>
[snip]
> I also use it for miscellaneous text tasks like taking notes
> or writing emails like this for Google Groups, but not for
> writing documents - I use Word for that. I was using Word
> before I came to vim, but it's never really occurred to me
> to try and use vim instead, and now you've raised the
> question in my mind, it still doesn't grab me, because I
> don't think of vim as a word processor. (I'm sure there's
> lots of solutions to use it as such, if you aren't already
> using Word for everything, including Word templates etc.)
>
My experience is just the opposite. I dislike word processors in
general. When I want to produce fancy text for printing, e.g. for books,
I use LyX, which is described as a document preparation system. LyX is
excellent for this, but I don't compose my text in LyX. I use vim for
that. Only when I've got things more or less as I like them do I import
the file into LyX for final polishing (inserting headings, making the
index, inserting pictures, etc.).
I find that vim is far more flexible than any word processor and allows
much quicker and more intuitive movement of blocks of text, deletion and
undeletion, etc.
Many authors always write in longhand and only transfer their text to a
word processor when they have more or less completed their first draft.
I am doing more or less the same thing, except that I substitute vim for
longhand (I've always hated longhand). But the principle of separating
the act of writing from generating the publishable text version seems to
me to be essentially correct, and this is what I use vim for.
--
Anthony Campbell - ac@acampbell.org.uk
Microsoft-free zone - Using Debian GNU/Linux
http://www.acampbell.org.uk - sample my ebooks at
http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/acampbell
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