Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!helios!bcm!dimacs.rutgers.edu!seismo!uunet!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!bloom-picayune.mit.edu!athena.mit.edu!mmshah
From: mmshah@athena.mit.edu (Milan M Shah)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
Subject: Re: Lotus is a hack
Keywords: Lotus
Message-ID: <1991Mar2.003153.21240@athena.mit.edu>
Date: 2 Mar 91 00:31:53 GMT
References: <1823@pdxgate.UUCP>
Sender: news@athena.mit.edu (News system)
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lines: 36

Yes, Lotus is pretty bad. I had a bad experience that lasted, yes, 9 months.
What happened is that I purchased Lotus Manuscript. This was when I was in 
Urbana, and almost 1.5 years ago. For a while, I loved it, its pretty great 
for math formulas. Then, one day, I decided to do my handy dandy final
project report in it, and painstakingly created a whole bunch of autocad files
to be inserted into my report. Silly me, I never checked to see whether it
works, I was so happy with manuscript, and after all, it says right there
that it will import acad .dxf files. 

Well, first few attempts and it don't work. I call their Prompt line, which
was free, and finally about a week later someone calls back. They say, well,
not all .dxf files are supported, especially the fancy ones with multi layers.
Ah ha, I had her in a noose. I had come up with an acad file that required 
6 mouse clicks to create 3 lines and group them, and manuscript would die. I
told her about this, and she goes "Oh, none of us here have acad available
to try it out, you will have to send us the file you are having problems with
." So I did...

It's report time, so I'll just print the acad drawings separately, and let
manuscript print my report. Final report to be printed on Laserwriter II.
This won't work either. Another call, and now she gets annoyed and says, well
sir, its documented in the manual that you need a special cable for printers
on the comm port (and sure enough, there's a complete schematic of a totally
non standard cable). Anyway, finally did make the cable.

Now I move to Cambridge, and once again some problem with Manuscript. Now I
get annoyed, and demand a refund. No, I don't have a receipt. Finally, get
some supervisor to agree to a refund (after *he* tried to get a hold of
tech support and couldn't!!!). The check finally arrived this january. The
whole process took almost 9-10 months.

Couldn't believe them.

Milan
.