skip@gatech.UUCP (Skip Addison) (05/28/84)
[Eat this you dasterdly bug!]
Several people at Georgia Tech have spent an extensive amount of time looking
for the perfect IBM PC word processor. Naturally, what we like isn't
necessarily what the rest of the world wants. Our observations on the new
package from IBM and Word Perfect:
If you like menus, you'll get plenty with the Display Write 2 (or whatever
they call it on the PC) package from IBM. Menu after menu after menu.
That was the major complaint I heard from the fellow who spent about an
hour running through the various features of the package. He considered it
unusable.
So far, Word Perfect is the best thing we've found, but it's not perfect.
We've used it extensively and haven't found any major bugs. The biggest
problem it used to have was the inability to see the "Hidden Functions" as
you were deleting them. Used to have -- it's been fixed with the latest
release.
Most Word Perfect editting commands are issued with the Alt key combined with
a key on the top row of the keyboard. Most of the text entry commands use
the function keys for underline, bold, center, etc. A template comes with
the package to provide remiders for which key is where -- a necessary item
for this package.
It's easier to list the features it doesn't have than to list the many useful
features that it does have. Word Perfect does not do automatic section
headers, table of contents, or index generation. It does have excellent
printer support, headers and footers, super- and sub-scripts, and footnotes.
I'm sure one could find other things that it does not do, or does poorly, but
I listed the ones that some people might not be able to do without. Overall
it has a few rough edges in terms of being guidance for the novice user
(shift-F3 is help!?), but I would recommend the package more often than any
other word processor.
--
from the DMZ of Skip Addison
The Office of Telecommunications and Networking
Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30332
CSNet: Skip @ GATech ARPA: Skip.GATech @ CSNet-Relay
uucp: ...!{akgua,allegra,rlgvax,sb1,unmvax,ut-ngp,ut-sally}!gatech!skip
--
--
from the DMZ of Skip Addison
The Office of Telecommunications and Networking
Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30332
CSNet: Skip @ GATech ARPA: Skip.GATech @ CSNet-Relay
uucp: ...!{akgua,allegra,rlgvax,sb1,unmvax,ut-ngp,ut-sally}!gatech!skip