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Tools like PageMaker, InDesign or MS Publisher are tools for fliers, notices, and invitations. Word is for documents. Essays, contracts, NDAs, memos. Documents with lots of text but still meant to be formatted for printing.

I think the author's best point isn't so much that it's wrong tool for the job bur rather the job that Word is for is much less relevant now. Just like typewriters were obsolete when word processors arrived; word processors are themselves obsolete in a world where the result isn't printed.

True. But Word has a much larger installed base than any of the real desktop publishing tools you mentioned, or any proper web page editing tool. Every new PC nowadays includes Starter editions of Word and Excel. Word also happens to be capable of doing some of the things that these more specialized tools do, albeit rather badly. Meanwhile, people don't like to learn new tools. So it should come as no surprise that everyone just uses Word for everything. The result? Wrong tool for the job.

But I'm not sure if I agree with OP's idea that Word is becoming obsolete. Maybe it's not very useful for technically oriented people, but we still have a long way to go before printing becomes obsolete, if it ever does. Even Google Docs shows page outlines by default, as if the document were meant to be printed on Letter-sized paper. Which means the best that we can hope for, for the foreseeable future, is that people will use the right tool for the job. [edited]

"... but we still have a long way to go before printing becomes obsolete, if it ever does." Seen @bubbles?

[Disclosure: I am working on this :)]

Jesus Christ! Negative voting because I am working on something around this? Go on, continue on your path.

Thankfully, karma isn't really within bounds of a user on HN, or within any algorithm. :)

word processors are themselves obsolete in a world where the result isn't printed.

I don't see that.

When contracting I am always being sent Word docs for this and that. There's rarely a need for anyone to print them; the value seems to be in the ability to control layout and highlighting, embed nicely formatted tables, and include images or diagrams, all as viewed on a computer.

Even if we assumed no one was ever going to print these documents, only pass them around to a limited audience, what would be a better tool for the average person helping out on a project? If not Word then almost certainly something very much like it.

  * A wiki.
  * Google Docs.
  * Assembla.

Passing around a word document via email (or shared folder) makes about as much sense as passing around a C++ file, or the text of a facebook status.

Google Docs I can see, though it's basically "Word, but in your browser." (Hence "If not Word then almost certainly something very much like it.")

I've had some mild push-back from a few people when trying to get them to switch from Word, but it has the upside of you always knowing what the current version is, a problem the Wordists I've dealt with run into often.

A wiki, though, is a lost cause for many. I do not want to be the one having to teach people how to correctly format tables or embed images with the correct size and captions.

"Why do I have to learn all this stuff when we already know how to use Word?" is a common lament.

> Tools like PageMaker, InDesign or MS Publisher are tools for fliers, notices, and invitations.

I have no experience with MS Publisher but the other two are certainly not. They are tools for professional typesetters, have a very steep learning curve and are priced accordingly. Using them to create Fliers, notices and invitations would be an overkill. In fact, now a days, they are an overkill even for a good number of books!

Note: In the Microsoft canon, Publisher is the desktop publishing tool for the masses.

The problem with Word is also it's greatness -- it does everything. It's a word processor. It integrates with SharePoint for content management and all sorts of whiz-bang features. You can make flyers. Insert cross-references. Translate stuff into German. Embed spreadsheets or crazy tie-ins to backend business systems. Draw stuff.

> But as long as the content isn't being completely neglected, I think we should forgive people for wanting to control the font in which their writings appear, or for wanting their quotes to look "smart", or for spending 20 minutes tweaking the line spacing of their resume. It's human nature to mix a sense of aesthetics with everything.

Except that almost nobody I know does that. It's quite the opposite, actually - most of the people I interact with don't give a crap about how the text looks, as long as the content is right. Sometimes it applies even to people earning money on publishing, like Internet journalists. I can spot spelling, punctiation and spacing mistakes immediately, almost subconsciously, after looking at the text and because of that I tend to annoy many people by insisting that no, a text full of typos, misplaced spaces and without much formatting is NOT of an acceptable quality.

Why people completely don't care about aesthetics is beyond me. Maybe I watched too much TV series (like Star Trek: TNG) in my childhood and now believe that pretty and functional are not mutually exclusive?

I think that's more about the disconnect between your perception of how the text looks and the author's.

It's not uncommon for people to have a very poor understanding of spelling and grammar, and how this affects others perception of their work.

As an example, I've received bug reports that go along the lines of "This outcome is not what I expected????" but the text is beautifully formatted.