UGH! Writing in the Wilderness
I swear, if and when I drop out of fandom, it will be due to the lack of a good, free writing programme.
Not the fandom personalities or wars, or fanboys holding on to their Silver Age memories and wondering why the world just doesn't stand still for them. Nope, it will this: the lack of just a free solid, intuitive writing/editing programme.
Ever since gdocs decided to forsake me earlier this year, my writing/editing output has dropped by seventy percent compared to last year this time. With gdocs, because it was so intuitive and readily responsive, I could write anywhere: at the library, on my smart phone, on someone else's smart phone. Steal snatches of text on anyone's computer, on my netbook. I could cut and paste easily from one text box to the other, and editing and highlighting my work was a doddle - then gdocs decided to change everything.
They have made it so hard to highlight, copy and paste (even with the keyboard shortcuts), the comments are done to the side of the page instead of flushed in text, the 'A4' vertical portrait (inclusive of margins) have sliced 10cms of viewing on my netbook (the full screen default was aces for my netbook, this is what I do most of my writing on) which is short sighted, since a lot of people use netbooks nowadays - it's easier than carrying your heavier laptops. Even the word limits of gdocs are risky now, in that I don't know how much I can upload before it defaults to just showing me the first seven pages out of say, sixty. Gdocs is intractable, and plain unpredicatable which makes it a pain to use.
The most frustrating thing about all of this is that despite the complaints towards google and their changing of gdocs, google have said that they aren't going to go back to what made it great in the first place, and since gwave was a damp squib, I can't really entice people to put their work up in gwave just to get it corrected (and I don't even know if that still has the support). Just hair pulling (and not the fun kind!) all around.
As a result of gdocs changing everything, I've had to move - The Wandering Scribe. The Witless Writer. Right now, I'm with zoho.com - which is the best of a bad bunch. Q10 is good for blitzing, so is Write or Die - but when it comes to editing for myself and others - I'm at zoho.com and it's frankly, not a patch on gdocs. I have to hunt down to find formatting for basic stuff such as turning the font into a different colour, or strike through.
Oh, gdocs why did you have to go and change a good thing? I'm betaing a story now, and because of this programme, it is taking me twice as long to do anything. Despite my high speed internet, zoho.com doesn't respond to my highlighting words and such. It's so frustrating because it's so inefficient, to the point of it affecting my performance.
I don't want to go back to the days of Microsoft Word or Open Office where I'd carry my stories around with a USB stick/pen because it's so ineffective. I don't mind getting back to the notebooks for jotting down plot points but if it continues, I might have to turn down beta'ing requests for longer works, because it's gotten really difficult.
How's it been with you lot since gdocs threw a wobbly? Have you all discovered anything good? Or am I just being a special snowflake? I can take it.
For anyone who's in the same boat like I am- can you help?
Not the fandom personalities or wars, or fanboys holding on to their Silver Age memories and wondering why the world just doesn't stand still for them. Nope, it will this: the lack of just a free solid, intuitive writing/editing programme.
Ever since gdocs decided to forsake me earlier this year, my writing/editing output has dropped by seventy percent compared to last year this time. With gdocs, because it was so intuitive and readily responsive, I could write anywhere: at the library, on my smart phone, on someone else's smart phone. Steal snatches of text on anyone's computer, on my netbook. I could cut and paste easily from one text box to the other, and editing and highlighting my work was a doddle - then gdocs decided to change everything.
They have made it so hard to highlight, copy and paste (even with the keyboard shortcuts), the comments are done to the side of the page instead of flushed in text, the 'A4' vertical portrait (inclusive of margins) have sliced 10cms of viewing on my netbook (the full screen default was aces for my netbook, this is what I do most of my writing on) which is short sighted, since a lot of people use netbooks nowadays - it's easier than carrying your heavier laptops. Even the word limits of gdocs are risky now, in that I don't know how much I can upload before it defaults to just showing me the first seven pages out of say, sixty. Gdocs is intractable, and plain unpredicatable which makes it a pain to use.
The most frustrating thing about all of this is that despite the complaints towards google and their changing of gdocs, google have said that they aren't going to go back to what made it great in the first place, and since gwave was a damp squib, I can't really entice people to put their work up in gwave just to get it corrected (and I don't even know if that still has the support). Just hair pulling (and not the fun kind!) all around.
As a result of gdocs changing everything, I've had to move - The Wandering Scribe. The Witless Writer. Right now, I'm with zoho.com - which is the best of a bad bunch. Q10 is good for blitzing, so is Write or Die - but when it comes to editing for myself and others - I'm at zoho.com and it's frankly, not a patch on gdocs. I have to hunt down to find formatting for basic stuff such as turning the font into a different colour, or strike through.
Oh, gdocs why did you have to go and change a good thing? I'm betaing a story now, and because of this programme, it is taking me twice as long to do anything. Despite my high speed internet, zoho.com doesn't respond to my highlighting words and such. It's so frustrating because it's so inefficient, to the point of it affecting my performance.
I don't want to go back to the days of Microsoft Word or Open Office where I'd carry my stories around with a USB stick/pen because it's so ineffective. I don't mind getting back to the notebooks for jotting down plot points but if it continues, I might have to turn down beta'ing requests for longer works, because it's gotten really difficult.
How's it been with you lot since gdocs threw a wobbly? Have you all discovered anything good? Or am I just being a special snowflake? I can take it.
For anyone who's in the same boat like I am- can you help?