Path: gmdzi!unido!mcsun!uunet!comp.vuw.ac.nz!csc.canterbury.ac.nz!cctr120
From: cctr...@csc.canterbury.ac.nz (Brendon Wyber, C.S.C.)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.applications
Subject: Mac's Microsoft Word
Message-ID: <1991Jan15.031444.5@csc.canterbury.ac.nz>
Date: 14 Jan 91 14:29:12 GMT
Organization: University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
Lines: 53
I have not got, nor do I ever intend to get a word processor for my Amiga.
However I am an extensive user of the Mac's MS Word and I have to say it is a
very good program.
Someone wanted a list of specifics, so here are some on them. I do not know how
many of these exist in amiga WPs, and I don't really care.
Note most of these feature are only useful for larger documents. Lets face it,
letters can be done on a line editor, or even written by hand (if anyone still
remembers how :-) ). Some of them are also hard to explain without showing you.
1. Style Sheets. Very useful. A style sheet consists of a set of text
formatting commands. Thus if you want to change the font or style of a
particular type of text (for example headings would be seperate style, or the
writting that goes under picture, or even quotes) you just need to change the
style sheet and all occurances of that text style are changed.
I cannot express the usefulness of Style sheets enough. They are just very very
very VERY VERY useful. Ok so I can express it. :-)
2. Dictionary spelling support. Useful. Word also comes with an add on
Thesaurus but it isn't built it.
3. Outlining. Allows you to define heading, sub headings, sub-sub-headings
and text. Ties in with style sheets very well. Allows you to move large chuck
of the document about.
4. Built in mathematical type setting.
5. Does lines and boxes.
6. Built in table support. Sort of works like a spread sheet.
7. Allows you to put in postscript commands. (If you know any Potscript)
8. Lots of text formatting option, subscript, super script, various types of
underlining, lots of tabbing controls, etc, etc, etc.
9. Section support so you can break the document up into seperate sections with
different page numbering styles, footers, headers, etc.
10. You can have columns. Also you can have paragraphs of text appeaing in odd
places with the other text flowing around it.
I could go on forever but I won't bore you. However if I did get an amiga WP
are there any with Style Sheets?
Be seeing you,
Brendon Wyber Computer Services Centre,
b.wy...@csc.canterbury.ac.nz University of Canterbury, New Zealand.
"Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn."
Path: gmdzi!unido!mcsun!uunet!ogicse!mintaka!geech.ai.mit.edu!rjc
From: r...@geech.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.applications
Subject: Re: Mac's Microsoft Word
Message-ID: <1991Jan14.222837.20284@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>
Date: 14 Jan 91 22:28:37 GMT
References: <1991Jan15.031444.5@csc.canterbury.ac.nz>
Sender: dae...@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu (Lucifer Maleficius)
Organization: None
Lines: 84
Posted: Mon Jan 14 14:28:37 1991
In article <1991Jan15.03144...@csc.canterbury.ac.nz> cctr...@csc.canterbury.ac.nz
(Brendon Wyber, C.S.C.) writes:
>I have not got, nor do I ever intend to get a word processor for my Amiga.
>However I am an extensive user of the Mac's MS Word and I have to say it is a
>very good program.
>
>Someone wanted a list of specifics, so here are some on them. I do not know how
>many of these exist in amiga WPs, and I don't really care.
This tells me right here that nothing I say will change anything. Fine,
you have your preferences, I have mine. 'I don't really care.' means
that your mind is closed to other WP's no matter how good they are.
Nothing could ever surpass Word.
>Note most of these feature are only useful for larger documents. Lets face it,
>letters can be done on a line editor, or even written by hand (if anyone still
>remembers how :-) ). Some of them are also hard to explain without showing you.
>
>1. Style Sheets. Very useful. A style sheet consists of a set of text
>formatting commands. Thus if you want to change the font or style of a
>particular type of text (for example headings would be seperate style, or the
>writting that goes under picture, or even quotes) you just need to change the
>style sheet and all occurances of that text style are changed.
AmigaTeX, and TeX in general can do this, and has been doing so for years.
All someone has to do is hack up a nice GUI for TeX for people who aren't
smart enough to learn a language. (The Mac motto, hide the computer from the
user with a blindfolding GUI. BlackBox.)
