Word Processing Programs

[zeldas_lullaby]

OK, I'll try! I would be lost without my computer. Thanks!

[moderntimes]

Like the most of us, I use MS-Word although I used to prefer Word Perfect but it simply lost the product battle long ago. And Word is a lot better and easier to use than it used to be.

I turned off the grammar checker and NEVER use it. I do however leave the spellcheck on, to notify only and not auto-correct. It catches blatant and dumb tpyos, ha ha.

But there's no substitute for your own brain. MS-Word is a tool that we use, and like all technology, you are either its master or it rules you. Look at the easy convenience of cellphones but the misuse that we also see, drivers texting and crashing.

Let Word be a loyal but slightly dense assistant to your writing, but never trust it wholly. Trust only the ol' grey matter.

When I was making the final author's proofreading of my first novel before it went to press (literally) I came across a typo (or grammatical error, I suppose) that I'd missed, and all 3 editors had missed too, from the very first chapters of my book.

I had this minor character named Lou Masters. They protagonists were watching his house in the early morning and the sentence said... "Lights were coming on in Master's house." which was the incorrect placement of the apostrophe, and it should have read "Lights were coming on in Masters' house." and I don't know of ANY autocheck that would have found that. Heck, 4 grown and edumacated adults missed it for months and numerous re-edits. Thankfully it was fixed prior to press time. Whew.

[BookLover2280]

I was wondering what are the best programs out there that aren't going to cost my kids college fund....lol.....I need something to check my grammar as well as my spelling. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[moderntimes]

There is no "best" program. Like it or not, it's MS-Word for everything now. You can buy several low cost packages of the latest MS-Word software. Now how it's packaged is this: Microsoft (Mickeysoft) makes several products within their "Office" software group: Word for word processing, Excel for spreadsheet, PowerPoint for slide shows, and so on. Regardless of the packaging, there is no "lesser" version of Word or Excel or whatever. The various packages consists of the FULL versions of Word and other stuff, and price depends on how many products are in the bundle, but regardless, each package contains the "full" version of each specific product.

The cheapest you can buy is MS-Office Home & Student version for about $140. You get the FULL 2013 version of MS-Word plus Excel and a couple of other smaller products which I don't use -- I am a writer and I only use MS-Word, period.

Word contains built in spell and grammar checks, and contains plenty of optional yes/no choices you can set. For example, you can turn off auto-correct and only let the software highlight a misspelled word but not change it on the fly. You can turn on spell check and turn off grammar check. And so on.

If you're not familiar with MS-Word then you simply must learn how to use it. There are plenty of good tutorial books if needed, too. But these days, any writer must become reasonably proficient with MS-Word. Not an "expert" but just enough to create and edit your writing.

I've got MS-Word 2013 which I bought on sale for a little over $100 when I bought my new laptop last September. But even if you pay list price of $140 you won't need any further purchases. The MS-Word package is all you'll need.

But never forget this: The best spell and grammar checker is between the ears.

[BookLover2280]

I'm usually pretty good at keeping my work in order, but sometimes I miss something. Thank you for the help. I thought Ms-Word good. Just wanted to make sure.

[moderntimes]

One more item --- when you sell your novel or other material to a publisher, the editing staff of the publisher will take your original book and perform a line edit and content edit, and send the edited file back to you.

All the markups will be done via MS-Word "Track Changes" so when you brush up on the use of Word, be sure to become familiar with the "Track Changes" option and its vagaries.

Almost all book editing and revision today is performed via MS-Word Track Changes.

[BookLover2280]

Thank you so much. I appreciate all the help. I accidentally came across this site doing some research for a completely different topic and I'm glad I did. I did not know about the "Track Changes" I have been using Ms-Word for the longest time, or at least I was up until recently, but never knew that. Right now I'm stuck with either notepad or word because I'm using my hubby's Nextbook until my tablet gets fixed.

[moderntimes]

Track Changes essentially allows someone to make changes to a document but instead of the change actually getting done, it draws a line thru the word that's changed and shows the new insertion in red or blue next to it. There's also a commentary area where you can post a brief explanation for changes that aren't just typos.

When my novel comes back from the publisher's review editorial staff, it will be edited via Word's Track Changes. I'll then be able to skip down thru the text and look at each recommended change, and either "accept" or "refuse" and if I refuse I can post the reason in a comments section.

This doc then goes back to the publisher for review again, and occasionally it goes back and forth a couple times until all the minor problems are fixed. Then the book goes into "galley proof" where the actual typeset font is created and the cover and back cover are set up, and this goes to the author for final approval.

It's a tedious process because every teeny error must be fixed before the book "goes to press" -- otherwise if the author approved it but there are errors, the author pays for the changes and it comes out of the royalties.

[BookLover2280]

Oh, wow. It does sound like a lot of work. Dang that means carefully check over every word unless you wanna pay for it.

