Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!ames!pasteur!agate!garnet.berkeley.edu!csaron
From: csaron@garnet.berkeley.edu (Aron Roberts)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: FullWrite Professional Demo
Message-ID: <6618@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 20 Jan 88 03:40:04 GMT
References: <39102@sun.uucp> <2679@fluke.COM>
Sender: usenet@agate.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: csaron@garnet.berkeley.edu.UUCP (Aron Roberts)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 66


>In article <39102@sun.uucp> chuq@plaid.Sun.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) writes:
>[FullWrite Professional, a new word processing program from Ann Arbor
>Softworks] supports a good subset of layout functions, primarily oriented 
>towards memos, reports and technical documents. [...] for the most common 
>"desktop publishing" functions -- corporate work rather than 
>commercial -- it looks great.

According to a conversation between an engineer from a large corporate 
customer (a beta site?) and an member of the development team at Ann Arbor 
Softworks, overheard during the crush and pandemonium of MacWorld Expo :-), 
one desktop publishing-like function that FullWrite Professional will NOT
easily do is to place a full-width title across a page in the middle of
text columns, as in the following illustration:

       xxxxxxxxx  xxxxxxxxx  <- Continuation of article from previous page
       xxxxxxxxx  xxxxxxxxx     
         Full-width Title
       xxxxxxxxx  xxxxxxxxx  <- New article
       xxxxxxxxx  xxxxxxxxx   

One can "fake" this effect by using a sidebar to hold the text columns at 
the top of the page, but then text from the previous page cannot flow into 
the area occupied by the sidebar.

In article <2679@fluke.COM> moriarty@tc.fluke.COM (Jeff Meyer) writes:
>
>The only real inconvenience I can think of will be that, as of the beta
>version, FullWrite doesn't read Word files (1.05 or 3.x).  

Unless I'm remembering incorrectly, the demonstration version handed out 
at MacWorld Expo imported <both> MacWrite and Microsoft Word 1.0/1.05 
files--in a manner which was approximately as transparent as MS Word's 
importing of foreign file formats.

The Word 3.0/3.01 format is not currently supported.  I haven't yet
tried (or witnessed) importing of complex, picture-laden MacWrite files 
or MS Word files with attached style sheets.  

Although the demo version handed to the curious throngs at the Expo would
only save in FullWrite format, the version being shown at the AAS booth had 
a file formats button in its "Save As ..." dialog box, similar to MS Word's, 
with five radio buttons for saving to the following file formats:
   o FullWrite
   o FullWrite Stationery (user-defined documents which store default
     formatting information)
   o MacWrite 4.5
   o Text only
   o Text only with line breaks

One important note which has appeared in previous postings, but which
bears repeating:  Although FullWrite Professional appears at first glance
to be an extremely attractive, capable word processor, it is also is a BIG 
program, requiring a considerable hardware investment.

FullWrite Professional runs VERY sluggishly on a 1MB Mac Plus.  AAS 
representatives said that the program takes advantage of available memory 
and speeds up noticeably with 2MB and more of RAM.  And as Chuq mentioned, 
the demo version of the program itself barely squeezes onto an 800KB floppy 
disk--even without its associated dictionary, thesaurus, and help files.  A
hard disk is a necessity, not a luxury, with FullWrite Professional.

   Aron Roberts  Tolman Microcomputer Facility     
                 1535 Tolman Hall, University of California
                 Berkeley, CA 94720  (415) 642-2251
                 csaron@garnet.Berkeley.EDU   CSARON@UCBCMSA.BITNET