Someone could easily make an Arexx script to process TeX files and make
changes to fonts, sizes, styles, etc.
I can live without it though, search/replace in an editor works fine.
>I cannot express the usefulness of Style sheets enough. They are just very very
>very VERY VERY useful. Ok so I can express it. :-)
>
>2. Dictionary spelling support. Useful. Word also comes with an add on
>Thesaurus but it isn't built it.
This is no biggie, I think Excellence has a dictionary & Thesaurus.
>3. Outlining. Allows you to define heading, sub headings, sub-sub-headings
>and text. Ties in with style sheets very well. Allows you to move large chuck
>of the document about.
I pretty sure this can be done with TeX, nroff/troff, etc.
>4. Built in mathematical type setting.
AmigaTeX. Especially in combination with Maple which can output formula's
as TeX.
>5. Does lines and boxes.
TeX.
>6. Built in table support. Sort of works like a spread sheet.
TeX. Atleast i've seen mathematical tables done in box's etc.
>7. Allows you to put in postscript commands. (If you know any Potscript)
I know there are several Amiga WP's that support Post and Color post.
But when you've got TeX, you don't need postscript as much.
>8. Lots of text formatting option, subscript, super script, various types of
>underlining, lots of tabbing controls, etc, etc, etc.
TeX. Not to mention every WP i've seen supports this, even back to
GeoWrite on the C64.
>9. Section support so you can break the document up into seperate sections with
>different page numbering styles, footers, headers, etc.
TeX.
>10. You can have columns. Also you can have paragraphs of text appeaing in odd
>places with the other text flowing around it.
TeX.
>I could go on forever but I won't bore you. However if I did get an amiga WP
>are there any with Style Sheets?
Basically, everything you've stated is either already in an Amiga
WP, or in TeX. Some people argue TeX is hard. I disagree, some people are
just intimidated or frightened that they may actually have to <gasp> learn
something about their computer and the workings of computer languages.
Any other features Word has that no Amiga WP or Typesetter has?
Does Word have an Arexx port? :-)
>Be seeing you,
>
>Brendon Wyber Computer Services Centre,
>b.wy...@csc.canterbury.ac.nz University of Canterbury, New Zealand.
>
>"Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn."
Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!
uunet!tronsbox!bleys
From: bl...@tronsbox.xei.com (Bill Cavanaugh)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.applications
Subject: Re: Mac's Microsoft Word
Message-ID: <662@tronsbox.xei.com>
Date: 16 Jan 91 01:09:25 GMT
References: <1991Jan15.031444.5@csc.canterbury.ac.nz>
<1991Jan14.222837.20284@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>
Organization: Romantic Encounters BBS
Lines: 42
In article <1991Jan14.222837.20...@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> r...@geech.ai.mit.edu
(Ray Cromwell) writes:
[stuff about MS Word deleted]
> AmigaTeX, and TeX in general can do this, and has been doing so for years.
>All someone has to do is hack up a nice GUI for TeX for people who aren't
>smart enough to learn a language. (The Mac motto, hide the computer from the
>user with a blindfolding GUI. BlackBox.)
Um, I don't know if anyone else has bothered to point it out, but there
are those of us "smart enough to learn a language" who don't have time
to learn a new one for every application. ESPECIALLY when that
application is word processing.
>
[more stuff deleted]
> Basically, everything you've stated is either already in an Amiga
>WP, or in TeX. Some people argue TeX is hard. I disagree, some people are
>just intimidated or frightened that they may actually have to <gasp> learn
>something about their computer and the workings of computer languages.
>
> Any other features Word has that no Amiga WP or Typesetter has?
>Does Word have an Arexx port? :-)
>
Why is it that every time someone on the net posts >anything< that even
LOOKS like they want a user interface that's made for the user, crys of
"You're not smart enough/You're too lazy to learn to do it the hard way?"
I may be commiting a sacrilege here, but why >should< someone have to
"learn something about their computer and the workings of computer
languages" in order to put their thoughts on paper in an attractive and
effective format?
