I don't crash in Word X 2004. You might want to run a utility on your fonts, corrupted fonts can kill Word and other programs. Better do it now in case you switch to a new word processor and have the same bad fonts crash it too.

I used Appleworks, Open Office in X11, Think Free Office, then NeoOffice for awhile, but was never able to get full compatibility with some Office files -- especially PowerPoint, but Word also. I also kept Maclink Plus updated for years until v. 13. This year I finally got Office 2004 and it works very well. The Student-edition for $150 / 3 users is a steal, IMO. Just get it and be sure to upgrade; it helped with speed issues a lot.

Well, I’ve paid the money for Office 04 and don’t mind paying for upgrades. I really don’t have major problems with stability either. An occasional crash, but I rarely lose any text.

No, my objection is that Word is lacking (as far as I know) the ability to plug in good dictionaries (Webster’s or Oxford), to replace the abominably poor word lists with which Microsoft has equipped it.

In addition Word is a mastodont of an application. It’s loaded with functions I don’t want that really get in the way. And after 10 years I still find it "user hostile".

To top it off, the GUI is sinfully ugly. And that’s not and issue of "eye candy"! The beauty of Apple’s applications is a daily motivator; MS Word is a de-motivator...

I am truly astonished that Microsoft, with their almost unlimited human and financial resources, have not managed to come up with something better.

Best regards,
ArcticStones