Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!purdue!ames!lll-winken!uunet!tektronix!tekig5!tekig4!briand From: briand@tekig4.LEN.TEK.COM (Brian Diehm) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Re: Word 4.0 questions Message-ID: <3949@tekig4.LEN.TEK.COM> Date: 1 May 89 18:21:39 GMT References: Reply-To: briand@tekig4.LEN.TEK.COM (Brian Diehm) Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton, OR. Lines: 38 In article ll12+@andrew.cmu.edu (Laura Ann Lemay) writes: >I do not use MS Word occasionally -- I spend 90% of my time in MS Word, and >the other 10% in Pagemaker. > >From what I've heard out of previews, MS 4.0 doesn't do nearly as much as it >had intended to do. What are the DTP features like? I realize that it >can't have nearly the capability of PM, or even Ready, set, go, but is it >passable? Well, despite my griping about Word 4.0 here on the net, it is indeed passable. It is an impressive program. If you were never exposed to PageMaker or Interleaf or anything else, it would do nicely. If you have been exposed to real page layout, this won't do. In your case, only you can REALLY judge this one --- it's that close a call. I personally would continue to use PageMaker, and I would certainly buy it if I didn't have it. If you are critical about the quality of typesetting, then Word, even Word 4.0, does not come close to the quality of PageMaker. Even when fractional width printing is used, the letterspacing is uneven throughout with Word. I think that it is important to remember these are two different TYPES of programs. Page layout programs are weak in interactive word processing, and word processors do not do top quality page layout. The thing I griped about with 4.0 wasn't the feature set, though some things appear to be incompletely implemented. I mainly griped about the BUGS. Incidentally, until PageMaker 4 comes out, Word 4.0 and PageMaker are not directly compatible. You need to save Word 4.0 files in Word 3.0 compatibility format, or else PageMaker won't recognize them. But then, I have read in print that PageMaker 4.0 will have search and replace. Then you can throw away Word entirely! ;-) (I'm only half kidding here.) -- -Brian Diehm (SDA - Standard Disclaimers Apply) Tektronix, Inc. briand@tekig4.TEK.COM or {decvax,cae780,uw-beaver}!tektronix!tekig4!briand