> Microsoft Word is a tyrant of the imagination, a petty, unimaginative, inconsistent dictator that is ill-suited to any creative writer’s use. Worse: it is a near-monopolist, dominating the word processing field. Its pervasive near-monopoly status has brainwashed software developers to such an extent that few can imagine a word processing tool that exists as anything other than as a shallow imitation of the Redmond Behemoth.
I completely agree. I want Word to just go away. I am sick of people wanting “Word versions” of this document, or “track changes” of that one. Unfortunately, the format is just so ubiquitous, it is impossible to avoid.
My hope is, as more and more people start doing work on tablets and other devices, some other document format[^f0749] emerges as the new standard. Until then though, I do whatever I can to avoid using Word whenever I can.
[^f0749]: Preferably, plain text with some markup.