bg0d+@andrew.cmu.edu (Bernard Goldsmith) (08/09/89)
Help! Anybody out there with some experience in using Sprint word processing program by Borland? It received fairly good review by Personal Computing magazine last month. The price seems right. It seems to emphasize the features thare DDDt are most important to me. But before I spring for the price, I'd really like to hear from some actual users. What comments and/or suggestions are you willing to share? bg0d+@andrew.cmu.edu
joe@pnet51.cts.com (Jim Henderson) (08/10/89)
I've used Sprint, and have found it to be a really good program - particularaly if you are used to another word processor, like WordPerfect, Wordstar, and Multimate. It will emulate these different programs, and also will read/write even more different formats (I don't have a list of them handy; we keep those at work). If you are looking to go from using a different word processor, it's a good one. Of it's features the one I found to be really useful was the "Quick Card" command. Basically, this lets you print a summary card of all of the commands that are defined. Other features include Auto-save (and if you turn off the computer before you save, it will ask you if you want to recover from the auto-saved file), macro capability, and a flexible user-interface. If you don't like the fact that WordPerfect has help on the F3 key, (in 4.2), I don't believe it can be changed. In Sprint,t is easy to do. All around, it's one of the best I've seen. The only thing I'd like to see (I haven't heard if it's in the current version) is emulation for WP 5.0 and Word 5.0. The one I tried didn't have these two compatibilities. Jim Henderson, joe@pnet51.cts.com "Don't ask me how it works or I'll start to whimper." - Arthur Dent DISCLAIMER: "I speak for myself, and only for myself." (Except where noted.)
verber@pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu (Mark A. Verber) (08/11/89)
Sprint is my favorite WP for the PC... in fact it is just about the only word processor for the PC I like. If you have used the EMACS text editor and Scribe/LaTeX and liked it, Sprint is for you. I suspect that Borland purchased FinalWord, which was the supported version of Perfect Writer, which was a Scribe/Emacs clone. For writing large documents it would be hard to beat Sprint (other than using real LaTeX which I prefer). Sprint really understands the idea of sections, chapters, etc. Not on this using style sheets, divisions, etc. Just say @chapter(ChapterName) and you have a new chapter, in the style you like, automatically numbered, running footer/headers changes to reflect the new chapter name, and a table of contents entry. Since it is basically an EMACS editor things can be completely customized to reflect your editing style. I leave it in Emacs mode, but many people make prefer the WordStar/MS-Word/MultiMate/etc user interfaces. The only down side of Sprint is that it's translator to other formats isn't the greatest (if works, but all the formating isn't perserved. -- Mark A. Verber System Programmer, Physics Department, Ohio State University verber@mps.ohio-state.edu (614) 267-5979
daven@ibmpcug.UUCP (David Newman) (08/13/89)
I used Sprint to produce the camera ready copy for a 435-page book of conference proceedings (published by Chapman and Hall), using its very good postscript driver, and its macro language to convert badly typed PC-Write files into the format needed for the book. I also use it as my main programming editor, since it has a C-like macro language, and can have 24 files open at once. I like word processors with a separate editor and formatter. If you want WYSIWYG, then Sprint is not for you. You mark areas as headings, tables, figures etc. These appear as, say "CHAPTER Introduction" in the text. On printing, the formatter combines these markers with a style sheet to produce the layout you want. So you can write formatting style sheets and macros for different printers, journals, readers and so on - but the document file remains the same. Since you don't see what you get (except in a crude preview mode), it is hard to judge exact table alignments. So you have to print it out. I would not use it again for DTP of tables - I would use Sprint as a preprocessor, printing out into a file format marked up for Ventura. For less complicated layout, Sprint is fine. It's much easier to use than Word Perfect. But it can get quite complex when you are using it for DTP or as a programmers editor, since it has 2 programming languages - one for editor macros, the other for formatting and printer drivers. As usual, the printer drivers it comes with (some 300) don't always make use of all the features of the printer - you can usually improve on them. Of course, I am writing this message in Sprint. Dave Newman. JANET: D.R.Newman@kingston.ac.uk Usenet: as above. GreenNet (Econet/Peacenet/WEB): gn:davenewman. -- Automatic Disclaimer: The views expressed above are those of the author alone and may not represent the views of the IBM PC User Group.