This week I take a look at choosing a program to write with:
“Dear Susan,
Top five writing programs?
Yours
Mrs. Type Cast”
I just use Notepad because I eschew formatting. I asked around to see what everybody else uses:
Camestros: First choice is Excel, then Word, then Pages (Mac), then Text Wrangler, then Notepad++ (he was unwilling to accept that Excel is not a writing program)
Timothy: Libre Office, Word
Straw Puppy: Scrivener
Mr Atomic: internal OS text editor
Random squirrel teasing Timothy: Microsoft Publisher
Nice Lady from the Post Office: Adobe In-Design (Creative Cloud)
Bortsworth Drycleaners: GNU emacs
Shadowy figure spotted in the abandoned Woolworths: astral projection of blood that seeps through the plaster of your walls
There are so many choices! Pick one that has the features you need for the writing you want to do. The only one I’d advise against is the one based on an ancient eldritch evil that may consume your soul i.e Microsoft Publisher.
Oh dear. I use an old DOS WordPerfect 5.1 for [this], some much newer versions of WordPerfect for [that and the other], Libre Office for [anything that requires the horror of opening Word documents], and two different varieties of entirely home-made software for the twin horrors of [SF Encyclopedia] and [everything else but mostly ebooks]. I think Notepad comes into it somewhere too, but only because I haven’t got around to changing the default for .txt files.
Camestros Felapton 
13 responses to “6. Ask A Triceratops”
I am wholly committed to the perfection that is WordPerfect.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Word*Star, or nothing! 😀
LikeLike
I still have my first blocky 386 laptop with WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS on it, and a box of 5 inch floppies.
LikeLike
Oh dear. I use an old DOS WordPerfect 5.1 for [this], some much newer versions of WordPerfect for [that and the other], Libre Office for [anything that requires the horror of opening Word documents], and two different varieties of entirely home-made software for the twin horrors of [SF Encyclopedia] and [everything else but mostly ebooks]. I think Notepad comes into it somewhere too, but only because I haven’t got around to changing the default for .txt files.
LikeLike
I quite like Word but you have to best it in a series of wrestling matches before it will respect you.
LikeLike
Word Perfect for DOS is popular with many dinosaurs who appreciate original dominate lifeforms.
LikeLike
Blue screen and command code swoon. WP for DOS 5.1…. paradoxically makes one a jurasically early adopter and a proud, showy, late, non-adopter 🙂
Are triceratopses thus the hipsters of the dinosaur world?
LikeLike
Unlike hipsters, we don’t grow beards.
LikeLike
I finally have something in common with Straw Puppy. But no love for vim?
LikeLike
Not even any love for Edlin, which I did use in the long ago.
LikeLike
I need a bigger cast of characters
LikeLiked by 1 person
Not to forget LaTeX
LikeLike
Too rubbery 🙂
LikeLike