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From: aslakson@cs.umn.edu (Brian Aslakson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.apps
Subject: Re: What Functions The Ultimate Word Process Would Have?
Message-ID: <1991Jun30.202632.13787@cs.umn.edu>
Date: 30 Jun 91 20:26:32 GMT
References: <91180.170839JXY2@psuvm.psu.edu>
Organization: University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, CSci dept.
Lines: 42

JXY2@psuvm.psu.edu (Jie Yuan) writes:
>Just tried the WordPerfect (version 1.0.5?) after having used
The current version is 2.0.

>Word4.0 and MacWriteII for a while.  It just does not make sense
>to see one word processor has some nice things while the other
>has some other nice things but none has all the nice things.
Why not?

>WP has a function to allow automatic save of current document
>at time intervals(sp?) of choice.  MWII has a nice mail merge
>system.  Word can do table better and allows the user to change
>menus (add or delete commands that appear in the menus).
>It would be nice to have all these features together in one
>application.  Isn't it?
Yes it would, the features you mention, and a whole lot more.

>Since Word and DOS are both MS products, MS should make something
>that can handle file transfer better than WP.  Right?
This doesn't make sense.  Word Perfect is mainly a DOS based company,
and anyway, I really doubt that either company has the same people
working on both Mac and DOS machines.

I've used a lot of word processors, and I don't really like one enough
to stick with it.  In fact, vi is the thing I use the most.  If
Microsoft could hire someone who could write, and someone who could
organize, they could take care of the two biggest problems:  Terrible
manuals, and poor application organization.  Word Perfect 2.0 is too
easy to crash, and their formatting still isn't up to snuff.  Frame-
maker isn't organized very well and basicly doesn't run on Pluses
(and probably all 68000 Macs).  WriteNow doesn't have enough features
(which is supposed to be one of the attractions).  I don't know MacWrite,
and I'm not real familier with Nisus.

If you want the canonical list of Word Processor features, good luck,
I don't have the time to list everything I want! 

-- 
Brian Aslakson
    brian@cs.umn.edu (mail)
          aslakson@cs.umn.edu (talk)
                  mac-admin@cs.umn.edu (Me!!)