HTML versus WORD

Frank T. Clark

Software Systems Design Engineer

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I prefer HTML format files to DOC format files. These are the reasons why HTML format files are better compared to DOC format files.

  1. HTML is an industry standard file format whereas DOC is a Microsoft proprietary file format.

  2. HTML is a text file format whereas DOC is a binary file format.

  3. HTML is fully supported by any standard file diff and source control. DOC has only limited support, if any, as a binary format.

  4. HTML is viewable in any industry standard Internet browser including Microsoft Internet Explorer. DOC can only be viewed with some Microsoft proprietary tools and not in Microsoft Internet Explorer.

  5. HTML is editable in any industry standard plain-text editor. DOC can only be edited with some Microsoft proprietary tools.

  6. HTML is conceptually simpler. (I suppose some consider this a drawback.)

  7. HTML works minimally in any version of browser software. DOC files suffer numerous version incompatibilities.

  8. HTML requires only a handful of commands for most documents.

I prefer to edit my HTML files with Notepad. I keep the number of tags low and simple which makes it fairly easy to read.

I fully appreciate that some prefer a WYSIWYG editor. WORD has WYSIWYG support for HTML format, though it uses a ridiculous number of format tags. There are also numerous compatability problems. There are numerous WYSIWYG HTML editors available, some of them are free.

I prefer to edit my HTML in a window side by side with Internet Explorer so that I can easily switch back and forth. I make some changes, save the file, and click refresh in the IE window. Works like a charm.

Revised 2013-07-07

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