[zerovox]

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of writers were less technically savvy, happiest writing in Word, or simply wouldn't know how to write in any other format. It makes sense from the publishers point of view to pick one format and stick with it, so they have a consistent editing style and ability, and only have to deal with converting one format into a final publication.

I do feel that this is one of those cases where you should be able to write in the way you feel best for you, and if the publisher insist on having the final document in a word format, it should be straightforward to convert your chosen representation to theirs. It's hard to say without knowing precisely how the publisher expects the file to be formatted, but if it's fairly straightforward, there are libraries that will write to doc files for you, or there are open formats that MS Word already knows how to convert into .doc files that you could target instead.

[sounds]

Arguing this is the exceptional case misses his point, I think.

He is intelligent, eloquent, and absolutely correct.

In _any_ field except "business letters and reports" there are numerous talented, creative people who use other software and understand his lament: "the major publishers have been browbeaten into believing that Word is the sine qua non of document production systems."

Some examples:

∙ Hard science research are the poster child where "Word slave labor" happens daily

∙ Math research, fortunately there's a lot the web can do but still the Word drudgery

∙ Engineering research

∙ Self-published and indie writers (Scrivener definitely has made a splash)

∙ Law

Who cares? Well, if you want to make a lot of money, these people would throw their money at you if you could ease their pain a little bit.

The publishers get a lot of bad press for other things they do (like Aaron Schwartz), but they're still wrong about MS Word being a publishing platform.

[pseingatl]

Wordperfect still is very popular in law offices. Lawyers love the "make it fit" feature, which word doesn't have. Lawyers are always trying to put 17 ounces into a 16 ounce glass.

[tanzam75]

> Wordperfect still is very popular in law offices. Lawyers love the "make it fit" feature, which word doesn't have. Lawyers are always trying to put 17 ounces into a 16 ounce glass.

Word does not have a "Make it Fit" feature, but it does have a shrink-to-fit feature. You do have to shrink it one page at a time. You start with 13 pages and shrink it to 12, then shrink 12 to 11, etc.

However, the feature has been removed from the default Ribbon UI -- probably because only lawyers were using it. (College students tend to want to expand their documents rather than shrink them.)

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2664217

WordPerfect has clung to a niche in law offices because lawyers are inherently conservative. Even then, Word still has a majority share in law offices.

[pseingatl]

I didn't know about this feature. The documentation says it just reduces font size. WP did that but also increased kerning, reduced linespacing as well as a few other tricks.

[AlephGarden]

As an aspiring mathematician, the thought of not using LaTeX for mathematics frightens me. The thought of using Word for mathematics terrifies me.

[tanzam75]

> As an aspiring mathematician, the thought of not using LaTeX for mathematics frightens me. The thought of using Word for mathematics terrifies me.

Why? You can type LaTeX into the Word equation editor -- a fact that is little-known in the math community.

The main problem with Word for mathematics is that you cannot automatically number equations! What good is it to type equations if you can't refer to "Equation 7" and have the reference update when a new equation is inserted? That makes it useless for math, physics, theoretical computer science, etc.

[cnvogel]

You can number equations. Just put a {SEQ Equation} field right of it, play with the half-broken styles/tables/tabs until it's sitting at the proper position. You'll be able to reference it with the usual cross-referencing tools.

On my particular version of Word I'll have to insert a "Caption" using the fscking-stupid-ribbon UI once and create a new counter "Equation" first, else you'll not be able to select a "Equation" in other parts of the dreaded UI.

Unfortunately, while the Eq. editor might understand LaTeX perfectly, nevertheless it will randomly thrash the font size and type whenever my colleague opens/edits/saves the document (at least the "new" font editor, the older "embedded OLE object" editor was broken in different ways).

And yes, I loathe Word and it's bastard cousins from the MS-Office-Suite with a passion and sometimes raging hate. Unfortunately there are things that money-earning demands to be made in those applications :-(

[ShirtlessRod]

Maybe I had a unique experience, but when I was in grad school (chemical engineering) we exclusively used LaTeX for thesis work. The journals we worked with also required it, if I recall correctly.

[sounds]

You should count your lucky stars if you were able to submit in LaTeX format. It's obviously the best format for journals but they've all stampeded to Word.

[ShirtlessRod]

Like I said, maybe I was just really lucky, but I never had to deal with Word for grad school. Of course, this was also 9 years ago, so maybe a lot has changed since then. Do journals in the engineering/sciences world really not accept LaTeX anymore?

[umanwizard]

Since when do mathematicians ever use word for any reason? I believe you're more likely to see published math research written in Crayola markers than in Word.

[objclxt]

Many authors do already do this. I'm not sure if Charles Stross is complaining about having to write in Word, or simply use a workflow where Word is the end output for the author. The latter makes more sense as a complaint than the former, because I know many published authors (writing runs in the family) who use tools like Scrivener to write and then send it on to their agents / publishers as an exported .doc without any problems.

It could be worse, at least he's not writing scripts (which generally mandate you to use Final Draft)...

[cstross]

Publisher's workflow now insists on copy editors using Word with change tracking to mark up submitted manuscripts. The author then gets a copy of the marked-up MS to check. Which means having to use at least a tool compatible with MS change tracking on .doc files. So I'm blissfully Word-free until I hit "compile" in Scrivener ... but after the output file (RTF) goes to the publisher it comes back to me as a Word document with tracked changes and I have to dive into the turbid depths once more.

[ghaff]

And, honestly, for my last book I did pretty much the same thing even though I wasn't using an actual publisher. I did however have to send my ms to a copy editor and I also--at some point--had to get into some semblance of layout (for which I used Pages; my needs were pretty simple).

[fauigerzigerk]

> It makes sense from the publishers point of view to pick one format and stick with it, so they have a consistent editing style [...]

One problem with Word is exactly that it is very difficult to get anything remotely consistent out of it. Even people who are very knowledgeable and smart are unable to use that hodgepodge of completely intransparent styling features correctly. Anything involving numbering and bullets tends to be broken as well.

There's no way a publisher gets a consistently styled document from an author. I don't believe that for a second. I'm absolutely certain that publishers have an army of interns who fix the jumbled mess they're receiving from authors.

[zerovox]

Ah, this is me being misleading, I didn't mean the styling of the document was important(well, until it gets sent to publication, where I am sure you're right about the interns), I really meant the ability and tools to edit/review/track changes and highlight/annotate sections they want changed.

[fauigerzigerk]

I see what you mean, and you're right, the workflows would be near impossible to manage without standardizing on one format.

[redthrowaway]

Hell, George R.R. Martin uses WordStar 4.0 in DOS. You don't need anything fancy to put chars in a text file.

[cstross]

That may be part of why he writes relatively slowly. (WordStar doesn't exactly provide support for refactoring huge, complex structured documents ...)