Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!att!mtuxo!lzfme!jwi
From: jwi@lzfme.att.com (Jim Winer @ AT&T, Middletown, NJ)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: World's Best Word Processor?
Summary: Word processing is what you want it to be
Message-ID: <1362@lzfme.att.com>
Date: 30 May 89 13:46:30 GMT
References: <221510@<1989May10> <111700085@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu> <555@dvnspc1.Dev.Unisys.COM>
Organization: AT&T, Lincroft NJ
Lines: 40

In article <555@dvnspc1.Dev.Unisys.COM>, gary@dvnspc1.Dev.Unisys.COM (Gary Barrett) writes:

> I understand that WordPerfect is fully featured and widely used, but
> does that make it the BEST?  I must be missing something.  I have seen
> people fighting with WP's less than intuitive user interface time and
> time again.  Excuse me for this flame, but that interface is TERRIBLE.

> Please, someone out there tell me that there is some magic secret
> (other than key macros) that can make WP acceptable to beginning
> users.

WordPerfect is intended for the professional business user (several hours
every day), not for the novice. If you need the full features (and
WPs are the best), pay the price and learn it. Similarly, Xywrite
III Plus is designed for professional writers (mostly magazine) who
use it several hours every day for writing but not formating, and
Note Bene is designed for the academic user.

If you need something simmple, buy something simple. Q&A Write comes
with a nice data base and the package will do 90% of what the others
will do but is much easier to run. If you don't need the 10%, don't
pay for it in learning curve. WORD is mouse oriented -- some swear
by it, but as far as I know, nobody who actually writes anything --
it's a pain in the ass to have to take your hands off the keyboard
-- loses your thoughts every time.

One other thing. If you only use the basic subset of WordPerfect,
you won't have many function keys to worry about. Basically just
Print (Shift-f7), Exit (f7), Search (f2), replace (Alt-f2), spell
(Ctrl-f2), block (Alt-f4) and move (Ctrl-f4). Use the color coded
keytop decals and the function key template and it's easy.

Jim Winer ..!lzfme!jwi 

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