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from the how-do-I-convert-my-existing-files? dept.
Google Docs vs. Microsoft Word: Which works better for business?:
Have you been thinking of reassessing which word processor your business should standardize on? The obvious choices are the two best known: Microsoft Word and Google Docs. But which is better?
Several years ago, the answer to that would have been easy: Microsoft Word for its better editing, formatting and markup tools; Google Docs for its better collaboration. But both applications have been radically updated since then. Word now has live collaboration tools, and Google has added more sophisticated formatting, editing and markup features to Docs.
TFA requires free registration, but the question is an interesting one: Have Google Docs arrived at parity with, or surpassed, Microsoft Word for business needs? How much work is required to transition existing documents, macros, and workflows?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by deimtee on Tuesday June 02 2020, @05:58AM (4 children)
Best wysiwyg I ever used was Wordperfect in 'reveal codes' mode. But that was 25 years ago, and usability has done nothing but drop since then across them all. Poettering probably has "add ribbon interface to Libre Office" on his todo list.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Common Joe on Tuesday June 02 2020, @08:18AM (1 child)
Reveal codes was one of the biggest losses I ever experienced when transitioning between word processes. I still miss it.
But we won't be getting it back anytime soon. Most of the information that was made by open/close commands in WordPerfect are now embedded in the paragraph mark at the end of the paragraph in LibreOffice and Microsoft Word. It's been that way for decades. To change it would probably be a major undertaking.
No, he won't get the chance. It's already an option [ghacks.net]. They added it experimentally in 2017 and it finished rooting in 2019, although it's still listed as an experimental feature and is called the "tabbed user interface". Instructions to turn it on are here [ghacks.net].
Before you get mad, there are a couple of things to be aware of: 1) I hate ribbons as much as you. 2) Not everyone shares our opinion. Some people prefer it. No, I can't imagine why either. I suspect it has something to do with being more visual people (icons) instead of readers (menus). 3) As a coder, I always believed there was room for both options for both types of people. I hated Microsoft for shoving ribbons down our throats. LibreOffice did it (mostly) right. Both options exists for both kinds of people.
(Score: 3, Informative) by meustrus on Tuesday June 02 2020, @01:35PM
I quite like the way MS Office works on OS X. Because OS X has a permanent application-defined menu, there's no reason to take File/Edit/View/etc away from the user. So the ribbon simply provides the superior visual language without taking away the menus that provide the superior text-based-discovery.
Though it's been a few years since I had any reason to author a printed document. These days I do basically all of my (non-code) writing in Markdown.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @01:20PM
Man I miss "reveal codes," best feature ever for figuring out why doing this thing causes this weird behavior.
Flip on reveal codes and you can see ever start/end italics, every space, everything. It was perfect (TM). Also, the equation editor was, for the time, pretty good.
(Score: 2) by dw861 on Thursday June 04 2020, @08:23PM
Yes, exactly. And this is why, in 2020, I'm still using WordPerfect for Linux.
http://xwp8users.com/ [xwp8users.com]