gaspar@almsa-1.arpa (Al Gaspar) (04/23/88)
I have an A500 with 1 MB and an external floppy drive, and I have a need for a good word processor. Has anyone had a chance to look at both the WordPerfect and Excellence word processing packages? If so, I'd appreciate your comments. Thanks. Cheers-- Al -- Al Gaspar <gaspar@almsa-1.arpa> USAMC CSDA, ATTN: AMXAL-OW, Box 1578, St. Louis, MO 63188-1578 COMMERCIAL: (314) 263-5118 AUTOVON: 693-5118 uunet.uu.net!almsa-1.arpa!gaspar
campbell@cbmvax.UUCP (John Campbell SW) (04/25/88)
According to Brown Wagh, as of April 18th it had not yet started shipping their wordprocessor titled EXCELLENCE! They expect to ship it before the end of the April. The flyer they sent describing it sounds good, (WYSIWYG, graphics with text, math, spelling check, thesaurus, index generator, color support, etc...). We'll just have to wait and see if the product is as good as its fanfare. John Campbell Commodore International (Some day I'll have a sig. file, for now I'll just say that my comments are mine and not Commodore's, and all disclaimers you can imagine are in force.)
duncanj@umd5.umd.edu (James Duncan) (04/26/88)
Will _Exellence_ require use of interlace mode? Will it have a text only mode? I hate ProWrite because it requires use of interlace mode or else you get a real flacky non-interlace screen. Is it possible to get on screen graphics mixed with text in non-interlaced mode? I'll probably order WordPerfect using the student/academic discount, although I will upgrade to ProWrite 2.0 'cause the upgrade is only 10 bucks. It's not useful to me as a word processor, but it will do to make Xmas cards, flyers and such. Jim Duncan
hrlaser@pnet02.cts.com (Harv Laser) (04/27/88)
duncanj@umd5.umd.edu (James Duncan) writes: >Will _Exellence_ require use of interlace mode? Will it have a text only mode? >I hate ProWrite because it requires use of interlace mode or else you get a >real flacky non-interlace screen. Is it possible to get on screen graphics >mixed with text in non-interlaced mode? > >I'll probably order WordPerfect using the student/academic discount, although >I will upgrade to ProWrite 2.0 'cause the upgrade is only 10 bucks. It's not >useful to me as a word processor, but it will do to make Xmas cards, flyers >and such. > > Jim Duncan It's difficult to say at this point exactly WHAT Excellence is going to offer in the way of screen modes. I don't know anyone who's actually seen the program in action. I DO know people who sent in their money for it a LONG time ago and have been getting "real soon now" type answers from MSS as to the release date. The latest release date I've seen is "end of April 88" which is, of course, just a couple days away. Prowrite2.0 is a vast improvement over the earlier versions. It's quite easy to use Prowrite in hi-res Interlace and then dim the white background down to a gray that will elimiate almost all the flicker. I'm not sure what you mean by a "real flakey non interlace screen" in ProWrite. That's just a medium-res 640x200 screen, same as your regular Workbench/CLI in its default config. I've been using ProWrite2.0 since late '87 (I was a beta-tester) and in my opinion it's a terrific program. With the new printer drivers/.device/Preference it gives me absolutely the BEST bitmapped font output (on my Epson JX80) that I've ever gotten from ANY Amiga software. I've had over 100 different fonts in ONE PW2.0 document (I have 2.5 Meg of RAM) - the program is actually capable of 255 different fonts in one document (!) - without problems. As usual, the chart printed in the ad for Excellence (in AmigaWorld, May 1988 pg 9) emphasizes what features the program being advertised has to the detriment of its competition. But charts can be deceiving and usually are. For instance, I don't see `macros' listed. WordPerfect has a terrific macro facility... does Excellence? I see they show ProWrite not having mailmerge capability when in fact version 2.0 DOES. Does Excellence allow HAM-IFF pictures to be imported into a document? It doesn't say, but ProWrite2.0 permits direct