Xref: utzoo comp.text:4778 comp.text.desktop:883
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!rutgers!att!mtuxo!lzfme!jwi
From: jwi@lzfme.att.com (Jim Winer @ AT&T, Middletown, NJ)
Newsgroups: comp.text,comp.text.desktop
Subject: Re: WordPerfect vs. Ventura
Summary: Consider what you want to do
Keywords: long documents, indexes
Message-ID: <1583@lzfme.att.com>
Date: 24 Aug 89 17:37:20 GMT
References: <6288@brspyr1.BRS.Com>
Organization: AT&T, Lincroft NJ
Lines: 54

> Bob Armao writes:
> 
> I'm interested in first-hand reports of your experience using
> WordPerfect 5.0 to produce LONG documents (i.e., technical manuals 
> exceeding 400+ pages in length).  In particular, how well does 5.0 
> WP handle tables of contents, indexes, pagination, etc. in documents
> of this length?  And how fast?
> 
> Our experience with WP 4.2 under UNIX has been less than ideal.
> These shortcomings (such as the inability to produce a complete
> index from a concordance file) may or may not occur in WP 5.0.
> Since we aren't confident in the functionality and speed of
> WordPerfect5.0, we are considering using Ventura for managing 
> long documents.  I'd be interested hearing comparable experiences 
> from Ventura users too, and especially from someone who has used 
> both of these products to produce long manuals.

Consider carefully what you want to do. WordPerfect 5.0 and Ventura
both do very well at long documents, TOCs and indices. However,
WordPerfect is text oriented with graphic support while Ventura is
page oriented with text support. WordPerfect has things like:

	*	find and replace
	*	spell check
	*	auto-number paragraph

that are not in Ventura. In addition, when you "anchor" a figure in
Ventura, it moves to the SAME POSITION on the page contining the
text, e.g., if you put a figure in the upper left corner of the
page, add some text ahead of the figure, and then update, the figure
will be in the upper left corner of the new page. In WordPerfect,
the figure can be anchored relative to the paragraph rather than the
page so that it will occur immediately before (or after) the
paragraph as the paragraph moves from page to page.

Ventura is ideal for newsletters, catalogs, magazines, and other
items that are PAGE oriented.

WordPerfect is terrible for items that are PAGE oriented, but
excellent for items (like technical documentation) that are TEXT
oriented.

In Ventura, use multichapters for long documents. In WordPerfect use
master document (doccument assembly) for long documents.

Good luck.

Jim Winer -- Those persons who advocate censorship offend my religion.

Upuaut:	a wolf-headed Egyptian deity | Voodoo: the art of sticking ideas
	assigned as Guidance System  |         into people and watching
	for the Barque of Ra.        |         them bleed.

The opinions expressed here are not necessarily