Regular readers know that I have a profound dislike of word processors and especially of Word. I consider it the apotheosis of broken and user-hostile software. To me, Emacs and Org Mode are so far superior that Word would not bear consideration. Even for those situations where someone requires a Doc file, there are a couple of solutions for converting Org to Word (or at least ODT).
Lots of people feel that way, of course, but Edward Mendelson, a professor of humanities at Columbia explains it in a humanities scholar’s way. Word, he says, is a Platonic ideal. Beautiful in its consistency but completely superfluous in the real world. Read the article to see exactly what that means.
He compares Word to the older WordPerfect and finds that WordPerfect, despite not having the elegance of Word, is a much better tool for writing. Sadly, Mendelson, like many of us nerds, is forced to use Word because that’s what the journals demand.
This is a great article and very enjoyable to read. It may give you an understanding of what about Word is so annoying.