Until a few years ago if I had to use MS Office, I used Office 97. I’ve been using Open Office and its precursors going back to 2000, but sometimes people really want MS format, and the export and “save as” features of Open Office don’t always work the best.* Now that I have upgraded to the new Word I really miss the old version. I thought that was due to my huge gap in usage, as what was a gradual shift seemed like a radical rupture to me. This indicates I’m wrong:
I know only one person who loves working in Word: my 4-year-old. It’s valuable to him to be able to put the names of subway lines in their correct colors, or to spell out “autumn” with each letter a different falling-leaf hue, or to jump from Times New Roman to Comic Sans to Chalkboard in midstory. He also loves to write things on my old manual Smith-Corona. A tool that’s lost its purpose makes a great toy.
* I’m in Linux a fair amount too, so it often isn’t an option.
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