Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watdragon!dahlia!rsingh1
From: rsingh1@dahlia.waterloo.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Junk=Amiga Wordprocessors & Amiga PrinterDrivers
Message-ID: <19466@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Date: 22 Dec 89 20:48:14 GMT
Sender: daemon@watdragon.waterloo.edu
Reply-To: rsingh1@dahlia.waterloo.edu ()
Distribution: world
Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 82

Amiga word processors suck.
 
That's the conclusion I just came to.  I am an owner of Prowrite, some
recent version, and just typed in a short 20ish page document.
 
All I wanted to do was to print it out text style.  Fancy?  I thought not.
 
A few lines were centred, a few were underlined, and a few were
'carefully 'structured''
 
I typed it all in just fine.  I spell-checked it (Slow), but when I went to
print it (Star NX1000), double space style, some lines were 'tripple spaced',
and some were just plain messed up.  As well, the program did not understand
page-breaks worth beans.  Often, I would find 1 or two lines flowing over
on to the next page.  The entire thing supposedly was Wysiwyg on my screen,
and what printed was close, but not like what was on screen.
 
Fine I thought.  A printer incompatability for some bizzare reason.
 
Let me go and get a panasonic 1091i (and I did).  Same sort of thing.
I set page length in preferences to 66 lines, and all that.  Did everything
properly, but it just didn't print.  I decided to abandon Prowrite, and
my entire system for the dealers system.  I went over there, and booted
up a complete-waist of time (Write! of Gold Disk's Appetizer set). While this
accursed useless program looked pretty enough, the proportional scroll
gadget had the worst 'feel' possible, and there was NO WAY OF KNOWING what
PAGE you were ON, let alone what line of that page.  I suspect they want you
to insert 'Codes' into the text for that.  How bloody intuitive.
 
I had to re-space the entire document with this thing.  And when I go to
print, I find there is NO WAY to set the margins!, OR space on the top
or bottom of the page!  It 'Did' let me set the line count though. (66),
(I even COUNTED on a page to make sure), and I positioned the top of the paper
RIGHT AT the print head, but it still SCREWED UP the page breaks.  AND!!!
It put out a 'BLANK PAGE' AFTER EVERY SINGLE PAGE IT PRINTED!  GARBAGE CODE!
 
What did I do next?  Why, I booted up the dealers copy of Pen Pal, but that
crashed when I tried to bring up the requester to load.  GARBAGE!
 
Then they fished out a demo of 'Excellence' (with save disabled).  This
seemed like it would work, and it did, for the first page.  Then it screwed
up on the header/footers again!  It seems to get confused with spacing and
fonts (when you go to print ascii).
 
Then what?  Why by now I was getting remarkably pissed.
 
Every single word processor I tried crashed or did not work.

So, in desparation, I uploaded the text file to a friends MAC, drove
accross town and re-formatted the text YET AGAIN.
 
We selected a pretty standard font, and sent it to print on an image
writer.  A few minutes later, it's done.  Perfectly spaced.  Perfect
margins.  Perfect header/footer space.  And the software performed
flawlessly.
 
I really like my amiga, (vetran A1000) owner, but after this many years,
I would like to see developers not selling software that doesn't even
work.  The amiga printer driver should bring up it's own window, asking
for settings.  And the settings should not be 'how many characters left
margin".  No.  They should ask "how many CM margin?"  and ask how I would
like the page to be split (at the line, not 'around it').
 
All I want is reasonable output from a line printer (Paged).  And only
1 program for the amiga has ever delievered this, but I don't have enough
money to buy it (Word Perfect).  It seemed to work nice.
 
Sorry for not being very coherent.  I'm pretty pissed.  It looks like the only
way to get something done on the amiga (that looks done) and do it with
'ONE' product, is to buy the top of the line.  (Probably TEX).
 
Without a better standard of software, the amiga is toast.
We have great graphics programs and 'Editors', but the rest sort of sucks.
 
That's sad.

 

               /Paul Anton Sop (Esquire?).  rsingh1@dahila.waterloo.edu/
              /Graphic Designer 4 Spaghetti Western Words and Images  /
             /100 Kinzie Ave, Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, N2A 2J5    /
            /(519) 578-8525/742-0372 (if seriously really desparate)/