG level. That is, if there is a paragraph that needs particular formatting, it is so easy to just highlight it and apply the format. Eventually the document becomes an unwieldy mess of local formats, probably all the same be treated individually. In programming, the equivalent would be a button place on a form which, when clicked, causes some action to be performed. So the developer places the button where it should be, makes it look nice (the same as every other button like that, but with its own custom values), and then puts the action code in the OnClick event.

tl;dr: I think the mindset that could utilise LaTex is needed to properly use WYSIWYG tools, and WYSIWYG mitigates against that.

[ebastler]

Well, Nokia was already spiraling to death at that point due to earlier mistakes (and to be fair, keeping that sort of company running when technology changes all the time and you need to react correct and timely, is not easy task at all). Just maybe it could have been saved (as a large scale mobile phone manufacturer) with some genius-level management changes, but Microsoft involvement was obviously a conscious decision to do the opposite: to kill it deliberately, pull the plug so to speak.

Do you really think so? To me it seemed like an honest attempt to rescue two losing technology positions:

Nokia had great phones with buttons, but the future was in touch-screen-only devices. Microsoft had a desktop OS with huge market share, but an increasing user base was moving to mobile devices. So a joint effort to "re-invent" Nokia phones with a Microsoft touch UI seemed like a worthwhile effort.

The fact that it was not well-executed, and maybe was too late to stand a chance in a market already dominated by Apple and Android, is another matter. But "kill it deliberately"? How would MS have expected to benefit from that?

[madires]

I have been using Apache OpenOffice for years and it's MS word compatible. It's basically a clone of MS Office with most of the same features. I'm running it on windows right now but have also loaded it on a Linux system/Raspberry Pi.

Better move on to LibreOffice as OpenOffice is basically dead (on life support).

[SteveThackery]

One thing in this linux vs. Windows discussion is forgetting the Mac ecosystem. Many of those supposedly "Windows-only" programs (as enumerated in this thread) are available on Mac and work well there, in fact some were originally considered Mac-only (even though Windows versions existed, but professionals did not prefer to use them) - basically all related to photography, publishing, video editing etc. But clearly Apple lost some of the professional market dominance there.

I considered moving into the Apple ecosystem. At risk of over-simplifying: Windows has the widest choice of applications, Apple has the best quality applications, and Linux has mostly free-of-charge applications. I was put off by the "walled garden" business model Apple employs, even though that works great for very many users. I prefer to specify and build my own PC, and then select my OS. Can't do that with Apple kit.

[SteveThackery]

Nokia had great phones with buttons, but the future was in touch-screen-only devices. Microsoft had a desktop OS with huge market share, but an increasing user base was moving to mobile devices. So a joint effort to "re-invent" Nokia phones with a Microsoft touch UI seemed like a worthwhile effort.

The fact that it was not well-executed, and maybe was too late to stand a chance in a market already dominated by Apple and Android, is another matter. But "kill it deliberately"? How would MS have expected to benefit from that?

I agree - it surely wasn't part of the plan because Microsoft faced a big write-down that year which must have pissed off the shareholders.

By the way, I might be the only person on the planet who thought Windows Phone 7 was excellent, verging on outstanding. It was the bravest thing I've ever seen a phone manufacturer do. Apple iPhone and Android phones were then - and remain to this day - unimaginative and boring. Windows Phone 7 on my Nokia 1520 was profoundly, radically different and I loved it. I mourn its passing.

Microsoft made two arguments: firstly, there is only room for two ecosystems in the mobile phone market, and they were too late to take number 2. Secondly, the fundamental architecture of the Windows Phone OS wasn't sufficiently scalable and flexible to handle apps with high functionality and a large feature set. I strongly disagree with that second point: I think it could have been if they'd invested more effort into it.

[SteveThackery]

I have been using Apache OpenOffice for years and it's MS word compatible. It's basically a clone of MS Office with most of the same features. I'm running it on windows right now but have also loaded it on a Linux system/Raspberry Pi.

Better move on to LibreOffice as OpenOffice is basically dead (on life support).

Or SoftMaker Office if you want a cleaner and more modern UI. The downside is it's not free (but it is very cheap).

