Word - Be gone?
I am a long time fan of Writeroom (version 1, not so much v2). It is where I write 90% of my text documents; everything from blog posts to proposals and pitches.
Writeroom - My full-screen uncluttered writing nirvana.
The recent posts about Microsoft Word alternatives has made me smile in a slightly smug, albeit I hope not unkind, “told you so” way. Along with many of you fellow web workers I stopped using Word as my main writing app a few years back. It was just to… much.
While I still like Word for some things: formatting, spell checking in miscellaneous languages, and for opening docs that only look as intended in Word, it’s not where I actually write. I need that nice, clean, calm environment that Writeroom provides (PC users should try DarkRoom or jDarkRoom).
This search for simplicity is not exclusive to Word and it is encouraging to see more and more people leaning towards apps and sites that are uncluttered and above all focused on a particular task. ImageWell is a better choice for simple resizing tasks than Photoshop. Basecamp beats Project, Preview trumps Acrobat Reader, etc.
The key might be, to quote Jeffrey MacIntyre’s story for Slate, that some of these apps say “It’s you, not the software, that matters.”
While there will always be users who demand 100’s of options it is important for the rest of us to ask not only “what do I need”, but also “why do I need it”. By challenging our pre-conceived notions we can come out the other end as better, and more productive information workers regardless of industry.
Update: “Justin” emailed instead of commenting, which is perfectly fine, and asked me to clarify how Word fits in to my work flow. Firstly, I write all my invoices in Word, save as PDF and send ‘em off. I also spell check all my writing in Word (copy-pasting from Writeroom) before publishing posts or submitting any of my proposals or articles. In other words, my work flow would not be as smooth as it is without Word. With regards to other apps, yes I do use Basecamp and Preview, but currently not ImageWell.
A note - I feel bad because I can’t find a third blog post that covered this topic and that I wanted to link to as I found some of the comments in it very insightful. Will keep looking through my browser history etc. Credit should go where credit is due.
