I want my iOffice!!

[|MP|Buccaneer]

There are things that Word does in the business world (not printing world) that Quark and Appleworks can't touch.  It's just most people here aren't into that world.

Change management is a good example.  With ISO 9000 being required of many companies, document change management is an issue.  With Word, it keeps track of who made changes, even saving the old text as a strike out if you tell it you want to see it.  There are plenty of things you can do with Word that Quark can't touch.  Not everything is a simple letter to grandma or a term paper.  Think about writing a book in Quark, hundreds of pages and hundreds of thousands words.  Then think of searching it, making format changes to just some items, etc.  There are things built into Word that most of you probably haven't seen.

I still don't like word for just writing a letter to grandma, but there are plenty of places where it does pay to use it over Quark or Appleworks.  

Snipe, you can turn all of those off, but you are right, for the simple stuff, Microsoft's automation actually makes it harder.

[Mr. Lothario]

     Funny that you should mention change tracking, in light of this recent /. story.

[th.Sentinel]

Well Bucc, all the things you said could be automated in Quark aswell, even better. Those things aren't common knowledge to most ppl. But if you work day in day out with Quark, you find all these things.
Searching a word you mistyped in a 160 pages catalog is easy, you can even change all the ? to ? and other exempls. automatic. If you have a background page on every page you can use masterpages so when you have to move the spot of it, you only have to move it once and quark does the rest for you.  Using style sheets for all the titles and sub-titles and all other things... In Indesign you even have lots more options for such things.
I know a lot of ppl that make their books directly in quark, a guy I work for has a 1000+ pages book about all the different orchids in the world. He notes things down on a paper and when he comes home he puts it in Quark on his comp.
Don't think Word is superior to Quark, its just cheaper and more affordable for most ppl and companys.

I hope some computerbrain will bring out a new, fast and easy to use wordprocessor with the power of Indesign... But then again, you can buy Indesign.

[BFG]

Its a bit of a odd comparison isn't it?; Word v Quark... Quark being an industry standard DP app, and word being.. well a word processor! In terms of layout and control i think Quark wins hands down.. on a easy to write a letter level...  word wins.

Now a discussion between indesign and Quark would make more sense.. although i have very very little experience in indesign and i hear Quark is still the daddy

if its simple use word... if you need a highter level of control and design power re: fonts etc use quark.