import of HAM pictures (although they are translated to 8 colors in 3 different modes of shading). And what about a print queue/spooler? To the best of my knowledge, WordPerfect is about the ONLY Amiga program with printer output that lets you queue up multiple documents and modify their priorities/cancel them/change their order WHILE they are printing and/or WHILE you are working on other docs (memory permitting). It'd be nice to have an all-purpose piece of Amiga system software that acted like WordPerfect's "Print" program does - intercept all printer jobs and allow them to be modified in many different ways. The PeeCee guys have one called "PrintQ" that does exactly this. Harv Laser, Sysop, The People/Link AmigaZone. Plink: CBM*HARV UUCP: {ihnp4!scgvaxd!cadovax, rutgers!marque}!gryphon!pnet02!hrlaser INET: hrlaser@pnet02.cts.com
mike@ames.arpa (Mike Smithwick) (04/27/88)
In article <2237@louie.udel.EDU> gaspar@almsa-1.arpa (Al Gaspar) writes: > > I have an A500 with 1 MB and an external floppy drive, and I have >a need for a good word processor. Has anyone had a chance to look >at both the WordPerfect and Excellence word processing packages? If >so, I'd appreciate your comments. Thanks. > I've been using WP for about 3 months now, and am growing more and more impatient with it. True, it has some first rate features, but the implementation under intuition is clumsy, not to mention the fact that it has it's fair share of bugs. It seems as if the guy who did the port had no understanding of intuition "standards", so things seem just slightly out of kilter. This makes it easy to mess up when a WP convention violates a more traditional approach. I would sincerely suggest waiting for Excellence, I'm going to be taking a good hard look at it when it ships, RSN. -- *** mike (Cyberpunk in training) smithwick *** "Use an Atari, go to jail!" [disclaimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]
lel@wuphys.UUCP (Lyle E. Levine) (04/27/88)
In article <3692@cbmvax.UUCP> campbell@cbmvax.UUCP (John Campbell SW) writes: >According to Brown Wagh, as of April 18th it had not yet started shipping >their wordprocessor titled EXCELLENCE! They expect to ship it before the >end of the April. The flyer they sent describing it sounds good, (WYSIWYG, >graphics with text, math, spelling check, thesaurus, index generator, color ^^^^ Does this mean mathematical typesetting????????? It doesn't sound like it but I had to ask... I WANT MATH TYPESETTING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! >John Campbell ========== IBM is a Division of Sirius Cybernetics Corporation "their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws." - "So Long And Thanks For All The Fish" Lyle Levine: Paths -> ihnp4!wuphys!lel Best way: (314)889-6379 uunet!wucs!wuphys!lel
doug-merritt@cup.portal.com (04/28/88)
Lyle Levine writes: > I > WANT > MATH > TYPESETTING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well, it's available. The best math typesetting software in the world, bar none, is TeX (especially with MetaFont). One of the whole reasons that Knuth cooked up TeX in the first place was that he's really nitpicky about good mathematical typography. It's not wysiwyg, but considering that it's the best, so what? Also no one has ever figured out how to make wysiwyg as powerful and flexible as compiled-text...there are some difficult design issues involved. If you're holding out for wysiwyg anyway, well, good luck. I admit it'd be nice to have *some* kind of wsyiwyg math. typ. available. Doug Merritt ucbvax!sun.com!cup.portal.com!doug-merritt or ucbvax!eris!doug (doug@eris.berkeley.edu) or ucbvax!unisoft!certes!doug
bts@sas.UUCP (Brian T. Schellenberger) (04/29/88)
In article <541@wuphys.UUCP> lel@wuphys.UUCP (Lyle E. Levine) writes: | I | WANT | MATH | TYPESETTING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Then: YOU WANT AmigaTeX !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Really. -- --Brian. (Brian T. Schellenberger) ...!mcnc!rti!sas!bts . . . now at 2400 baud, so maybe I'll stop bothering to flame long includes.