A comparison of Microsoft Word and HTML from my time as a technical writer

I thought of these on November 10, 2005 and emailed them to myself.

Web pages are better than Word because:

  • accessibility is easier.
  • web pages don't combine all numbered lists into one huge list for the document.
  • styles are easier to set up and use.
  • web pages don't keep unnecessary styles and formatting information in the document.
  • smaller file sizes.
  • more portable across platforms.
  • no inconsistent application of template data.

Word is better than HTML because:

  • check spelling as you type.
  • automatically generate Tables (of contents, figures, tables).
  • automatically update caption numbers, heading numbers.

Web pages can overcome Word advantages by:

  • using the CSS counter-increment and counter-reset properties to perform automatic numbering.
  • creating a JavaScript function to generate Tables of Content (or Figures, or other Tables) in correct location of document (see A List Apart article "Improving Link Display for Print" for a starting point).
  • check spelling as you type has to be implemented by web page editing program.

Later in the same day (November 10, 2005) I sent this message to myself.

Web pages are better than Word because:

  • Logical divisions of document can be explicitly set (DIV tag)
  • Authors and editors can see the document structure and what is going on in document.

Word hides the hurtful details of Sections away from user. After deleting Section Breaks out of my document and saving it, when I open the document the next time Word helpfully inserts the section breaks I just deleted. This f**** up the document.

I have some numbered lists in the document. There are several of them, but they are individual, standalone units. So it should look like

FIRST HEADER
a. should be a.
  1. should be 1.
  2. should be 2.
b. should be b.
c. should be c.

SECOND HEADER
a. should be a.
  1. should be 1.
  2. should be 2.
b. should be b.
c. should be c.

But Word helps me out again, and puts all of the numbered lists together into one giant list. So my document looks like this:

FIRST HEADER
a. should be a.
  1. should be 1.
  2. should be 2.
b. should be b.
c. should be c.

SECOND HEADER
a. should be a.
  3. should be 1.
  4. should be 2.
b. should be b.
c. should be c.

I've corrected this three times in the same document, and boy am I pissed that I have to waste my time doing it.

And another message from November 21, 2005

For some reason on a document I'm working on, Word has decided that every time it sees a Field code for a caption it will insert a page break before the caption. This would not be a huge problem if it weren't for the fact that there are already page breaks in the correct locations, and Word's "helping" me with this actually makes more work for me.

Word programmers: Your product sucks donkey balls.

And to be fair (sort of) here's a singular advantage of Word over HTML and CSS from December 15, 2005:

Capitalization (Shift F3 key combination). Word can force selected text to be UPPERCASE, lowercase, or use Initial Capitalization. I don't think HTML/CSS can do that. It can do UPPERCASE, lowercase, and Initial Caps, but if the TEXT IS ALL UPPERCASE originally and you set style to be Initial Caps, CSS won't force the later letters to be lowercase.