cctr132@csc.canterbury.ac.nz (Nick FitzGerald, CSC, Uni. of Canterbury, NZ) (03/22/91)
I've cross-posted to the WP mailing list and Usenet News comp.os.msdos.apps Please forgive the length of this request, but there are several inter- dependent issues I need answers to. A recently appointed Music lecturer, from Russia, wants to be able to word process in Russian, using the Cyrillic character set, and in English. My first reaction was to get him onto a Macintosh, which his new department is equipped with. Another lecturer here had already put together a screen and postscript printer font for Cyrillic characters for the Mac, so all that was left to do was re-map the keyboard - neither of us knew what a Russian keyboard layout looked like. This all seemed fine for a while, but now the Music lecturer has decided that he would like to buy a portable so he can take his computing away with him when he is playing concerts, etc. The MacPortable is out of the question, hence my question: Is there a WordPerfect add on, or third-party product that allows WP to work with *Cyrillic characters*. (I do not want to be told about WP's Character Set 10 - have you any idea how long it will take him to print anything with WP laying the whole page up as a graphic?) I know you can get German and some other European language versions of WP (I think they only support those languages that can be readily displayed using the full IBM char set though) - what about Russian? I assume these translate the menu entries and help screens - yes/no? I read about a program called Scripta-Russian in the December '90 Byte (there are other language versions too). I like the idea of being able to switch languages within the one application/document - this is something the Music lecturer would like to be able to do. Has anyone used it with WP? How well does it work? Is it worth laying out 240 UK Pounds for? Is there something similar that will run on an XT? (According to Byte Scripta requires an AT and an MCGA/EGA/VGA - this has implications for the laptop my colleague will buy.) The piece in Byte gives no idea of what the printer support is like - I need info on this too. Alternatively, is there another word processing package we should look at that internally supports the Cyrillic char set? The gent in question has an old version of Leading Edge - both an English one and a Russian one, but the Russian version requires at least an EGA. (I would like to get him on WP as this is the "standard" PC wp here, but if we have to get something else we will.) Please e-mail your replies if possible (especially WP50-L readers, as I am not subscribed to the list but read it in the Usenet News bit.listserv group, and I'm sure that not all WP50-L mail gets to the newsgroup). If there is sufficient interest, I will summarize in a week or so. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nick FitzGerald, PC Applications Consultant, CSC, Uni of Canterbury, N.Z. Internet: n.fitzgerald@csc.canterbury.ac.nz Phone: (64)(3) 642-337