This section discusses the software programs available on either the PC in Windows or the Macintosh. Obviously, you have a large selection of programs for use in producing your book. This section discusses only a few of the best, well-known programs. Word Processing Microsoft Word for Macintosh or Microsoft Word for Windows will provide all of the word processing features that you need.
Word performs many tasks extremely well, but it fails in several areas when creating a complex book.
The Master Document works beautifully to create table of contents and index for a short, simple document such as a booklet. As soon as a document includes a large number of large files, the Master Document falls apart, leaving the user wondering where he went wrong. It's possible to use work-arounds, but time spent figuring out ways to trick Word could be better applied to actually producing your book. When you are desktop publishing a right-justified book, Word has a major failing. Word makes it difficult to adjust the space between letters within words in a line of type.