--
* Bill Cavanaugh uunet!tronsbox!bleys *
* "When there is a war, the whole war is an illegal *
* operation, so when there is a war, you cannot ask me not to *
* hit below the belt. We are not in a boxing match." *
* *
* Abdul Razak Arisheeni, Iraqi Ambasador to France, *
* speaking to 60 Minutes about terrorism. *
Path: gmdzi!unido!mcsun!sunic!uupsi!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!rutgers!
cbmvax!cbmehq!cbmger!peterk
From: pet...@cbmger.UUCP (Peter Kittel GERMANY)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.applications
Subject: Re: Mac's Microsoft Word
Message-ID: <752@cbmger.UUCP>
Date: 16 Jan 91 15:57:39 GMT
References: <1991Jan15.031444.5@csc.canterbury.ac.nz>
<1991Jan14.222837.20284@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> <662@tronsbox.xei.com>
Reply-To: pet...@cbmger.UUCP (Peter Kittel GERMANY)
Organization: Commodore Bueromaschinen GmbH, West Germany
Lines: 74
In article <6...@tronsbox.xei.com> bl...@tronsbox.xei.com (Bill Cavanaugh) writes:
>In article <1991Jan14.222837.20...@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> r...@geech.ai.mit.edu
(Ray Cromwell) writes:
>[stuff about MS Word deleted]
>
>Um, I don't know if anyone else has bothered to point it out, but there
>are those of us "smart enough to learn a language" who don't have time
>to learn a new one for every application. ESPECIALLY when that
>application is word processing.
>
>> Basically, everything you've stated is either already in an Amiga
>>WP, or in TeX. Some people argue TeX is hard. I disagree, some people are
>>just intimidated or frightened that they may actually have to <gasp> learn
>>something about their computer and the workings of computer languages.
>
>Why is it that every time someone on the net posts >anything< that even
>LOOKS like they want a user interface that's made for the user, crys of
>"You're not smart enough/You're too lazy to learn to do it the hard way?"
>
>I may be commiting a sacrilege here, but why >should< someone have to
>"learn something about their computer and the workings of computer
>languages" in order to put their thoughts on paper in an attractive and
>effective format?
I agree fullheartedly. Obviously this is a point where people and
their character differ strongly. I myself am doing always very hard
to learn the cryptic keystrokes necessary in some odd programs.
(I'm typing this in vi, which sadist ever thought out those brain-dead
command keys???)
So, for my daily letter writing, I'm stuck with a rather aged
word processor, that also has a user interface that's a bit crude,
but I have gotten accustomed to it (ok, it's at least a *little*
logical). You won't know it, I think it's not internationally
available, called SuperDesk. I can type with it rather fast and
it does the things I need in letters (no fonts, only bold and
underscore). And when I need something special, then I grab out
my old self-programmed (in Basic) word processor, change some
lines for that special task, and then I'm done. (Watch: modifying
an own program is NO difficulty for me.)
Point is, programs like Wordstar and most of other current
word processors are real hell for me. I simply can't remember all
those double-key control sequences! So when I read somewhere that
the editor of some integrated package is Wordstar compatible (they
think this is a positive argument, haha), I immediately stop
considering that software.
And MS Word also has a rather ugly interface for my taste. Its
menu structure is in my eyes very intransparent, and the way some
functions work from the keyboard is very awesome. If you haven't
got a mouse on your PC or AT, you MUST have that strip above your
function keys, else you (read: I) are lost. And I hate situations where
I'm lost. (Remember when I first fell into vi on accident and didn't
find the way out: PANIC! No Esc or function key, no Ctrl-C or other
normal key sequence worked, then somebody told me to use colon quit!
I really thought he was going to fool me. Still today I shiver when
I remember that.)
So until now I was speaking totally about my own view of these items.
But I know there are many people outside built just the other way,
as cited above: they LOVE to learn new interfaces every day and
get their satisfaction from the conscience that they mastered some
new software again. I feel extremely jealous in neighbourhood of
such guys. But I have not the slightest idea whether I or these
people represent "Joe Average User". Does anybody have?
And for such partly limited people like me (:-), a well-designed
GUI is a big help. E.g. that PD text editor AZ makes up a real
nice text editor, but I don't think you can call it a word processor.
But surely MS Word isn't satisfying here, too, at least for me.
--
Best regards, Dr. Peter Kittel // E-Mail to \\ Only my personal opinions...
Commodore Frankfurt, Germany \X/ {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!cbmger!peterk