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From: sandersr@ecn-pc.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.micro.pc
Subject: Re: word processor recomendations
Message-ID: <582@ecn-pc.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 18-Jul-86 03:38:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: ecn-pc.582
Posted: Fri Jul 18 03:38:34 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 19-Jul-86 02:13:04 EDT
References: <3092@ncsu.UUCP>
Reply-To: sandersr@ecn-pc.UUCP (Robert C Sanders)
Organization: Electrical Engineering Department , Purdue University
Lines: 52

In article <3092@ncsu.UUCP> atb@ncsu.UUCP (andy brown) writes:
>This is a question from a friend of mine (actually 2 questions):
>   I need a new word processing program.
>      - do proportional spacing
>      - have the capability of printing and displaying several different fonts
>      - what you see is what you get format
>      - be able to print on a dot matrix or daisy wheel printer
>      - be able to access the directory structure of DOS
>      - be easy to use (my secretaries should be able to use it easily)
>      - do all of the other silly things wordstar does.
>	although i don't need a spelling checker, mailmerge, etc
>				--	Kathy

Try Microsoft's WORD program.  It does everything wordstar does, but does
   understand directories, allows DOS escapes, handles proportional spacing
   better (I think), and has drivers for almost any printer on the market.
I have Wordstar, WS 2000, PFS Write/Spell/Report, and Wordperfect at my
   disposal.  Of all of the programs, I like WORD best, because it will 
   handle even the biggest jobs I need to do, and will also easily handle
   a quicky job.
One of the unique attributes of WORD is that it can use style sheets, ie.,
   descriptions of a paper's layout, that can be changed at anytime without
   recoding the papers themselves.
WORD also has more (and better) display characteristics than wordstar; and
   it will use EGA, Herc, or mono if you have extended graphics cards of 
   these types installed.  It will attempt to display ALL character
   attributes given whateven hardware you have.  A standard CGA output
   tends to smear a little bit when words are in italics, superscript or
   subscript.
Even though I only use it via keyboard, WORD can be very mouse oriented as
   well, and has the famous Microsoft's command/window format.
My major complaint is that sometimes the program is slow (no slower than 
   wordstar!), and because of the "selection" philosophy, editing is slowed
   down just a bit.  I am used to VI and EMACS; word is a little function-key
   bound for those actions that I choose not to pull up the command section
   (I love single key-stroke commands!).  It also doesn't import regular
   text files well unless you are going to output a regular text file.  I
   like importing text files to process them with the spelling checker and
   to justify the margins.  Regular text files have newlines at the end of
   each line -- WORD uses them as paragraph separators, or as explicit line
   separators.  I had to write a small utility that reads a file, detects
   where prargraphs start, and output sentences as a continuous stream (no
   newlines) until the ends of the paragraphs, piped into WORD.
Check it out someplace; I think you will like it a lot.

				- bob
-- 
Continuing Engineering Education Telecommunications
Purdue University 		...!ihnp4!pur-ee!pc-ecn!sandersr

Let's make like a BSD process, and go FORK-OFF !!	-- bob
(and "make" a few children while we're at it ...)