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Free Word Processors: Just Say No
I’m all for free. Free food, free toys, free giveaways, free software. I’m all about quality, too, but no one can expect top-notch when what they have didn’t cost them a penny. You get what you pay for, after all.
That goes for Open Office, a free software solution for those who don’t want to make Microsoft richer. Plenty of people ask me if I recommend free word processors, and Open Office is one. Zoho offers some good solutions too.
But not for professional writers. I’ll repeat that: Not for writers who earn their living through writing.
If your career is writing or you actively write full time for pleasure, invest in tools of the trade that get you the most out of your experience and the highest quality possible. Buying the best tools you can to have the best results possible is important if your profession involves receiving money for what you do.
Open Office doesn’t have the same level of spell-check and grammar-check that Word offers, be it Word 2007 or earlier. (Of course, Word has its shortcomings too, but so far, it’s the best out there.) There are some other small glitches with it as well, such as older versions of OO having a word count that is off.
This came to light recently when I realized that not just one but four of my team were using OO to work on. I was getting frustrated with word counts being different from my results and the amount of green underlines on my screen that signaled passive, weak language. I’m assertive and confident; I like to read confident content. Watching my screen light up like Christmas each time I opened a document from certain writers was driving me nuts.
Cost, they all told me; cost was the one single reason they weren’t using Word. That blew me away. The career of writing doesn’t have much overhead (if any) and all writing costs a writer is time. Paying for Word is equal to about a week of a writer’s take-home income, and that’s on a slow week. There wasn’t any excuse for this.
If you wanted to have your website redesigned, would you hire the company that uses the latest technology and design for the best, most current results or do you say, “Hey, I’ll think I’ll go with the guy that uses outdated, obsolete software.” No, you don’t. Clients who hire writers don’t say that either. Technology moves fast and people in the online world want the latest and greatest.
If you’re just going to write for fun, sure, go for free. OO might not catch “is being”, but so what? Who is going to notice? If you’re going to be a professional writer and sell your work, though, just say no to free word processors. Invest in yourself and your business. Have the proper tools (good software and a solid computer with high-speed internet) to do the best damned job you can. Don’t scrimp to save a few dollars; the difference in efficiency and quality pays for itself many times over.
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Hi, James.
I’ve just discovered your site and it looks great! I hope to learn much here that I can use on my own sites and my clients. While I agree with the premise of this post, there are a few points I think you missed.
With the availability of open source software (yes, I’m a FOSS fanatic), it’s no longer true that “you get what you pay for”, unless you count time contributed to improving a product, through submitting code, documentation or bug-tracking. The cost of Microsoft Word is far more than the retail price on the box. It includes the cost of the proprietary operating system that runs it, the anti-virus software to attempt to protect it, and the lost time and data when that protection fails. How many times have you had or heard of a virus transmitted through a .doc file? How many through a .odt Open Office file? I haven’t had one virus since I began using open source exclusively in 2001. And I don’t have to weigh my systems down with a resource hog like Norton Anti-virus to achieve that.
You say, “Technology moves fast and people in the online world want the latest and greatest.” That’s undeniable. I am a technician, not a writer (obvious, no doubt). I can’t tell you how frustrating it is waiting for Microsoft to issue a patch for a flaw in their code, if they ever do. The advantage of open source is that many eyes are on the code and important bugs are fixed quickly. If you have an issue with an application, you can request a fix from the code maintainer, fix it yourself, or hire a pro. Try that with Microsoft. While we could argue over which is the greatest, the latest code, architectures and ideas come, without a doubt, from the open source world.
I realize your concern is focused more on the writing aspects, such as grammar and spell checking. Perhaps the money saved by using stable, secure, open source tools could be spent sending writers to school to learn proper grammar and spelling.
I’ll be back to get more great tips on writing and blogging, so I’ll be more confident when next I fire up my own favorite word processor: vi.
Hey Tim,
I stand firmly with you on the point that Microsoft isn’t the best company in general for support, patches, fixes and customer satisfaction. I don’t have to go into details on the reasons; there are enough complaints out there about each Microsoft product already.
I’ll also agree with you that open source programs are customizable and modifiable. IT people know this – most people (and certainly most writers) don’t. They grab what’s out there, use it, and live with the problems instead of seeing what can be done to fix them. We’ve only recently learned how much a programmer can do with open source software. It’s pretty amazing.
As for writers going back to school, I’ll agree with you again, and I have always been very supportive of writers learning better skills as opposed to stagnating.
Thanks for commenting, and I’ll look forward to more comments and your visits!
I thought it was just me that was having trouble with Open Office’s word count and spell check. Purchasing Word is on the top of my list for ‘08. I’ve been using Open Office since August, and I’ve reached the end of my patience level.
Hey James,
I have to wholeheartedly disagree. Word is just a tool, and not a very good one at that. It’s possible Word’s grammar-checker is “better” than OO’s, but I’ve seen it cause more problems than it fixes when writers who don’t understand grammar, syntax, and good writing mindlessly accept all the changes the computer throws at them. As for the other “features” of Word, I can do without most of them.
As for word count, Word treats hyphenated words as single words (http://wordtips.vitalnews.com/Pages/T1379_Ignoring_Hyphens_in_Word_Counts.html) and other word processors might not. I can’t speak for Open Office, but there are plenty of other word-count tools (like the one in Roughdraft, another free word processor, or this one here: www.javascriptkit.com/script/script2/countwords.shtml) that could maybe solve your problem.
Just because Microsoft has a veritable monopoly on the corporate world doesn’t mean that everyone should automatically assume that Word is the “best” tool for the job.
