Software for Writing

need some suggestions

[dataguy]

We have a 62 year old retired gentleman who has been writing articles for one of our websites for a few years. Our editors are always at odds with him because he always submits his articles with many spelling mistakes and gramatical errors.

I've had a few conversations with him where he's admitted that he's using some old word processing software that's not very good (it doesn't even have spell check?).

We'd like to buy him some software for writing articles, but I'm afraid that MS Word 2007 is too much for him to comprehend, and is likely too much for his older computer.

Does anyone have any suggestions for what would likely work well for him?

[bcolflesh]

[osalt.com...]

[ccDan]

How about AbiWord?

[abisource.com...]

[Staffa]

If your gentleman does not run an OS higher than Win 98 then this works in almost any application already installed. It's old but small and perfect, I still use it :o)

quinion.com/mqa/spell.htm

Oh, and it's free

[edited by: Staffa at 8:04 pm (utc) on July 2, 2007]

[dragsterboy]

Why don't you install him edit plus?

[vincevincevince]

I'd suggest that at his age, you should be respecting him for what he does best, and finding someone else to proof read his work.

[Frida]

xMail Write is another good one. It's actually designed for writing mails. The good thing about it is that it performs an in depth analysis of your text. It also checks the spelling the word count and the level of your text readability. It's like notepad on steroids to me! :)

[trooper27]

If he is good at creating attractive texts and stuff then why don't you hire somebody else to do the writing for him as vincevincevince said.

[lavazza]

He's 62, not 162... if he can write, he can spell check'

I second Open Office it works, it's free, and its output is cross-platform-friendly

[Grandmas Cookies]

Open office is alright I guess.

[John_Blake]

Can't he work on MS-Word?

[lavazza]

Opening Post:

...I'm afraid that MS Word 2007 is too much for him to comprehend, and is likely too much for his older computer

[dragsterboy]

what, is he working on a pc with a 286 processor?

[lavazza]

Maybe it just has less than 2GB of RAM ;)

[chuckstarks]

The young man can get MS WORD, or COREL, or OPEN OFFICE, what ever and learn. I'm an old fart too. Barely younger than his 62, yet I now sit in my office glancing at APPLE, LINUX, WIN2003/2005, XP, and SOLARIS boxes. Even on SOLARIS when I'm just using an old text editor for design notes I use the UNIX spell command on my notes. I run everything I publish for review by others through the grammar checker of at least one word processor, often multiple word processors.

More important, age is not an issue with learning. My grandparents may be dead now, but they never feared learning. One Grandmother got Bachelors in her 80s (living in the dorm) and her Masters at 90+; a Grandfather learned multivariate calculus in his late 70s. The ancestors I've had who refused to learn died young.

My mother, nearly two decades beyond 62, learned MS WORD for her volunteer community work. She recently asked me how MS WORD templates worked. And a day later she wanted to learn how to create them.

[Go60Guy]

Being even more chronologically advantaged than the gentleman, I can vouch that it's not the fairest assumption that age has anything to do with resistance to learning.

In fact, studies have shown that once older people overcome whatever trepidation they may have about embracing computers and the internet, they become among the most enthusiastic users and advocates. I'm just learning WordPress, and am starting to love it. I may be a little slow, but I get there.

If nothing else, couldn't he use NoteTab Pro? It's cheap, very simple and powerful.

[bcolflesh]

Is this really about age? I'm 35, and I can't comprehend how a POS like MS Word 2007 became the de facto standard.

[BigDave]

If the hardware is older than around 2002, don't even bother with open office. I don't think he will be all that thrilled with a delay of up to a minute before it appears on the screen.

See if you can get him a copy of word 95 or 97. They worked well on the hardware of their time, had spell check, and produced usable HTML, unlike more recent versions of word.

Have you even asked him if he would be willing to use new software? Most people are resistant to change.

[martinibuster]

>>>How about AbiWord?

I gave it a spin and found it slow, slow, slow.

[trooper27]

As far as I know 286 processors can not cope with this

Maybe it just has less than 2GB of RAM ;)

It is practically impossible for such machines to have that much RAM.