[m k]

I'm in a lucky position, it's me who is mainly sending stuff and for other direction I can always ask PDFs.
So I'm fine with LibreOffice and GIMP, but for personal reasons PDF reader must still be from Mordor.

For professionals a new MS Office is a must if it is in use.
For vector graphics new PDF capability is also a must.

One problem is that generally people can't really use their OS.
They can use the application, but anything after that starts being out of bounds.
One major bad thing was hiding an extension of a filename.

[PlainName]

The downside is it's not free (but it is very cheap)

Does it require online activation?

I am thinking about if/when the company goes bust or otherwise goes AWOL. Also part of the reason why subscriptions, even at £24/yr, are bad news: you  can be arbitrarily prevented from using something you rely upon.

[paulca]

The topic of "command line" came up.  Command line / shell is all about repeatability.  Repeatability lends to script able which lends to automation.  Even just hitting "UP" a few times to recall a previous command (or history | grep thing and a !1234 bang to rerun).

Automating a pointy-cilcky-draggy-droppy interface is not really worth doing, well outside of large commercial applications with macros etc.

As a software dev I am not the "average" user, but the basic tooling include a CLI or some form.

On Linux I use "Konsole" to have a multi-pane, multi-tab command line and "bash".
On Windows I use "git bash", which comes with the "git" package.  It gives me a pretty functional bash shell on windows.  For anything more involved there is WSL if you can't use a remote VM instead.
On Mac it defaults to zsh, but it's easy enough to just run "bash" or set the default to bash.

[Tation]

Or SoftMaker Office if you want a cleaner and more modern UI. The downside is it's not free (but it is very cheap).

"very cheap" is an subjective concept. For me, 49.99 €/year is not cheap at all for a cleaner and more modern UI.

[tatel]

Being objective. Both of your arguments are emotional and that's not a bad thing.

Well you are free to think so. But, even if that's not a bad thing, please note i, some time ago, recommended on this forum, to have some windows machine(s) for things like ...electronics, just because many times you can't drive some interesting gadget with linux.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/general-computing/ee-bench-pc-what-os-suggestions/msg5624037/#msg5624037

Now, for use as an EE bench system, you already learned that many devices have Windows-only firmware. You can use virtualbox; it has settings to connect to different peripherals out of the virtual machine. This means another learning curve however. Or you could have a dual-boot system and restart into the system you need at any moment. But, IMO, to have another machine for windows is the handiest thing to do. Usually we have more than a PC, and to have and old PC with, say, windows XP/7 and even perhaps another one with 10/11to be started if/when needed will probably be the most trouble-free way to go. Assuming you have the space in your workshop, of course

I still have that PowerBook G3 I paid an unholy amount of money for in 1998. The reason? "Desktop publishing" with QuarkXPress. WYSYWIG, absolute control of anything: picture placement, flow text, etc, etc. That's what was used professionally on any company in the printing business in the 90s. So perhaps I shouldn't say "desktop publishing", but i used it for that, for years. I still haven't found anything even near as good. I didn't need to do that, for more than a decade, but it's still there (should check if it still boots i guess)

About LaTex: working as IT guy for a music school, they choosed a LaTex based software for music sheets. They tried any WYSYWIG software I could suggest to them, but all were defective in some way. But the LaTex based one did the job perfectly at each test. So they hired a guy and trained him in LaTex just for that.

BTW, IIRC, LaTex was also used by Therion https://therion.speleo.sk This is the cave mapping software i mentioned on a previous post. It was sewed together by two Czech guys using what was available in Linux. The result is a software that saves you a lot of work each time you close a loop in your centreline. Before, you had to redraw by hand all the contours effected by the error in your centreline, error that can't be found until you close a loop. Perhaps your error was just a few meters, but you had to redraw. With Therion this doesn't matter: even if the error is big, the cavity countours you draw with therion around your centreline, are automatically adapted to the new corrected centreline.

Yes, it was geeeky and the first time i tried it, i failed miserably. Had to ask for help in their forum. But after a couple hints, it was easy, and saved me from little to huge amounts of work, more than once, all the time I remained young and slim enough to consider caving worth my weekend time. So, viva las vegas los geeks

Call me emotional if you wish, but I'm all for anything that can do what I want with less work and best results. This seems quite objective to me.