@ Rachel – I never said that any word processor is the solution to low writing skills and difficulties with the complexities of grammar, punctuation and sentence structure. Speaking of word count, when two programs have a 50-word difference for 400 words, that doesn’t seem to be a hyphen issue. You can only hyphenate so many words. Lastly, I don’t assume Word is the best tool for the job – however, based on my experience, writers who don’t use Word make my job a lot more difficult, so anything else gets a thumbs down.
But I appreciate your comments and debate! Bring it on!
James–If not Word, then what’s your preferred tool?
400 words +/- 50 does seem like a fairly large gap. I don’t use OO myself (anymore); I’m currently using a Dashboard word count widget…
Just for the heck of it, I counted the words in this blog post (514) in Word, the aforementioned widget, and the Cut & Paste counter I linked to earlier. Word and Dashboard both got a count of 514, and the online counter showed 506. Maybe if OO’s count is so broken, the best solution is to warn writers to double-check their counts in a third-party program.
@ Rachel – Preferred tool: A snowshovel?
That’s interesting to see the differences – we should go on a rampage and find every word processor and compare notes to see which works best despite its quirks!
I’m on a Mac, more specifically a 17″ MacBook Pro. I use Scrivener (I’ve always loved that word) for my word processing needs. You have to pay for the software but it’s worth it. The developer is very friendly. Scrivener is the best software I’ve ever used.
It does a lot more than the typical Word Processing program which is why I purchased it. I needed more. Currently I’m working on a book and it allows me to do a lot of cool things. Scrivener also tells me my word and character count as I type. That information is located at the bottom of the screen. I love it.
For my clients that need a word document I paste my document into NeoOffice, save as a Word doc., and mail it as an attachment. However, two of my clients don’t like Microsoft Word because they are afraid of potential viruses. I humor them and copy and paste my complete work directly into emails.
A Mac… *sighs with envy*
I bought my first Mac on 10/06/07. That was four days after my birthday. It’s the best tech purchase I’ve ever made.
I even bought one for my father. He was hesitant but now he loves it. He has the PowerMac G5.
I am trying to work out whether this article is MSO propaganda or prescriptivist propaganda. It’s probably both. I have both Office 2007 and OpenOffice 2.4 (also WordPerfect X4) and I agree wholeheartedly that MSO is the better, more polished product. Your assertions regarding writers’ incomes I found amusingly arrogant, betraying your presumption that you know what all writers earn. I was also tickled by your praise of MSO’s grammar checker, which is unable to hold a candle to WordPerfect’s Grammatik. Of course, the most amusing part of your rant about the weakness of OpenOffice’s grammar checker was the way it gave the impression that you rely on software to check grammar. That and your apparent abhorrence of any use at all of the passive voice – how would you reword the 131 million google hits for “is being?”
@ Stuart – I wouldn’t know propaganda if it smacked me in the head. This was a rant/review and that’s that.
As for me relying on the grammar checker, I dropped that a looong time ago (though since I’m Canadian, I have to pay somewhat attention for my American friends). However, I run a team (had you read the About Us you’d know this) so that means using all resources possible to keep everything 100% great for my client.
I haven’t tried Grammatik, nor did this post suggest that I was reviewing ALL software out there. If you have the money to pay me, I’d be more than happy to do so.
And as for passive language, well, let’s just say I like to stay with the times. Do you?
Yeah, I’m on the “I disagree” side too.
Of course I’m much more apt to use “vi” than any word processor so maybe that shouldn’t count for much
But Microsoft in general: fah on that. Mac or Linux for me. Actually, Mac AND Linux for me..
Anthony Lawrences last blog post..Windows 7 learning experience by Anthony Lawrence
By the way, James, why are you sighing with envy?
Contrary to Microsoft propaganda, Mac’s are NOT expensive. In fact, when you consider what you get (and what you DON’T get, like constant virus worries), there’s no real difference.
@ Anthony – As part of the “throwaway” generation, I have trouble justifying spending $3,000 versus $500 that I can switch up every year to something rockin’.
As for constant virus worries… um, I never had that. Why would one have constant worries about viruses if one doesn’t visit sites that are likely to infect or open questionable emails?
(Good to have you back!)
Spending $3,000 ??
If you spend $3,000 on a Mac, you’d spend just as much on an equivalent PC.
Macs start at $599.00. You can buy cheaper PC’s, of course, but if you are comparing apples to apples, you’ll be spending $600 or more to match them.
Anthony Lawrences last blog post..Windows 7 learning experience by Anthony Lawrence
@ Anthony – You and I must not be looking at the same sales site… I’ve never seen a new Mac sold at $500!
http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/mac_mini?mco=MTE3MTA
Of course I’d add more ram to that, but I’d do the same with any PC.
You can buy anything from this up to fully loaded Mac Pro but in every case a comparable PC costs just as much.
Anthony Lawrences last blog post..Windows 7 learning experience by Anthony Lawrence
Very interesting topic. I’ve been searching all over for the “perfect” word processor. I’ve been using word for many years, and it’s great and expensive. I’m using it at work, because then I’m not the one paying for it.
At home I’ve been using Open Office for a while, and a few other similar free word processors. As far as I can see, Word is better, but that’s probably because I am more experienced using Word.
What’s important is that people who work together should use the same software (at least it used to be like that). If they do, it’s a lot easier to share documents and things will stay the same (that was even a problem with old and new versions of Word).
After I bought a Mac, I’m using WriteRoom and Scrivener. They are both very cheap and awesome. You can’t actually compare them to Word, but for me, Word has so many features and tools that I will never use. WriteRoom and Scrivener are perfect.