[moderntimes]

I was agonized when I found a typo in my first novel. A misplaced apostrophe. A character named "Masters" and I had lights coming on in Master's house instead of Masters' house. I was missed by myself and 3 other editors.

[Ursula_Minor]

Just one small clarification: if you're using pages (the mac version of MS word), you'll still be able to open word documents, and to see track changes, as long as you're using compatible files. If you're worried about jumping systems, .rtf files and .docx files are fairly standard for up-to-date software.

[moderntimes]

Good info, Ursula -- same for the Winders version of MS-Word. The Mickeysoft and Dazzleglitz (Mac) are essentially the same.

[fernwehgypsey]

I don't use Word because I prefer Open Source software. Even when one has the money to throw away on licenses, I find the licenses software to be clunky and dysfunctional with all the trouble the DRM and licensing issues itself. I have even seen some devices that hardly function without an internet connection simply because none of the software will work without being able to get online to verify licenses. Similarly, I think development is slow on these programs because of the fact so much resources goes into intentionally making it unusable for proprietary reasons. If you spend too much time making a nice safe, you have nothing good to put inside.

With that said, the quality of the grammar and spelling dictionaries seem to be about the same to me.

Anyway... computer grammar and spelling checkers, at least with today's technology, are just assistants especially on the grammar side. A human person knows better than the grammar checker. The grammar checker acts more like a suggestion/highlighting tool that one can use while proofreading making it easier to spot your own mistakes.

We speak and write in informal languages. Applying grammar "rules" to an informal language--even in so-called technical or formal writing--requires a certain finesse that at this time is still uniquely human. Computer code is formal and cannot contain equivocation; it's literally binary. Love can be verb; love can be noun; and using semicolons is as rational as dancing.

The cool thing is the simple binary rule programmed into the grammar checker would usually be correct which we can pretty much figure out as something like:

• WRONG: The noun verbs his noun that, irrelevant subclause, verb
  SHOULD BE EITHER:
  A: The noun verb his noun that, irrelevant subclause, verb
  OR
  B: The noun verbs his noun that, irrelevant subclause, verbs

In the case in the OP, the binary rule gave a false positive because love is actually a noun in the sentence, which is hard to figure out without truly understanding the human meaning of the sentence. Without using the meaning of the sentence, usually the fragment "his noun that verbs" would be much more common than "his noun that noun".

Well I'll stop writing things now. I just wanted an excuse to complain about Word without being totally off-topic.

Thank you so much for the information. I write and attempted to use Word Spellchecker to correct any errors that I made and naively thought that it would also assist me with grammatical errors. WRONG Sometimes it marked grammatically incorrect sentences as correct. It would also say that my writing was correct but I would proofread again and discover that words were used in an improper context. But if a noun is in the correct position in a sentence, spellchecker won't flag it; this occurs even when the sentence when read makes no logical sense. I am working on my grammar because I hope to become a paid author eventually. I am relearning proper English grammar. It has been very enlightening, to say the least.

[moderntimes]

Fern, MS-Word is okay as a spellcheck ONLY to help with plain old tpyos (ha ha) -- actual mispellings (deliberately wrong) and I use it for a quick scan for that easy fix.

Mistakes are of two basic kinds, I think. There are pure mechanical misspellings, such as reversing a letter while typing, "tpyo" vs "typo" for example.

The other sorts of mistakes are never going to be found by any sort of spellchecking software. These are composition errors. Those are only fixed by use of the grey matter. Which is the right thing, because not everyone can be a writer (meaning, selling your story) in that it's darn hard to do. It takes some innate talent coupled with lots of learned skill.

I do wish to mention however that although Scott doesn't tend to like "commercial grade" software, in today's publishing world, you will generally be required to use MS-Word for all submissions. Scott is a terrific person and superb writer, but I can state clearly that last year I purchased the "Home and Student" version of MS-Word 2013 edition, it cost me about $100, and after I loaded it the software has worked flawlessly. I do NOT have to be connected to the internet to use it. It's self-contained on the laptop. Some "economy" versions of various software require that you be always connected to the internet but those I recommend against.

I must repeat: if you are going to be trying to sell your work to any sort of conventional marketplace, magazines or book publishers, you simply must use MS-Word. Myself I wish there were alternatives, and I once preferred WordPerfect software, but MS-Word is the standard which is required. That's how it is these days.

With my 3 novels sold and now being published, I am working with my publisher to edit and review my manuscripts, and this is performed in MS-Word using the "Track Changes" feature. That is generally the case these days, like it or not.

If you're self-publishing (Scott likes the self publishing venue) then go ahead and use whatever software you like and if it works okay, fine. But for submitting to conventional publishers, MS-Word is the standard. And spending a little more than $100 is not a terrible thing.

[amaziah19]

Your sentence is correct. I have run into a few instances while writing essays where MS Word seems like it doesn't know what it is talking about. It is just the drawbacks of relying on computer algorithms instead of human eyes.