triantos@acsu.buffalo.edu (Nick B Triantos) (06/29/91)
Hi, all!
I promised a summary of a comparison of Word 4.0 to MacWrite II for those of
you, like me, who aren't really sure which would be more bang for the buck.
Thanks to all the people who send me in responses...I will footnote everything
below to those who have credit due.
Basically, most people definitely recommended MacWrite II over Word 4.0. The
reasons? Well, mainly, Word's interface with the user is just not as constant
with the "standard" guidelines (*2)(*3), and therefore, much easier to learn.
On the other hand, Word does have an ability for the user to configure the
menus to contain any commands that the user may like (*5), and so I imagine one
could simplify them down to being more tame for the average user.
Word has an ability to include ruler information (tabs, indent, etc.) into the
Style sheets (*2)(*3), but its mail merging function stinks, whereas MacWrite
II is supposed to be really cool (*4). MacWrite also blows Word out of the
water in the Find/Replace department: MWII can find all instances, for
example, of the word, "foo" in Helvetica 12 pt. and change it to "bar" in
Geneva 24 pt., plus underline it (*??).
For those interested in conserving disk space, here are two neat features of
MWII: It takes up less space than Word (*3), but it also allows other Claris
Apps to utilize its dictionary/hyphenation files, so no repetition is necessary
(I think that's really neat, no?) (*3)
Word has what appears to be a lot more features (*1)(*2)(*3)(*4), but most of
them are features which the normal user will never need, and almost never want.
"Fluff" seems to come to mind when I read other people's opinions.
I did have someone send me a rather extensive comparison of Nisus to Word,
which seemed to show Nisus blew everything away, but at a lot of $$. I also
happened to read a review in the (May? June?) '91 issue of MacUser of Taste,
and it seems like for normal word processing capabilities, this app is the
best, dollar for dollar. Obviously, though, it isn't an industry standard
(yet?), and so I'm going to sway away from it for now.
Lastly, I'm basing my decision on the fact that all of my dealings with Claris
have left me in a state where I just wanna stick an "I love Macintosh" pin on
my shirt, while dealings with Micro$oft make me want to reach for my Tylenol.
Actually, the *real* last thing is that both MS and Claris offer substantial
discounts for students, either through your school (if available), or directly
through the company (at least, Claris does). Check into it before buying
anything from these companies. Hope this helps everybody!
-Nick Triantos
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