<![CDATA[Pretty wild to see Adobe entering the “Microsoft Word 6 for Mac” phase.]]>RE: https://mastodon.social/@mjtsai/116494957672603967

Pretty wild to see Adobe entering the “Microsoft Word 6 for Mac” phase.

In 1993, Microsoft had the genius idea to normalize the UI across Mac and Windows. Easier for their development! Harder on users!

It was so bad (and slow!) that they actually went back and **re-released Word 5** while they fixed the worst of it.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/topic/c1aa298a-cac9-4d23-bc4d-364fc071005b/pretty-wild-to-see-adobe-entering-the-microsoft-word-6-for-mac-phase.RSS for NodeFri, 15 May 2026 00:22:14 GMTWed, 06 May 2026 21:40:22 GMT60<![CDATA[Reply to Pretty wild to see Adobe entering the “Microsoft Word 6 for Mac” phase. on Fri, 08 May 2026 16:18:09 GMT]]>@joXn @benfry @cstross @mjtsai that's a very weird way to write WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://sociale.network/users/oblomov/statuses/116539856581543309https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://sociale.network/users/oblomov/statuses/116539856581543309Fri, 08 May 2026 16:18:09 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Pretty wild to see Adobe entering the “Microsoft Word 6 for Mac” phase. on Fri, 08 May 2026 15:38:29 GMT]]>As one of the technical writers on Word for DOS, Word for Windows, and Word for Mac, I'm embarrassed at what it's mutated into. I no longer use it except where required. I use a Markdown editor or LibreOffice.
(edited for a grammar error)
@joXn @benfry @cstross @mjtsai

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://4bear.com/ap/users/116448400424195788/statuses/116539700610285035https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://4bear.com/ap/users/116448400424195788/statuses/116539700610285035Fri, 08 May 2026 15:38:29 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Pretty wild to see Adobe entering the “Microsoft Word 6 for Mac” phase. on Fri, 08 May 2026 15:37:46 GMT]]>@mjtsai @cstross @joXn
Word 4 was pretty good on a Mac SE, Word 5 started to get a bit slow.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://fosstodon.org/users/wiredfool/statuses/116539697806956025https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://fosstodon.org/users/wiredfool/statuses/116539697806956025Fri, 08 May 2026 15:37:46 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Pretty wild to see Adobe entering the “Microsoft Word 6 for Mac” phase. on Fri, 08 May 2026 15:32:45 GMT]]>@joXn @benfry @cstross @mjtsai I was going to say that I didn’t experience Word for Mac 5 but Word for Windows 2 on a 386SX was perfect. No bloat, and not enough power to do anything but get ideas down on the page (with footnotes). Then I looked up the timeline and yup both products were released in 91/92 and were pretty much equivalent.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/geraint/statuses/116539678102569772https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/geraint/statuses/116539678102569772Fri, 08 May 2026 15:32:45 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Pretty wild to see Adobe entering the “Microsoft Word 6 for Mac” phase. on Fri, 08 May 2026 15:31:36 GMT]]>@cstross @joXn Word for Mac in 1986 was not great. Word 5 was released in the early 90s (5.1, the one people remember fondly, was in 1992), after the release of Nisus.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/mjtsai/statuses/116539673561480440https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/mjtsai/statuses/116539673561480440Fri, 08 May 2026 15:31:36 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Pretty wild to see Adobe entering the “Microsoft Word 6 for Mac” phase. on Fri, 08 May 2026 15:30:30 GMT]]>@joXn @benfry @cstross @mjtsai I'm a writer and I've never used Word.
Went from Locoscript to Appleworks, which became Corel somewhere along the way, to WordPerfect and Open Office. Now I use LibreOffice and that suits me fine.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/jillypaddock/statuses/116539669222862819https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/jillypaddock/statuses/116539669222862819Fri, 08 May 2026 15:30:30 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Pretty wild to see Adobe entering the “Microsoft Word 6 for Mac” phase. on Fri, 08 May 2026 15:25:00 GMT]]>@joXn @benfry @cstross @mjtsai agreed

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://social.soapdog.org/users/soapdog/statuses/01KR432ASTH53NEC4JEWYKQ3GThttps://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://social.soapdog.org/users/soapdog/statuses/01KR432ASTH53NEC4JEWYKQ3GTFri, 08 May 2026 15:25:00 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Pretty wild to see Adobe entering the “Microsoft Word 6 for Mac” phase. on Fri, 08 May 2026 15:24:50 GMT]]>@mjtsai @joXn As Word for Mac 5 dates to 1985 or 86 it shouldn't surprise anyone that by the 90's the state of the art had moved on …

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://wandering.shop/users/cstross/statuses/116539646954207165https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://wandering.shop/users/cstross/statuses/116539646954207165Fri, 08 May 2026 15:24:50 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Pretty wild to see Adobe entering the “Microsoft Word 6 for Mac” phase. on Fri, 08 May 2026 14:41:46 GMT]]>@joXn Word for Mac 5 was good, but I liked 90s WordPerfect and Nisus Writer better.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/mjtsai/statuses/116539477639899377https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/mjtsai/statuses/116539477639899377Fri, 08 May 2026 14:41:46 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Pretty wild to see Adobe entering the “Microsoft Word 6 for Mac” phase. on Fri, 08 May 2026 14:37:04 GMT]]>@benfry @cstross @mjtsai Unironically, word processing kind of peaked at Microsoft Word for Mac 5.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://wandering.shop/users/joXn/statuses/116539459137431339https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://wandering.shop/users/joXn/statuses/116539459137431339Fri, 08 May 2026 14:37:04 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Pretty wild to see Adobe entering the “Microsoft Word 6 for Mac” phase. on Thu, 07 May 2026 21:48:10 GMT]]>@benfry I used Word 5.1a on the Mac for ages, long past its end of life. Still probably the best word processor of the gui era.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mstdn.social/users/guinnessduck/statuses/116535491971210706https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mstdn.social/users/guinnessduck/statuses/116535491971210706Thu, 07 May 2026 21:48:10 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Pretty wild to see Adobe entering the “Microsoft Word 6 for Mac” phase. on Thu, 07 May 2026 13:18:25 GMT]]>@benfry
That would have been something to see. Word ("for DOS", it went without saying) v.5 was a really capable non-WYSIWYG word processor that MS didn't match on Windows until about 2000. I almost dread to think what Word for DOS 5 was like on a Mac.
Could Macs do DOS emulation then?
(Shrug. My new employer used Manuscript mostly. Which was an education, indeed.)

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://masto.ai/users/WellsiteGeo/statuses/116533487570698134https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://masto.ai/users/WellsiteGeo/statuses/116533487570698134Thu, 07 May 2026 13:18:25 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Pretty wild to see Adobe entering the “Microsoft Word 6 for Mac” phase. on Thu, 07 May 2026 10:04:28 GMT]]>@benfry Sounds like problems that plague many many modern UIs. All bling, no usability.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://infosec.exchange/users/jernej__s/statuses/116532724896765422https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://infosec.exchange/users/jernej__s/statuses/116532724896765422Thu, 07 May 2026 10:04:28 GMT