Apple's last WORD

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macridah

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Here's an article from MacWhispers that reports: Apple's Microsoft Word Killer:

"Information from a variety of sources reports that Apple is near a beta release of their long-rumored professional word processing application. Details of the software are fascinating.

The new package, said to be named "Document," includes 100% import and export functionality with Microsoft Word files, but goes much farther than that venerable word processor has ever managed in giving the user a full-scope document development environment (a term used by one of our sources in describing the new product).

It is said that Apple Document will draw heavily from the experience gained within the KeyNote development team, but has been a completely independent project within Apple. And, many of the rich feature concepts evident in KeyNote will also be present in Document, with full implementation of the Aqua interface and of Quartz graphics, including anti-aliased text.

Sources say that Document will seamlessly import and export components in a large number of formats, from Word, Excel, and Photoshop, among others. And, most interesting is a report that it will also provide many alternate output format choices, including advanced .PDF (with selectable compression), several levels of HTML (including DHTML), a wide assortment of multimedia formats, and will provide easy to use tools for adding XML tags to documents."

crossing my fingers for this one! Hopefully by MWNY
 
once they release Document. im sure the first thing ill do is drag microsoft office to the trash :)
if they are truely going to bring such a project to us. i seriously cant wait;)
 
i dont hate it personally. i find office for mac good :) i hate the pc version for word :)
and im sure that any apple office project will be much better than MS office !
and i hate MS because it doesnt help ppl. it makes their lives more difficult. their programs have problems. not secure. not stable. hard 2 use. they just trouble every1 instead of help them get do more complicated stuff faster:)
 
I hate it because it's to much. Maybe i just haven't taken the time to learn it properly. It seems like they created the program to help me only it doesn't listen to me. It just does what it thinks i want.

Twister
 
Word is nice for simple documents, but it's a joke with more complex documents, like legal contracts. It's difficult, but it works, but all of a sudden it ruins your complete document and there's no way to get it right again, no logic will help you. The Windows-version won't help either. You can't really depend on it. Although currently there isn't much else to choose from, if you want compatibility with .doc. That's the biggest problem, their .doc-format. Once they leave that real competition can have a chance.
 
What type of problems? I have never had one in all my essays/presentations/spreadsheets etc. Not a crash, not anything?

Come to think of it my computer illetarete girlfriend jumped onto excel and designed a calculating home budget in a arvo?
 
Langley, try to write a real document... a few 10th of pages, with numbered images and formulas, tables and cross references, you'll understand where the limitations of Word are !

The only real solution is FrameMaker. Much more expensive, but that's a real editor. Or the less user friendly but also very efficient Tex-Latex.
 
I always have issues with tabs. If i wan't to tab someting it it automatically puts numbers or bullets or something. It tries to do what it thinks i'm doing only im not doing what it's thinking. Kinda hard to explain though.
 
Twister, these are small problems: you can disable these automatic features.

The real problem is that Word under heavy usage is not stable.
 
The main reason I use Word is for compatibility. I deal with a lot of PC clients and I can't be jerking around with file formats.

If Document is truly compatibile in and out, that's great...for now, but what happens when Microsoft releases the next version of Word and breaks compatibility? You think that's not going to happen to some extent?

Word is more than adequate for my needs. I'll switch to Document (if it really exists) only if it is as compatible as it seems and to support Apple/OS X.
 
Originally posted by chevy
Twister, these are small problems: you can disable these automatic features.

The real problem is that Word under heavy usage is not stable.
Click to expand...

I knew it was probably my problem not words, but still, i don't care for it. ;)
 
Originally posted by Langley
What type of problems? I have never had one in all my essays/presentations/spreadsheets etc. Not a crash, not anything?

Come to think of it my computer illetarete girlfriend jumped onto excel and designed a calculating home budget in a arvo?
Click to expand...
Clearly you have never written a paper with more structure than simple paragraphs. If you try to edit even a simple enumerated or bulleted list using M$ Word, you will quickly discover what a productivity killer it is.

Word becomes a lot friendlier once you turn the automatic formatting off. The question arises then: "Why is this stuff on by default?" Well, if it were off by default, it would never be turned on and never be used by the vast majority of Word users.
 
What I dislike about Word is how it is always changing fonts on me. I will be writing a paper and switching back and forth, pasting quotes, numbers and pictures from various webpages and other documents and Word always starts changing the font size, style, etc. on me.

Other than that, and the fact that it just lost a paper for me last semester that cost me a grade, I like Word quite well. (I'm not bitter ... well yeah I am.)
 
What is interesting is the question if it will be released for windows. would that be a good or a bad thing? And what would uncle Bill do?
Good: it could weaken the word-standard, and give apple some big bucks. Easier to get people to switch when they have started to use appleproducts. like the iPod.

Bad: it's a nice thing to wave infront of pc-users to get them to switch. if it's only on mac.
 
Originally posted by Langley
What type of problems? I have never had one in all my essays/presentations/spreadsheets etc. Not a crash, not anything?

Come to think of it my computer illetarete girlfriend jumped onto excel and designed a calculating home budget in a arvo?
Click to expand...


At my university I have been working as support staff/system administrator in a computer room with 40 G3 PowerMacs. And I can tell you at one point I just had to stop counting how many students came running after me because Word f*$@ed up their essays/papers/documents. And the only way to get anything out of corrupted Word docs is to wade through them with a text editor like BBEdit. Hours of formatting gone up in smoke. In fact, at least 2/3 of all support incidents were somehow related to M$ Office. That's the type of problem the Mac world is experiencing with M$ software.
 
Nice news :)
Now all we need is an Excel type of application ;)
My university/job still is M$ dominatrixed so I would still use Office at work, but I would probably use the Apple suite at home if it were good enough. My boss got KeyNote which he used and he said it wasn't as fully featured as Powerpoint as he thought (he is a machead although the university is forcing his hand on the PC fire) and he expected it to overcome powerpoint. I hope both apps (Document and KeyNote excel past M$ word).

There is one question in my mind though.
If KeyNote and Document become better than word, and somehow users prefer that over the expensive office suite, wouldn't M$ just close off (even more) their format/doc types and kill off the ability to import & export docs to and from M$ office apps ?! Then apple would be kinda dead in the water unless they hire some of those wonderful reverse engineers from dataviz that made the transltion engines back in the days of OS 7-9 ?????


Admiral
 
But if MS shut off the ability to import and export docs in some new version of office, they'd be screwing themselves over. I can imagine the "groan heard round the world" when MS announces that they've not only shut off the Apple world, but also anyone using an older version of Office.

I mean really, could they actually keep Apple's Word Processor from being compatible with their formats without shutting out every other version of office than their latest and greatest? I mean if the alleged "Document" makes use of the current MS formats, MS would have to render that format null across the board to keep Apple away from it.

Doesn't seem likely to me. That's just how I see it. If I'm missing something here, please correct me.
 
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