From: tal691@huxley.anu.edu.au (Tonio Loewald)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.apps
Subject: Re: which word processor?
Date: 11 Oct 92 04:45:42 GMT
Organization: Australian National University
NNTP-Posting-Host: huxley.anu.edu.au

willg@cix.compulink.co.uk (William Gallagher) writes:

>In article <1992Oct01.175051.118878@zeus.calpoly.edu> 
>rcarr@zeus.calpoly.edu (R:
>>I am looking into purchasing a new Word Processor for my 
>Mac.  I have used
>>MS Word 4.0 and am not thrilled with it.  I tested out 
>MacWrite II for
>>a few hours, and I'm not all that impressed with that either.
>>
>>Can anyone tell me about FullWrite?  or WriteNow?
>>Also, I have been browsing at Claris Works (which I can 
>purchase in the
>>University bookstore for $119).

>Don't touch FullWrite unless you have to.  Looks very good at 
>first but then you start hitting problems: headers and footers and 
>so on are shown in the text as tiny block icons placed in a 
>special margin and whilst in theory this is a good way to have 
>headers inserted where you want and be able to see both where 
>they are and yet not have your text disrupted, it fails in
>practice.  
>Any header can affect the entire document so you end up slowly 
>scrolling through everything looking for the tiny box at the side.  

No offence intended, but:

This is all rubbish. Just about all word-processors implement
headers and footers the same way. FullWrite just sticks icons in
the icon bar to show you where they are. Why is this a crime? It
also lets you SEARCH for them. And you can stop headers and footers
from carrying over to a new chapter.

The major problem with FullWrite is that it's no longer supported
by Borland (who bought out Ashton Tate. Apart from that, it's a nice
powerful, but slow, word-processor.

>Also, its on the slow side and can have problems with large files: 
>when I tried to use it for a comparative review of indexing 
>features it wouldn't even open my test document.  It claimed 
>that there was not enough memory to open it, and that 
>document was 180k of ASCII and I was trying it out on a 
>colleague's IIci with 8Mb of RAM with nothing but FullWrite 
>running.

Sounds like an old version of FullWrite. What size was its
memory partition? You can run anything with too little memory
no matter how grunty the MACHINE is.

>As to the others you mention, I've never used WriteNow so can't 
>comment. ClarisWorks is said to be good, and in the short time 

WriteNow is the best word-processor around, unless you want features
that have very little to do with writing (such as a second rate
drawing program, or page layout, and so on). I like programs that
do one thing VERY WELL (WriteNow is like this) versus doing lots
of things badly (Word f'rinstance).

>I've played with it I'd generally agree.  Do you want the other 
>parts of ClarisWorks?  Lastly of that set, I hate and loath 
>Microsoft Word, but I think you should try version 5.0: I believe 
>its slower than 4.0 but friends who like it, like it a lot.

>Have you considered WordPerfect or Nisus?  Nisus is quirky but 
>very powerful, and again those people who like it are very keen.

Nisus is UGLY (but look at it -- it is programmable). WordPerfect
is only good for people who need to use it on other platforms.

>I've used WordPerfect 2.1 a great deal for writing features 
>(which end up as raw copy so there is no layout) and technical 
>manuals (in my situation the exact opposite with a great deal of 
>graphics and copysetting as well as writing).  I'm a journalist so 
>I'm hopping between machines and word processors as I move 
>between publications and so forth, but of all of the dozen or 
>more I've used professionally WordPerfect 2.1 for Macintosh has 
>been the best for the way I work and is one reason that I'm 
>planning to get a Macintosh of my own.

>To end, one problem with WordPerfect and Nisus is that they are 
>expensive.  If you are able to try out the packages and cost is 
>absolutely vital, there are the cut down versions that you could 
>look at: LetterPerfect 2.1 and Nisus Compact.

>Hope this helps,

>William



-- 
Tonio Loewald            | Ph  06 290 1594 | PO Box 101 O'Connor
tal691@huxley.anu.edu.au | Fax 06 290 1595 | ACT 2601   AUSTRALIA

Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.apps