[comp.sys.amiga.introduction] Need recommendations for a word processor

paulb@cbnewsk.att.com (paul.l.bidwell) (03/04/91)

I'm in the market for a word processor (my wife needs to write a term
paper).

I posted several weeks ago to c.s.a.applications, and no one responded,
so I'll try here.

AC magazine had a nice writeup about Gold Disk's Office program which
includes a WP, DB, Spreadsheet, and a scaled down ProPage.

I called Gold Disk for information, and to my surprise they had none
(how can you not have sales info. for a $300 package?). In addition,
only the WP and ProPage parts work on 2.0 (I have an A3000).
The gentleman in Tech Support said they were going to fix it to run
under 2.0, but didn't know when. The bottom line is I didn't get 
a warm, fuzzy feeling about this.

What are the recommendations from the old-timers? I've heard good things
about Excellence and ProWrite.

Paul Bidwell
p.l.bidwell@att.com

patrick_meloy@outbound.wimsey.bc.ca (Patrick Meloy) (03/06/91)

>I called Gold Disk for information, and to my surprise they had none
>(how can you not have sales info. for a $300 package?). In addition,
>only the WP and ProPage parts work on 2.0 (I have an A3000).
>The gentleman in Tech Support said they were going to fix it to run
>under 2.0, but didn't know when. The bottom line is I didn't get 
>a warm, fuzzy feeling about this.

Thats funny... I had GD's office running on the 3000 at our store without much
trouble. The only part that was any trouble at all was a lockup from within
the DTP software (very rare actually). Everything else worked fine. You
probably called the fellow in California, they are simply salesmen and NOT
the tech support people. The techies are in Missasauga(sp?) Ontario.

Anyways, I thought the office pack was wonderful. They were kinda skimpy with
only giving people one (1) CG font for dot matrix printing, but the package
on the whole was top rate. I only wish it was somewhat cheaper :)

The DTP package is really PageSetterII, the word processor is 'transcript',
the spreadsheet is a split up version of Advantage (Split into a spreadsheet
and 'graph' programs.) All the parts work quite well together. My only real
beef with the package is the graphing functions. Seems they don't know how to
handle the screen sizes properly and stuff like titles can run off the edge
of the screen when they really shouldn't. I did my best to ignore this
drawback though, seeing as the graph program will output ILBM (Regular
bitmapped pics), ProDraw clip, or even Draw 2000 (CAD) format!

---------------------------------------
| patrick_meloy@outbound.wimsey.bc.ca |
| 'The Outbound' BBS Vancouver BC     |
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sbeagle@kennels.actrix.gen.nz (Sleeping Beagle) (03/08/91)

paulb@cbnewsk.att.com (paul.l.bidwell) writes:

> I'm in the market for a word processor (my wife needs to write a term
> paper).
> 
> What are the recommendations from the old-timers? I've heard good things
> about Excellence and ProWrite.

Well, personally I've got to the stage where i'm sick of Word Processors
on both my Amiga and AT...

I use a good text editor (Cygnus-Ed on the Amiga) and if it needs to be
presentation quality I put it into Professional Page.

In my oh-so humble opinion, a good text editor is generally easier to
work with for the basic text creation. (Ignore this advice if you need
foot notes - I haven't found a text editor that supports them! :-)

--
   Sleeping Beagle (aka Thomas Farmer)  sbeagle@kennels.actrix.gen.nz
   The Kennels                          Ph. +64-4-796306 (voice)
   25 Awarua St, Ngaio, Wellington, New Zealand.
               "You ain't nothin' but a Hound Dog."