Why Microsoft Word is better than OpenOffice.org Writer
Ray Lischner posted this to an industry list and I asked him if he was going to blog it or if I could, because it's just too funny. So, posted here with permission, what you see below is all Ray with a little formatting from moi:
I can think of several advantages that Word has over OOo Writer:
1. Word is more entertaining than OOo Writer.
When I would print documents in Word, on rare occasions, it would apply random type faces to my text. The result would like a three year old ran amok with the character styles. Looking back on it, without the deadlines and with much medication, it was actually pretty amusing. I saved some of the printed output, just to show off, but I don't know what happened to it after our move to Maryland.
2. Word gives me less opportunity to exercise than OOo Writer.
When Word would silently destroy a document and all backup copies by erasing the entire contents, I would be moved to physical extremes that no doubt provided excellent aerobic and strength-training exercise. Writer has never done the same for me, so I am forced to go to a gym.
3. Word helps me ignore errors more than OOo Writer.
Because OOo has an open format (based on XML), it was easy to write a program that extracts all my code examples. Then I can compile and run them. That was so hard to do in Word that I never bothered, so I never had to face all the glaring errors in my code examples until readers complained about them. Now I have no excuse not to fix the errors, that just takes time away from creating more errors.
4. Word annoys Mac users more.
I once worked in an office that used Word for all internal documentation. Most of the developers used Windows; our documentation team and one or two developers used Macs. As we moved documents back and forth, the different versions of Word invariably discarded formatting and other information. One or two of the Mac users viewed themselves as the holiest of the holy for their use of God's own machine, and were therefore superior to us miserable cretins who deigned to use that inferior system. Therefore, it gave us no small amount of pleasure when they were unable to read our documents without extra effort.
Comments (3)
Oops - the words:
Sarcasm Mode Off
disappeared from the post above - I used the greater then-less then signs forgetting that HTML treats them as formating commands!
My bad.
Chip Livingstone
Word is superior to OOffice because it is proprietary software, not something hacked together out of stolen code by a bunch of commies!
Word is to expensive - for my own use I just cannot justify the expense. I used Word Star for years, then Easy Writer, and then I got given a copy of Microsoft Works for Win95. The problem with any of those is that the formats aren't popular, and trading files with anyone else was a real headache. Open Office has been a blessing. It has it's problems (I still prefer the full Wordstar set of editing commands) but it has opened everything I've thrown at it, and I recommend it to everyone. Chip Livingstone
And microsoft office is faster compared to open office!!!
muhammad