undefined | Better HN

0 pointsthwarted13y ago0 comments

There's no good Github-like service for Word/Excel/etc that's appreciably better than passing redlined documents back and forth.

Considering the amount of changes, and the terrible interface that Word has for viewing history/tracking changes, Google Docs is perfect for making these kinds of edits, reviewing history and tracking changes. To top it off, legal documents have none of the "requirements" of the "extra features" that people normally complain about when it comes to why they can't stop using Microsoft Office products.

They could still print them out, red-line them by hand, and keep legal assistants employed who update the canonical on-line version.

I've received attachments from someone sent to multiple people with instructions of "make your changes and send it back to me". And then the sender spends time manually merging people's changes into a single document. What a waste.

The amount of effort and time saved in not having to keep track of the most recent version from the multitude of revisions that litter your inbox as attachments and which one is/should be considered canonical would more than make up for any other perceived drawback.

It's purely momentum that keeps MS Office entrenched in this area.

0 comments

3 comments · 1 top-level

rayiner13y ago· 2 in thread

> It's purely momentum that keeps MS Office entrenched in this area.

First, in the legal sector, anything "cloud" is a total no-go. Handing confidential legal documents over to a third party creates a rats nest of privilege issues.

Second, many businesses don't depend on Word's track changes. There are tools for doing version control and diff-ing on Word documents. We e-mail around diffs (redlines) just like how the Linux kernel was managed back before git. What's missing is a "patch" replacement--hence handing markups to secretaries.

Third, Word compatibility is a huge advantage. Legal documents don't need anything too fancy (that said, Google Docs is extremely primitive so I'm not sure it can even handle everything legal documents need, particularly in the area of footnoting), but at the same time law firms have built up huge bodies of templates and precedent in Word format. Having to round-trip through Google docs to copy some language or a citation from precedent would be a huge pain in the ass. Also, there are lots of little plugins, macros, etc, that we use. Westlaw integration, for example, custom macros for generating boiler-plate, etc.

Fourth, clients all use Word, and they all send redlines around too. You hand Goldman Sachs a Google Doc link, and they'd be like "what is this shit?" Big companies have exactly the same set of things tying them to word. Goldman has worked on a billion different prospectus statements before, and they're all in Word format. So you have to have Word and all those tools around anyway for documents coming in and going out.

Fifth, Google Docs sucks. It's the only Office Suite that's even more awkward and finicky than MS Office, and that's saying a lot. I hate using it for the most basic things--I'd hate to have to use it at work. Word processing has been pretty much downhill since Word Perfect 6.x, but it's really hit a new low with Google Docs.

thwartedOP13y ago

Three of your five, the third, fourth, and fifth, are "momentum", so maybe "purely" is too strong.

So maybe Google Docs isn't the best option currently, but there are definitely more efficient ways to work than what is done now. This is an area that could use some innovation, and putting things on github is an early step to find out what can work. However, those who are used to status quo have to be interested in finding new, perhaps better, ways to work. If you go into things thinking you're married to Microsoft Office, nothing is going to change.

rayiner13y ago

"Momentum" (people use it because it's popular) isn't precisely the same thing as network effect (people use it because to interoperate with other people) which isn't precisely the same thing as high costs of transition (people use it because switching would require a lot of work). E.g. Google has momentum, but not the other two. Facebook has both momentum and network effect. MS Office has all three.

There is nothing better right now than the MS Word workflow with all the accumulated templates, macros, etc. We can both imagine better things, and it is indeed an area that could use a lot of innovation, but github, with zero support for word processing formats or even binary files in general, is a non-starter here. Want to disrupt the space? Make Github for ODF documents in a way that let's you cleanly e-mail around diffs and apply them, and let's you easily merge changes from multiple people to documents that may have drifted from the branch point. Make it robust, so people don't fear using the tool for what it might do to their documents. That's a billion dollar Office monopoly-challenging idea right there with applications far beyond the legal space. It's also technically challenging as hell. This is not a space where a minimally viable product is going to play. It's competing with MS on its own turf.

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse