[comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc] Comparison wanted -- Word 5.0 vs. WP 5.1

wales@valeria.cs.ucla.edu (Rich Wales) (09/04/90)

I would like to hear from people who are familiar with both Microsoft
Word 5.0 and WordPerfect 5.1.  Which do you prefer, and why?

I currently use Word 5.0 (actually, the maintenance release 5.0A) with
an HP LaserJet IIP and Bitstream Fontware.  I have had a mouse or track-
ball on my PC for several years, and I am very used to selecting text
and commands via the mouse.

Since (as I understand) WP 5.1 has mouse support, I am wondering whether
there might be valid reasons for me to consider the possibility of
switching from Word to WordPerfect for my word processing and desktop
publishing needs.

Are there areas in which WordPerfect has greater capability than Word
(or vice versa)?  I'm particularly interested in the following issues:

(1) Support for downloadable and/or cartridge fonts in the HP LaserJet
    IIP and similar laser printers.

    (a) Kerning and ligatures.  Word doesn't do either; I understand WP
	5.1 can do kerning, but I don't know about ligatures.

    (b) Support for nonstandard accented letters.  I understand WP 5.1
	can handle hundreds of different accented letters -- including
	quite a few not in HP Roman 8 or ISO Latin 1 (such as Romanian
	A-with-breve, hooked-S, and hooked-T).

    (c) Customizing of printer drivers for arbitrary font collections.
	Word comes with MAKEPRD to let you edit printer drivers -- but
	if you have too many fonts and/or point sizes in one driver, the
	width tables can cause the .PRD file to exceed the 64K-byte size
	limit.  I've heard that the corresponding software to build or
	modify printer drivers for WP costs lots of extra $$$.

    (d) Support for nonstandard font downloading software.  For example,
	I want the option of invoking an external program to extract a
	little-used font from a compressed archive, generate a rare
	point size from scratch when needed, etc.  Earlier versions of
	Word had this capability (Microsoft never admitted it, but you
	could replace their DOWN.EXE with your own nonstandard program).
	Word 5.0, however, has incorporated downloading into the main
	program and allows you no alternative to the standard method.

(2) Support for running headers/footers, with the ability to set up a
    style sheet to stick a chapter and/or section title into the running
    header/footer automatically.  I don't believe Word 5.0 can do this;
    if it can, I'd like it if someone could tell me how.  What about WP?

(3) Support for features used in, for example, screenplay writing.

    (a) When a character's dialogue is split across pages, the continued
	portion on the second page should be preceded by the character's
	name and the word "(cont'd)".  I want to be able to do this as
	part of the style sheet entry I use to specify the character's
	name at the start of the dialogue -- without having to worry
	about where the page break might fall.

    (b) When a scene is split across pages, a "CONTINUED" flag should be
	printed both at the bottom of the first page and at the top of
	the second.  This should =not= happen, though, if a scene ends
	at the end of a page.

    (c) Automatic numbering/renumbering of scenes.

    As far as I'm aware, Word 5.0 can't do any of the above as an auto-
    matic part of its pagination process.

    If WP supports the insertion of chapter/section titles into running
    heads, I would assume it can also be coaxed into doing at least the
    "continuation" features above.

(4) Variability in text justification (e.g., how "open" or "tight" to do
    interword spacing) and paragraph splitting across pages (minimum
    number of lines to leave on either side of the split).  Word, as far
    as I know, offers no variability in these areas.

(5) Ease of setting up (for instance) a calendar with designated text to
    be printed for given days of the month, using macros or styles.  I
    shudder at the thought of doing this in any readable way in Word.

Since both Word and WP have their ample share of fanatic devotees and
true believers, I am particularly interested in hearing the opinions of
those who are familiar with =both= programs.  Since I consider mouse
support to be crucial, I especially want to hear from people who have
used WP 5.1 and can compare its support for the mouse (for selection of
text, commands, formatting parameters, etc.) with that of Word.

I have invested a great deal of time and energy into learning Word, and
would not change to WP on a mere whim.  But in several areas (including
those I have listed above), I believe I am starting to run up against
limitations in Word -- and if WordPerfect handles these and other like
situations better than Word does, I might be persuaded to switch.

--
-- Rich Wales <wales@CS.UCLA.EDU> // UCLA Computer Science Department
   3531 Boelter Hall // Los Angeles, CA 90024-1596 // +1 (213) 825-5683
   "You must not drink the tea.  It is deadly to humans."

rick@wet.UUCP (Rick Rutledge) (09/07/90)

wales@valeria.cs.ucla.edu (Rich Wales) writes:
>I would like to hear from people who are familiar with both Microsoft
>Word 5.0 and WordPerfect 5.1.  Which do you prefer, and why?

Have used Word 5 very little (used Word 4.0), have used WP 5.1 since I
beta'd it.  I LOVE it.

>Since (as I understand) WP 5.1 has mouse support, I am wondering whether
>there might be valid reasons for me to consider the possibility of
>switching from Word to WordPerfect for my word processing and desktop
>publishing needs.

Table editor, equation editor, graphic lines, text and graphic boxes (with
rotation options for text boxes, allowing text in both portrait and
landscape on the same page if your printer supports it) are just a few.

>(1) Support for downloadable and/or cartridge fonts in the HP LaserJet
>    IIP and similar laser printers.
>
>    (a) Kerning and ligatures.  Word doesn't do either; I understand WP
>	5.1 can do kerning, but I don't know about ligatures.

Its character set (about 1400 characters, I think, including Cyrillic,
Hebrew, Japanese...) includes ligature character combinations, should you
wish to bind them to your keyboard.

>    (b) Support for nonstandard accented letters.  I understand WP 5.1
>	can handle hundreds of different accented letters -- including
>	quite a few not in HP Roman 8 or ISO Latin 1 (such as Romanian
>	A-with-breve, hooked-S, and hooked-T).

As I said above...

>    (c) Customizing of printer drivers for arbitrary font collections.
>	Word comes with MAKEPRD to let you edit printer drivers -- but
>	if you have too many fonts and/or point sizes in one driver, the
>	width tables can cause the .PRD file to exceed the 64K-byte size
>	limit.  I've heard that the corresponding software to build or
>	modify printer drivers for WP costs lots of extra $$$.

Not true.  WP includes the PTR program, which allows you to modify, create,
or combine printer drivers in every copy sold.

>    (d) Support for nonstandard font downloading software.  For example,
>	I want the option of invoking an external program to extract a
>	little-used font from a compressed archive, generate a rare
>	point size from scratch when needed, etc.  Earlier versions of
>	Word had this capability (Microsoft never admitted it, but you
>	could replace their DOWN.EXE with your own nonstandard program).
>	Word 5.0, however, has incorporated downloading into the main
>	program and allows you no alternative to the standard method.

I would guess, but don't know, that there are ways of doing that with the
PRD's in WordPerfect.  Might require some cleverness, but I find their tech
support to be very helpful, and very competent.  Best I've encountered in 9
years of micro support, in fact.

>(2) Support for running headers/footers, with the ability to set up a
>    style sheet to stick a chapter and/or section title into the running
>    header/footer automatically.  I don't believe Word 5.0 can do this;
>    if it can, I'd like it if someone could tell me how.  What about WP?

Running headers and footers are supported (with even/odd page support, too,
so your left/right headers/footers can be different).  I'd have to look at
WP, but you can change the headers/footers on the fly, so you could probably
come up with a way to combine them/draw them from a style.

>(3) Support for features used in, for example, screenplay writing.
>
>    (a) When a character's dialogue is split across pages, the continued
>	portion on the second page should be preceded by the character's
>	name and the word "(cont'd)".  I want to be able to do this as
>	part of the style sheet entry I use to specify the character's
>	name at the start of the dialogue -- without having to worry
>	about where the page break might fall.

Hmm.  This could be tricky.  I can't think of a way to do it with what I
know.  Well, yes, in fact, I can.  You could achieve this through the clever
use of tables (you'd have to make a table for each dialogue entry, though,
defining the header to include the characters's name.  You could probably
make a macro that post-processed and added these definitions for you, once
you've entered the text, or which built the table and put you in it to enter
the text.)

>    (b) When a scene is split across pages, a "CONTINUED" flag should be
>	printed both at the bottom of the first page and at the top of
>	the second.  This should =not= happen, though, if a scene ends
>	at the end of a page.

Stuck here.  It can do automatic "Continued" on footnotes, so there may be a
feature I don't know about which might work for you.

>    (c) Automatic numbering/renumbering of scenes.

This could probably be achieved by numbering the scenes with footnote or
endnote numbers, and using the "endnotes" as your table of contents.  (Or by
simply not placing the endnote location definition, in which case the number
would be incremented/adjusted, but no 'endnotes' would be generated.  You
can define the number format for the location in the text, so you could make
it the same as the regular text.  The default is small, superscripted.)

>(4) Variability in text justification (e.g., how "open" or "tight" to do
>    interword spacing) and paragraph splitting across pages (minimum
>    number of lines to leave on either side of the split).  Word, as far
>    as I know, offers no variability in these areas.

You can adjust justification and kerning limits (by percentage, or letting
WP choose the 'optimum' limits).  You can do widow/orphan control, which is
to say, always at least two lines of a paragraph must be together, or the
whole thing moves.  Don't know if you can change that, but WP might be able
to tell you how to patch the program if you wanted to change that minimum
number 'permanently'.

>(5) Ease of setting up (for instance) a calendar with designated text to
>    be printed for given days of the month, using macros or styles.  I
>    shudder at the thought of doing this in any readable way in Word.

I don't really understand what you mean, but it sounds like a use of the
Table Editor to me.  Or linked spreadsheets.

>Since both Word and WP have their ample share of fanatic devotees and
>true believers, I am particularly interested in hearing the opinions of
>those who are familiar with =both= programs.  Since I consider mouse
>support to be crucial, I especially want to hear from people who have
>used WP 5.1 and can compare its support for the mouse (for selection of
>text, commands, formatting parameters, etc.) with that of Word.

The menus are, I think, easier than Word's almost-like-Lotus menus, as they
are 'pull-down, cascading', and so can be moused smoothly without a dozen
clicks.  Selection of text works like Word, but you don't have that mouse
zone for selecting whole paragraphs, the whole document, etc. (to my
knowledge - I've used a mouse with WP quite little).

>I have invested a great deal of time and energy into learning Word, and
>would not change to WP on a mere whim.  But in several areas (including
>those I have listed above), I believe I am starting to run up against
>limitations in Word -- and if WordPerfect handles these and other like
>situations better than Word does, I might be persuaded to switch.

Nice to know that you can map all of the familiar features of word onto the
keyboard on WP.  For instance, I liked the one key shortcuts from Word -
bold, italic, underline - and have mapped them onto my keyboard in WP.
Things I would otherwise need 3 or 4 menu choices to do are on an Alt-Key
combination.
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rick Rutledge        {hoptoad|ucsfcca|claris}!wet!rick            rick@wet.UUCP
"Voici le secret." dit le renard.  "On ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur.
L'essentiel est invisible aux yeux." -Antoine de St. Exupery, _le Petit Prince_