Microsoft Word
From MacFAQ
---+ About Word
---++ Word 5.1
Microsoft Word 5.1 appeared in 1992 - that's when the Macintosh IIci was still in production, for example - and it is not clear that Microsoft has really improved upon it. Word 5.1 did just about anything that any normal word-processor user might want to do. It does it well and it does it simply. It's reliable and fast and smooth. It's pretty straightforward to use too, and has a good (responsive and concise) help system built-in. It runs happily in less than 1MB of RAM, so even an unexpanded Plus will be happy with it. Using the freely downloadable filters available from Microsoft, it will handle files generated by the latest versions of Word (as at 12/04) including documents with tables, footnotes and indexes. It won't handle the later Word graphics files but is more than adequate for corresponding with Word users out there.
---++ Word 6
Microsoft followed this with Word 6, which was positively bristling with features and which was supposed to give the world the last word-processor it would ever need. Instead - for many people anyway - it was the last word-processor they wanted to use. It was complicated and messy, and on anything less than a fast Quadra so sluggish as to be unusable. Behind this were two typical Microsoft traits: the desire to produce a piece of software that will perform every possible function that a user might demand of it, and the inability to translate such extraordinary ambitions into efficient and well-written programs. Word 6 was intended to be not so much a mere word-processor as the ultimate writing tool, which would contribute to all stages of the process between putting thoughts into words and presenting them on paper. Instead it was almost universally derided as 'bloatware' by industry pundits, while the average user struggled to master it, wasting much effort fighting off the endless dialog-box and menu options that rose like thickets around the simplest tasks.
---++ Words 98-2004
Word 98 followed, not so much a mere ultimate writing tool as an alternative universe. There is truly something deeply and strangely grand-minded about it, from its 'self-repairing' technology which automatically re-installs any part of the software if it has gone missing or been damaged, to the bizarre collection of characters which inhabit the software, watching as you operate it and offering suggestions and advice. Hubris, however, is narrowly avoided: the program works in a way that Word 6 never did. In use it feels considerably faster (perhaps simply because Macs had become faster faster than Word had got bigger, but at least in part because Microsoft had taken some of the criticism to heart). It still boasts even more features that most people couldn't even imagine using, and still consumes huge swathes of the hard disk, and still requires a generous helping of memory, but on a half-decent PowerMac runs very nicely indeed. Unexpectedly, the self-repairing installer works well (and has since been extended to other Microsoft products) and it is not the sinister Microsoftian scheme to take control of your Mac that was feared when it was first launched.
However, Microsoft's casual attitudes towards data security are manifested in all their glory. Word 98 is known to scoop up unrelated data from your hard disk and to stuff them into your Word documents, where they remain, invisible within Word itself, but very visible indeed if you open up that Word document with a text editor such as BBEdit. This means that when you send someone a Word document, or make one publicly available over a network, you might also be making public quite inappropriate information: the contents of private email mesaages, your credit card numbers, or a list of web sites recently visited, for example.
Equally worrying is the prospect of macro viruses. Word comes complete with a powerful macro scripting language, intended to make repetitive programmable tasks easier, and this has been used to wreak havoc upon the computers of unsuspecting users - any Word document you receive may contain a macro virus that has copied itself into it and which is ready to carry out some vicious commands upon your files. This is not entirely Microsoft's fault, but the thoughtless implementation of such powerful facilities which makes such dangers an actual rather than a theoretical risk is.
These are some of the intrinsic merits and faults of Word 98, but in fact they are mostly irrelevant, and most important is a singular extrinsic one: the fact that the vast majority of word-processor users around the world are also using Microsoft Word (for Windows, mainly) and that you will likely want to exchange documents with them. If you need to exchange documents with Word users, and are not prepared to face all the trials that converting between word processor formats entails, or to persuade them to do the converting, you are going to have to Conform. And that is the most compelling argument that Word has to offer.
