Scientists’s desk
What general office software is useful for scientists? I come to the following enumeration: an email client, a calendar manager, a browser, a document formatter (for non-scientific papers), a spreadsheet and presentation software. Microsoft sells software providing all these functionalities, and indeed many scientists use the Microsoft products Outlook, Internet Explorer, MS-Word, MS-Excel and MS-PowerPoint. However, with free - technically speaking - superior products Google is now challenging the leading position of Microsoft in this traditionally Microsoft territory

A scientific manuscript will carry in the majority of cases more than one author. In this post I want to describe some of the technical problems associated with multiple authors.  So nothing here about the sociological and psychological aspects of dealing with co-authors. The book, by the way, discusses these aspects in some detail.

Writing after the facts
If everything that had to be done, has been done, all research has been carried out,  all calculations have been performed and all results are available, writing up is a simple process. The first author - and only he - works on the manuscript (Latex-type, or in case of real emergency MS-Word) and after he has finished, the correction process can start. I have explained in my book in detail how to deal with this correction process. But here I want treat a new situation.