harrow@exodus.DEC (Jeff Harrow NCSE TWO/E92 DTN=247-3134) (06/28/85)
I was recently preparing a complex report on the Mac using MacWrite
V4.5. This included text of various fonts, sizes and styles, as well as
numerous graphics prepared by both MacPaint and MacDraw.
First of all, the overall effect, especially using Switcher to keep all
3 programs active at once, was a FANTASTIC testament to the Mac's
abilities to easily integrate text and graphics from many different
programming sources.
One interesting aspect of this was that when taking a full-page graphic
from MacDraw, my initial attempt to shrink the graphic to fit in 1/3
page from within MacDraw (by Selecting all objects, Grouping them, and
then shrinking the one resultant object via its "handles") shrank the
boxes and lines OK, but did not shrink the text so that it stayed
correctly within the boxes. HOWEVER, when I CUT the full-page version
out of MacDraw and PASTEd it into MacWrite, I could then shrink it as
much as I wanted and the text shrank in proportion and remained
perfectly readable!
The apparent "bug" with MacWrite was with Italics text. I offset one
paragraph by indenting both the left and right margins about 10 spaces
and entered justified italics text. Everything looked great on the
screen but, when I printed it, the righthand tips of the right-most
letters of each line were cut off; as if a region clipped at the right
side of where non-italics characters would be, but made no allowance for
the additional right-extension of italicized characters. I don't recall
this happening on previous versions.
Apple, are you listening?
Overall, however, the report was a resounding success, further
emphasizing how graphics can make an extremely complex topic easier to
understand.
Jeff
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