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From: toma@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Tom Almy)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: window386 && their WORD
Message-ID: <7042@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM>
Date: 8 Mar 90 16:12:04 GMT
References: <754@eedsp.eedsp.gatech.edu> <1779@uklirb.informatik.uni-kl.de> <542@cpqhou.UUCP> <2113@milton.acs.washington.edu> <DSAMPSON.90Feb26100742@x102a.harris-atd.com> <100289@linus.UUCP>
Reply-To: toma@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Tom Almy)
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton,  OR.
Lines: 44

In article <100289@linus.UUCP> carlson@gateway.mitre.org (Bruce Carlson) writes:
>I would appreciate hearing any comments/problems that anyone has found
>with Word for Windows.  I bought my upgrade about a week ago and at this
>point I'm about ready to use the 30 day return option and give it back to
>Microsoft.

Well I'm an avid WordPerfect user (but who admits it isn't really perfect),
but got a copy of Word for Windows thinking it would be the way of the
future. Well, I came to the conclusion it has a way to go.  Major gripes:

1. It gets out of memory errors too easily (and I have a 16Mb system). Does
   anyone not have this problem?

2. It isn't really WYSIWYG. Of course the screen fonts don't necessarily
   match the printer fonts, but the on screen microjustification is based on
   the screen font and doen't match what gets printed. In this respect WP
   is more WYSIWYG.

3. I couldn't get the kludgy EPS import macro to work (Out of Memory, of 
   course). In general, handling of graphics is more difficult than WP.
   While WfW does allow dragging a graphic into position, you can only do
   it in page preview mode, and the text is greeked in page preview. WfW's
   closest competitor Ami is much better here.

4. Windows printer drivers aren't as sophisticated as WP's drivers. With
   a Postscript printer you are limited to a certain set of font sizes (WP
   allows any size resolved to a tenth of a point). With the Epson driver
   only the Elite (10cpi) font works properly, the compressed, expanded,
   pica, and proportional fonts are not displayed properly (they are all
   displayed the same size and the displayed margins are wrong to compensate).
   This dificulty appears in Windows Write as well (but to a lesser degree
   with AMI).

5. I would have expected more typographic control, but WP comes out ahead
   in adjusting character and line spacing. At least WfW now has kerning,
   but there is no way to adjust the kerning tables.

6. I guess because of competitive presure the nice manuals of earlier Word
   versions has been replaced with an alphabetical order reference manual
   reminiscent of WPs massive impenetrable tome.

Tom Almy
toma@tekgvs.labs.tek.com
Standard Disclaimers Apply