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From: Kling%UCI-20B@Uci-750a.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.micro
Subject: Bookwriter's text editor - post Perfectwriter
Message-ID: <443@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 25-Mar-84 20:55:00 EST
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.443
Posted: Sun Mar 25 20:55:00 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 4-Apr-84 03:22:13 EST
Lines: 31

From:  Rob-Kling <Kling%UCI-20B@Uci-750a.ARPA>

A friend of mine is interested in getting a micro w/a text processor
and was attracted by Televideo's which his colleagues use, along with
Perfectwriter. 
He is a historian who writes books & knows "nothing" about computers.
I showed him some messages you wrote during the fall complaining
about the rigid formatting of the PW formatter. He showed the message
to a colleague who uses PW and the colleague said that it is *now*
possible to override the fixed styles of PW.

I happen to use Multimate on an IBM-PC, but would not recommend it for
bookwriters since it doesn't handle footnotes well. 
[It's super for letters and memos; OK for short reports.]
I'm not sure whether
PW has come out with more advanced releases which resolve many of the
problems you reported (& thus is not an awful suggestion). Or if you think
that something else is a better choice for a computer novice.
(I am reluctant to recommend FinalWord, but it may be a good bet if he buys a 
CP/M machine.) Since he wants a micro as an electronic bookwriter, I am
suggesting software first. [If the current release of Micro-soft Word
were not so buggy and awkward in places, I would recommend that.]

Has PW improved to be a plausable product for bookwriters?
Can you suggest a better text processor for computer novices?
  (he will *not* customize his terminal with ProKey, for example).

Thanks

Rob Kling
UC Irvine