It seems the Software section of these forums is doomed to never ceasing iterations of this same question. Eh, more than happy to oblige. To sum up each of these threads. *Microsoft word is the industry standard and safe option. *Open/Libre Office does everything Word does but it's free. *Scrivener is a tool that people seem to either love or dislike due to having more features and operating somewhat differently. *Then there are a seemingly endless list of basic word processors that few people have heard of, but all of them seem to be feature light and designed for minimal distractions. Wait ... oh, bloody hell. I'm part way through writing this reply and I've just noticed that this thread is from 2008 ... Oh well, it wasn't me who necro'd it. I've heard about this and I honestly don't understand it at all. I can understand if someone is somewhat tech-illiterate since I come from a family who know nothing about computers, but using DOS sounds more like the actions of a hipster or someone from a third world country. Surely pretty much anything would be easier than some old DOS program. Hell, I'm into IT and even I would cringe at the idea of having to mess around with DOS every time I want to write (not to mention staring at those old white on black interfaces) . He's probably made absurd amounts of money from both GoT and ASoIAF; surely he could muster up $200 for some cheap laptop and start writing in notepad. Perhaps that's why each book takes so long ...
In an interview I saw with him on a late night talk show, he said he used the DOS based program because he didn't want it hooked to the internet in any way so that something could possible happen to it. He also said that DOS is more stable than any other interface so he didn't have to worry about losing his work.
That was a great, and powerful, word processing program back in the day. I don't think I could use it any more. Writers like to stick to what works, though. Nelson DeMille still writes all of his bestsellers by hand on legal pads, and I think his wife types them up for him.
I think he's a bit behind the times. You can run any number of more modern word processors that don't require an internet connection at all, and I think Windows, Linux, and OSX are all stable enough that you don't have to worry about losing your work. But whatever works for him is great.
It seems like he could simply not connect it to the internet. Although, he is probably too accustomed to it now to make the switch.
Yup. DOS is definitely more stable. And most people these days would be surprised to find out that DOS still underlies Windows just as a UNIX-like equivalent underlies the Mac windowing system. I suspect part of Martin's reasoning is that he doesn't have to learn new software. After writing with the same OS and word processor for all this time, why waste time learning software or operating systems when he could be writing?
Who cares? He makes more money than all of us combined. I use OpenOffice and I probably will when I'm 70, unless something else suits my interest.
Nonsense. OpenOffice is free and does everything Word can. There is no reason to favour Word over OpenOffice, other than personal preference.
I use Word on Office360 because I have a licence from work that I can use on my home computer. I've always used OpenOffice at home until now but having Word is definitely an advantage. I work on my novel at work in the mornings (I get in early) and I can't install OpenOffice there, so I no longer have to switch between the two for morning and evening writing. I save my novel as a fresh file each day with the date in it, on both a USB stick and my hard drive. I also email myself a copy every few days in case of a complete disaster.
The "arguments" given are also predicated on a completely nonsense and phantasmal idea that you will be asked by the receiving editor for a copy of your MS Word license, which, of course, has happened exactly NEVER times in the history of manuscript submission. All that's needed is a .doc or .docx file format, and these days even my fuqing microwave oven is able to export to both without a hitch.
I do the USB back-up, but never thought about the email thing. That's a great idea and I shall start doing the same. Another thing I never do is create a fresh file for each save. I'm very much an over-writer, which is probably screaming for a disaster to strike, but I can't stand the thought of a fresh file for every save.
I hear you. I learned the hard way, after I'd rewritten something then realised my original write was actually better but had overwritten it forever. *cries at the memory and apologies for that awful sentence*
I always save in rtf format, as this can be opened in ANY word processor. I thought this was standard practice if you plan to pass the document on to anyone else, as it avoids possible compatibility problems.
For submission, .doc or .docx is standard. Many indi-houses also take .rtf (and some request it as preferred), but the .doc and .docx formats are still, to this day, standard for submission. This may change with time and with the growing negative attitudes many users have toward the software giant monopolies. I don't have a personal preference for those file types as I'm a Mac boy, but that's the way it is. I use Scrivener, which to hear some people speak is tantamount to placing my immortal soul in the hands of Beelzebub himself, and Scrivener projects save internally as .rtf files. When you are ready to submit, you compile the project and pick whatever file format you want the end product to be in, which of course includes all the standards (.doc, .docx, .rtf, .txt) and most of the newer platform formats like .mobi, .epub, etc.
Yes, there are some publishers who will only take .doc or .docx. Both LibreOffice and OpenOffice will export a story to .doc/.docx without any trouble. If you're doing other kinds of writing, with heavy formatting like tables, certain numbering, formulas, and the like, I've found the LO and OO don't always make the conversion to .doc/.docx properly, but I've never seen a problem with any kind of fiction, which generally doesn't have all that stuff. Hopefully, more publishers will move to open formats like .odt, since MSWord now has native support for those as well.
I read somewhere that a fair number of editors (who work for publishers, I'm assuming) need to exchange Word docs with authors with comments, etc. (Track Changes stuff?). I'm unsure if other software has the ability to read/write these extras, software like OpenOffice or Libre Office (based on OO). That's about the only hiccup I can imagine.
Yeah, I know it has something similar. What I'm asking is: Does it accurately convert Word's Track Changes into Edit:Changes? In other words, if an editor is doing Track Changes in his copy of Word, will you be seeing exactly what he added?
