Microsoft Word, Open Office, Corel WordPerfect: they’re  everywhere. Almost every business in the Americas, Europe, Australia (or 90 percent of the rest of the world, for that matter) uses one of these Big Three or an equivalent. We used to use typewriters, when they were fairly cheap and computers were super-expensive. Now computers are dirt cheap, so we use word processors. It didn’t even take long for the revolution to happen.

A modern word processing program is a fantastically sophisticated tool that really can “do amazing things” like check your spelling while you type, let you select from a mind-boggling selection of typefaces, handle bulleted and numbered lists automatically and even apply all kinds of automatic formating to your documents. So if a word processor can do all this, and just about everbody has one, why do so many (most) business letters, proposals, resumes and promotional letters look, well… let’s just say “unpolished”? Read the rest of this entry »