Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!tahoe!wheeler!mikew
From: mikew@wheeler.wrcr.unr.edu (Mike Whitbeck)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Atari WordPerfect
Keywords: wordperfect atari ibm
Message-ID: <2953@tahoe.unr.edu>
Date: 8 Sep 89 20:30:31 GMT
References: <343@mead.UUCP>
Sender: news@tahoe.unr.edu
Reply-To: mikew@wheeler.UUCP (Mike Whitbeck)
Distribution: na
Organization: DRI-WRC Reno
Lines: 42

In article <343@mead.UUCP| bode@mead.UUCP (Bill Bodenstein) writes:
|Howdy folks. I recently purchased WordPerfect for my 1040ST thinking I'd
|then be able to finish any technical writing work at home, after writing
|up documents with WordPerfect on the PC's here at work.  But apparently,
|Atari WordPerfect is not compatible with IBM WordPerfect--It tells me
|"Not Atari WP file" when I ask it to read in a doc file created on a
|PC. Does anyone out there have a program to convert IBM WP <--> ATARI WP
|formats??? Thanks in advance...
|-- 
|-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
|Bill Bodenstein        "Life's a       ||    Send mail to:
|Mead Data Central       Bit-shift"     ||    uccba!mead!bode      -or-
|Dayton, Ohio                           ||    uccba!ucqais!bbode

Sorry Bill, but apparently WP Corp. idea of compatibility and
conversion is a bit weak! On the IBM side there is a
"conversion" utility - it strips out all the formatting to leave
a plain ascii file-- isn't that a &^%$#@!*&^%^%$ !

I've never been able to reach WP Corp on the phone to find a
better way. It should not be too difficult to write a conversion
program but as for myself I've completely given up on WP. Our
secretaries were forced to adopt WP on MAC+'s--- a lot of
crashes and cursing went on until they found an incompatibility
between TOPS and WP (some blame for both programs- cure = update
TOPS and turn off auto-file-save in WP). 

I only considerd WP to speed up memos and letters; for TECHNICAL
writing I HIGHLY recommend LaTeX-- it is ABSOLUTELY super
	(PD ! sort of
	math typesetting
	book, article, memo, letter, report styles
	automatic labelling for future ref for equations,
	axioms,theorems, chapters, sections,.....tables, figures
	automatic list-of-figs, list-of-tables
	automatic table of contents
	semi-automatic index building
	bibliographic data base
	macros!
	....on and on ....)
It is available for IBM's, ST's, Amiga's, VAX, SUN, HP's.....
usually via PD but also in commercial packages.