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From: silvert@cs.dal.ca (Bill Silvert)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Atari WordPerfect
Summary: Check your versions!
Message-ID: <1989Sep9.130406.5415@cs.dal.ca>
Date: 9 Sep 89 13:04:06 GMT
References: <343@mead.UUCP> <2953@tahoe.unr.edu>
Sender: silvert@cs.dal.ca.UUCP (Bill Silvert)
Reply-To: bill@biomel.UUCP
Distribution: na
Organization: Habitat Ecology Div., Bedford Inst. of Oceanography
Lines: 43

In article <2953@tahoe.unr.edu> mikew@wheeler.UUCP (Mike Whitbeck) writes:
>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...
>
>Sorry Bill, but apparently WP Corp. idea of compatibility and
>conversion is a bit weak!

This is a bit simplistic.  The current version of WP on the PC is 5.0,
while the version on the ST corresponds to 4.2.  The PC will read ST
documents (just save them on an IBM-format disk if you have a 3-1/2"
drive on the PC), but going the other way doesn't work, at least for
some files.

I've gotten some of the text from the PC onto an ST, but since the ST
4.2 version doesn't support some of the 5.0 features, particularly
graphics, it doesn't know what to do with them.  This is hjardly
surprising -- when you add features to a program, they are only added to
the current version!

>I've never been able to reach WP Corp on the phone to find a better way.

That surprises me -- I call WP frequently -- they have lots of lines and
I always get through in one or two tries.  The lines are all 800
numbers, and they are one of the few US vendors with 800 numbers for
Canada.  We appreciate that!

I'm not crazy about WP, but what can you expect from software developed
for people who use IBM's?  The ST version is actually a lot nicer than
the PC version in my opinion.  None of the standard word-processing
packages seems decent for tech stuff, but I do find compatibility
between the PC and ST versions is adequate for my purposes.

-- 
Bill Silvert, Habitat Ecology Division.
Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Dartmouth, NS, Canada B2Y 4A2
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