Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!zaphod!think.com!mintaka!geech.ai.mit.edu!rjc From: rjc@geech.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.applications Subject: Re: Mac's Microsoft Word Message-ID: <1991Jan14.222837.20284@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> Date: 14 Jan 91 22:28:37 GMT References: <1991Jan15.031444.5@csc.canterbury.ac.nz> Sender: daemon@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu (Lucifer Maleficius) Organization: None Lines: 84 In article <1991Jan15.031444.5@csc.canterbury.ac.nz> cctr120@csc.canterbury.ac.nz (Brendon Wyber, C.S.C.) writes: >I have not got, nor do I ever intend to get a word processor for my Amiga. >However I am an extensive user of the Mac's MS Word and I have to say it is a >very good program. > >Someone wanted a list of specifics, so here are some on them. I do not know how >many of these exist in amiga WPs, and I don't really care. This tells me right here that nothing I say will change anything. Fine, you have your preferences, I have mine. 'I don't really care.' means that your mind is closed to other WP's no matter how good they are. Nothing could ever surpass Word. >Note most of these feature are only useful for larger documents. Lets face it, >letters can be done on a line editor, or even written by hand (if anyone still >remembers how :-) ). Some of them are also hard to explain without showing you. > >1. Style Sheets. Very useful. A style sheet consists of a set of text >formatting commands. Thus if you want to change the font or style of a >particular type of text (for example headings would be seperate style, or the >writting that goes under picture, or even quotes) you just need to change the >style sheet and all occurances of that text style are changed. AmigaTeX, and TeX in general can do this, and has been doing so for years. All someone has to do is hack up a nice GUI for TeX for people who aren't smart enough to learn a language. (The Mac motto, hide the computer from the user with a blindfolding GUI. BlackBox.) Someone could easily make an Arexx script to process TeX files and make changes to fonts, sizes, styles, etc. I can live without it though, search/replace in an editor works fine. >I cannot express the usefulness of Style sheets enough. They are just very very >very VERY VERY useful. Ok so I can express it. :-) > >2. Dictionary spelling support. Useful. Word also comes with an add on >Thesaurus but it isn't built it. This is no biggie, I think Excellence has a dictionary & Thesaurus. >3. Outlining. Allows you to define heading, sub headings, sub-sub-headings >and text. Ties in with style sheets very well. Allows you to move large chuck >of the document about. I pretty sure this can be done with TeX, nroff/troff, etc. >4. Built in mathematical type setting. AmigaTeX. Especially in combination with Maple which can output formula's as TeX. >5. Does lines and boxes. TeX. >6. Built in table support. Sort of works like a spread sheet. TeX. Atleast i've seen mathematical tables done in box's etc. >7. Allows you to put in postscript commands. (If you know any Potscript) I know there are several Amiga WP's that support Post and Color post. But when you've got TeX, you don't need postscript as much. >8. Lots of text formatting option, subscript, super script, various types of >underlining, lots of tabbing controls, etc, etc, etc. TeX. Not to mention every WP i've seen supports this, even back to GeoWrite on the C64. >9. Section support so you can break the document up into seperate sections with >different page numbering styles, footers, headers, etc. TeX. >10. You can have columns. Also you can have paragraphs of text appeaing in odd >places with the other text flowing around it. TeX. >I could go on forever but I won't bore you. However if I did get an amiga WP >are there any with Style Sheets? Basically, everything you've stated is either already in an Amiga WP, or in TeX. Some people argue TeX is hard. I disagree, some people are just intimidated or frightened that they may actually have to learn something about their computer and the workings of computer languages. Any other features Word has that no Amiga WP or Typesetter has? Does Word have an Arexx port? :-) >Be seeing you, > >Brendon Wyber Computer Services Centre, >b.wyber@csc.canterbury.ac.nz University of Canterbury, New Zealand. > >"Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn."