I just want to write Markdown. I just want to write Markdown. I just want to write Markdown. I just want to write Markdown.

The thing I really hate about modern word processors and everyone's obsession with PDFs is that the vast majority of the time things will never be printed, but everything still focuses on paginated formats. Nobody seems to get this but you can literally send someone a .HTML file that they can just open in their browsers. Even when I tell developers about this they say dumb things like a single file will load slower. Buddy, it's loading from the disk, it's not querying shit, it is okay to make it a single HTML file.

But no, fuck you, just pages and PDFs.

The silver lining is that at least Google Docs (I don't use other editors often) now has a "pageless" mode. But the amount of times I've run into weird things like accidentally backspacing the last character of something with special formatting only to undo it, add extra characters temporarily, then backspace in front of it... Fucking hell. Just let me write Markdown. Just let me write Markdown! JUST LET ME WRITE MARKDOWN!

There is LaTex which I would recommend for any kind of longer document.

Yeah, sure, but Microsoft Word web app scrolls smoother than native LibreOffice Writer on my laptop (on Linux), and there are also other bits of LibreOffice that sucks and have sucked for years.

Wanna know something fun about Office?
The keyboard shortcuts are localized.

YES, REALLY.

If you press Ctrl+S when running in Portuguese, it doesn't save, it underlines the word instead (Because the word for it is "Sublinhar").

Whoever is responsible for this decision won't die, when their time comes they'll be swallowed alive by the earth and welcomed into the 10th circle of hell, created for them exclusively.

The 11th circle is reserved for he who decided to localize the Excel Formula Functions too.

Microsoft has had a monopoly on office software since the 90s. They illegally leveraged this monopoly to try to destroy competition in other areas. Most infamously, they destroyed Netscape to try to kill competition in the early Internet space. That resulted in a trial for illegally abusing their monopoly which they lost. Then George W. Bush was elected president, and somehow Microsoft effectively got off with essentially no punishment. Admittedly though, part of that was that the judge in the case was so outraged at some of the stuff Microsoft pulled (submitting falsified evidence, having Bill Gates lie under oath repeatedly) that he talked about it in public when he shouldn't, which opened a door for Microsoft to try to weasel out of the loss.

The "evil" in Google's motto "Don't be evil" was widely viewed as being Microsoft. Google was an Internet company in an age where Microsoft was on trial for using their power to make everything about the Internet shitty so that they could control it. In the early days of Google, people weren't even allowed to use Microsoft software, including Windows, without a special dispensation from the higher-ups. Microsoft effectively avoided any kind of punishment for their abuse of their monopoly, but it distracted them and made them cautious, so they weren't able to crush Google before it could get going. Before anybody chimes in about how Google is evil, first read up in what Microsoft did. Google might be a bit shady, but where Google got its monopoly by spending hundreds of billions to make its search engine the default, Microsoft used tactics to destroy potential competitors and drive them out of business.

If the US (and the world) had effective enforcement of the anti-monopoly laws, Word would actually have to compete on its own merits. But, because it's a monopoly, Microsoft can just sit back and keep collecting rent.

lol "edit your expectations" got me :D

Want to automate your office document? Enjoy making your business dependent on a language

• that will be a dead end for your developer career
• where arrays can start at 0 or 1
• where checking for an array involves ignoring an error and resuming
• that is guaranteed to be broken a future patch
• that has to be given permission to run in a security center

Whoever stole my MS office, I'll find you. You have my Word.

Everyone complaining here about not being able to have unique footers or moving images or ignoring spelling errors just doesn't know what they're doing. You're literally the bad workman blaming the tool. I can do all of those things in Word.

If you prefer another tool, fine. But please stop shitting on things just because you don't understand them.

And PDF was never meant to be edited. Its sole purpose is to give you a document file which comes out exactly the same on computer screens and printers everywhere. Compact, reliable, compatible. If you need to replace parts of a PDF document post publication, it should be prepared using the Forms tools that are readily available in all good PDF suites.

By the way: I paid 30 Euros for an Office 2019 lifetime license. If ever that should not receive further updates then I'm ready to fork over another 30.

I have made so many thousands of dollars in consulting fees because people don't know about the "align object: over text" option. I would even show them, and they'd still call me back the next week offering money.