What do you mean "a" word processor?
Word is not necessarily my word processor of choice. A more accurate description
might be that it's my word processor by default. Most (probably almost all) Israelis
identify Word as the only word processor, hardly knowing that there are
others (though many have probably heard stories about Einstein from long
ago). I have a copy of Open Office which has a more than passable word processor
which I'd be happy to try and even use, but doing so raises two not insurmountable,
but all the same real, problems.
Even assuming that learning to use a different word processor is not a particularly
difficult task, it would still take time, and that's time that would better be
spent writing - or doing other necessary work related tasks. It's been a very
long time since I last tried out a new program simply because I wanted to see
how it worked. I need a better reason than that for investing the time.
And because Word is pretty much the only word processor in use in Israel,
I'd be opening myself up to numerous compatibility problems. Though I'm sure that
Open Office overcomes problems of this sort quite easily (using RTF as a generic
saving format, for instance) I'm less worried about difficulties that I might
encounter, and more concerned about whether this might be a stumbling block for
the people with whom I share documents. Sadly, it becomes easier to simply stick
to Word. We can at least be consoled by the fact that most of the people
using it probably didn't pay for it.
Go to: Tools I've known and loved ... and often abandoned.