I still like text editors. That may sound slightly old-fashioned in a world where every piece of software seems to be turning into a platform, a workspace or — inevitably — something with AI built into it. But I use text editors almost every day. Sublime Text is one of my favourites, and I also regularly use KWrite on Linux.
The reason is remarkably simple: they are fast. Click the icon and the editor is there. Start typing. Save the file. Done. There are no hundreds of functions waiting somewhere in a ribbon or menu that I will probably never use. No elaborate document management. No templates I don’t need. Just an empty screen and text.
And that makes me wonder occasionally: why would I buy something like Microsoft 365 if most of what I want to do is simply write text?
Of course, there are plenty of situations where a full office suite makes sense. But for much of my own writing, a text editor is perfectly adequate. Often it is actually nicer to work with because there is so little getting in the way. I also use text editors for the projects where I build my own small tools. Configuration files, Markdown, bits of code, notes, documentation — a simple editor is often exactly what I need.
And when I do need more traditional office functionality, I already have alternatives. I have been using Nextcloud (https://nextcloud.com/) for years, and it comes with office functionality as well. For spreadsheets I use LibreOffice (https://www.libreoffice.org/), which — if I am being fair — already contains far more functions than I will probably ever need.
So perhaps there is a small experiment worth trying here. Before subscribing to yet another large software package, open the text editor that is already available on your operating system. KWrite(https://apps.kde.org/kwrite/), Kate (https://kate-editor.org/), Notepad (on Windows), TextEdit (on Mac), or whatever happens to be there. Then use it for a few days. Just write.
You may discover that software doesn’t always become more useful when it gets more features. Sometimes the nice thing about a tool is precisely that it doesn’t try to do everything.