Word equations and Word macros are the most convoluted, bastardized ways to accomplish a task I have ever seen. What makes the macros worse is how susceptible they are to hacking which thus makes documents depending on them also not portable. Won’t comment on equations because I won’t use them.
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Got a major blast of nostalgia from this. Thanx!
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I’ve been using Word continuously (although not exclusively) since 1985. My first encounter was the DOS version. At the time it was by far the most powerful word processor available on the DOS machines in use at my company. Instead of the system character set, it somehow used a custom font that was easier to read, and displayed real italics and bold on a DOS screen. I liked it from the start.
My first Mac was an SE/30 that my wife and I bought in 1990. (This was also the first computer we had in our house). I used that computer while in grad school, and eventually bought a used first-generation LaserWriter as well. It was a fantastic setup for writing. I agree that Word 5.1 was the best version on that machine; Word 6 was so bad that I uninstalled it and used 5.1 until the machine died in 1997.
Since then I’ve used many different Macs and Windows machines, but always Word.
The program has had its ups and downs, but I am pleased with the design and layout of the most recent 365 version.
I cannot think of another program that I’ve used for 38 years. I guess like Tonya, I know the way the program thinks, which allows me to just think about what I’m writing.
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Good evening!
I am a little bit late but I would like to add my 2 cents.
Word 4 / 5.1 allowed chaining files for the page numbering, TOC, index, and printing. The main reason were presumably technical constraints but for a book-length long text this is still a preferable way to do it: separate chapters / sections into files which can be edited without a disturbing influence across the whole book / text.
But the best function was the ability to edit the footnote separation line on the second page if the footnote could not fit on one page.
Still, in the spring 1993 I switched to Nisus 3.06-040. I still must use Word occasionally but I prefer to write in BBEdit, Mellel and now also or again in Nisus Wirter Pro.
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LibreOffice (a fork of the Open Office suite with a native Mac UI) will open old Word files from the 1990s. It’s been very useful for me for accessing research notes I took back then.
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