The ‘ol fingers-crossed-send-and-hope that your content doesn’t break during its journey from Microsoft Word to wherever you need it to be. You build content based on their rules but you don’t escape those rules when it comes time to ship your content. There are no Microsoft Word APIs that can communicate with multiple publishing channels. For example, content made in Microsoft Word is wrapped in its own proprietary markup. But, if their software’s success is predicated on its own propriety instead of the actual capabilities, that incentive structure isn’t in your best interest. The massive organizations of the word processing world only change for the purpose of ensuring their own preservation.Īcting in their self-interest isn’t wrong nor is it unusual. Word Processors Are Designed for ThemselvesĪ word processor that’s never stopped being a word processor.Īnd it won’t stop being a word processor because, if you recall earlier, it has no reason to change. Over the years, there have been many updates aimed at making everyone happy, but these updates haven’t addressed some of the primary concerns for techcomm professionals. However, the greater the number of trades, the more difficult it is to master them all. This is why Microsoft is a tech industry pioneer. Microsoft Word was among the first to populate the OG lineup of a handful of programs, but now the list resembles a nightclub entry list.Īs far as enterprise software is concerned, Microsoft really does try to do it all. Let’s consider the breadth of products in the Microsoft Office Suite. Word Processors Try to Have an Answer for Everything We go a little more in-depth on proprietary software, or closed standards, in this article: What is the Best Standard for Documentation? On the other hand, these tools have no incentive to innovate because they’re already on top! The biggest players in enterprise software won’t risk an overhaul of something widely used because they don’t need to. On the one hand, so many people use tools that have stagnated but work. There’s also the fact that over the last 30 years, businesses across the world have been culled into using these tools because they couldn’t find an adequate alternative. Still, regardless of its relative lack of modern progression, the software Microsoft Word remains ubiquitous across techcomm because it’s conveniently there. It may play nicely with publishing PDFs, but it’s been a while since a mere PDF was enough. Content needs to be fed into diverse web frameworks, chatbots, and the like. Having an authoring program that still formats content for an 8×11 piece of printer paper doesn’t translate well to the demands of today. Technology has advanced at breakneck speed: cloud storage, modular content, and omnichannel publishing have replaced printing text on paper. When’s the last time you printed something? Same. Processors Were Designed Around Physical Paper We need tools that enhance our ability to write, manage, and deploy content to modern platforms, not a tool that just kinda works. But, that’s kinda the problem.Īt a certain point, “usable” isn’t enough. Word processors have been around for a long time and they cornered the market on accessible writing tools that anyone could use. Especially if you value your content management and your writers’ sanity. But being first can sometimes have its drawbacks The Thing Explainer has all the answers to all these questions and more, all presented in a fun and interesting way that anyone who sufficiently speaks English can quickly understand.When it comes to getting words onto (digital) paper, word processors like Microsoft Word and Google Docs have been the longstanding choice for many writers. How do these things work? Where do they come from? What would life be like without them? And what would happen if we opened them up, heated them, cooled them, pointed them in a different direction, or pressed this button? The pieces everything is made of (the periodic table)īoxes that make clothes smell better (washers and dryers) The big flat rocks we live on (tectonic plates) The other worlds around the sun (the solar system) The shared space house (the International Space Station) Learn why we invented the big tiny thing hitter (the Large Hadron Collider). Learn all about how your bending computer works (laptop). Learn what all those buttons, lights, and knobs do in the cockpit of a sky boat (airplane). Using detailed line drawings, only the thousand most common words in the English language, and a touch of delightfully dry humor, this unique invention makes it easy to understand all sorts of things you may have never thought you'd be able to understand. Have you ever tried to learn more about some incredible thing, only to be frustrated by incomprehensible jargon?
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