By Caroline Preece
Publication Date: 2026-10-03 10:00:00
The last time I remember opening Microsoft Word, it was to read someone else’s edits on a feature, and I closed it again about four minutes later. Nothing I’ve written professionally has started its life within the software for years, and that’s not a stand against Microsoft or even the usual argument for swapping it out for LibreOffice or another free app claiming to replace Word or Docs. My objection is actually more specific, and probably more annoying.
Word has always been a great place to finish a piece of writing but a terrible place to start one, since almost nothing I write is a finished product while I’m working on it. For that earlier stage, I’d pick something like Scrivener over Word every time, as it treats a piece of writing as a collection of parts rather than a single page. And – great news for anyone who’s done the Microsoft 365 math lately – you only pay for it once.