I rarely see a week go by where one blog or another does not take the time to write about how cool the web based and alternative word processing software packages are (web worker had one Friday with some excellent comments by readers). Let me say that in many, many ways I agree, and I personally make use of Open Office and Google Documents & Spreadsheets on a regular basis.
That said, I think it is important to note that none of these web based or free and open source word processors comes even close to Microsoft Word when it comes to feature set that many people rely on in their word processing software. I think it is easy to fall into a trap of thinking that writing a memo, a letter, or even the pages to a book are all people do in a word processing program. The fact though is that people make use of many, many more features.
The professional services industries, specifically the legal industry, make heavy use of word processing software. Law firms live and die by the documents they create to submit to courts, regulatory agencies, and to give back to their clients. The documents that are created are complex and require, in many cases, very precise formatting control. Microsoft Word and Corel WordPerfect are the two main players in the industry. I have not heard of a Law Firm using a program other than these two in recent years (although I am sure that some law firms do). Keep in mind that most large corporations have a legal department, and they use the software in the same way as a law firm does. Heck, the really big companies have legal departments bigger than most law firms. Lots of people are using word processors in this way.
It’s just that in order to create these types of documents they need to take advantage of many of the obscure features in these large commercial word processing packages. Features like track changes, table of contents, table of authorities, cross referencing, styles, document comparison, line numbering and automatic multi-level numbering are some of the main features that the legal user relies upon. This is much more advanced than simply typing text. If you have ever had to file a pleading with a court in California you know the type of specific detail I am referring to.
I think a case could be made that neither Word nor Word Perfect have enough features for these industries, since both programs are often hacked up with packages of macros and other add-ins designed to make working in them even easier and more effective. Much of this aids in the simplicity of using these large programs, but there is also a fair number of new features introduced.
Sometimes it seems that the web is filled with a hundred reasons why word processors are bad, especially Word (another link). It is not uncommon to read articles claiming that “no one” uses all the features in Word. Truth is, whether or not they are bad they are a much needed tool, and not one that will soon be abandoned in these document production heavy industries. I am often curious as to what a web based version of Word would look like. I don’t think it could be done and still offer the feature set it does on the desktop today, but who knows what the future holds.