this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2024
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Old word processors were designed to make sure to include features both the consumer and the professional (who would need things like markup tools, special margin widths, etc.) would need. Then professional printers moved on to better software, but Microsoft (and others) never removed those features and that turned into 'how many features can we add' until now Word is like some sort of shitty combination of a WordPad and PowerPoint. It's so full of unnecessary features that have a one case in ten thousand uses.
It's not even just the word processors themselves. This has been going on for decades. Why are dingbats fonts packaged with computers? Because they were printers marks and Apple wanted printers to use their computers, so they added a font with printers marks and then Microsoft did the same with Windows and now we still have a font which is used mostly by kids fucking around because there are now better and easier ways to use the one or two characters in that font set that you will ever likely even think about using.
The more OSes and software trim themselves of this fat, the better, but it goes the other direction most of the time.
I think Word js really more like a combination of Wordpad and Publisher.