Posted on 01/18/2017 2:03:40 PM PST by rey
Years ago, I used WordPerfect for all my academic papers. I felt the program was more friendly toward that type of writing, easier to cite, create footnotes, end notes, bibliographies, etc. As Microsoft Word no longer comes as part of the operating system package, I have been considering my options.
My question is two-fold; is WordPerfect still a good product? Is it superior to Microsoft Word? What do professional writers prefer and why? (Yeah, that's three. I guess I'm a heavy tipper.)
Thanks.
The latest versions of WordPerfect (X8) and Word (2016) both do pretty good conversions.
Usually if I need to convert a WordPerfect document to Word I will simply rename it from .wpd to .doc and click to open it with Word. I will then resave it as a .docx document. If the conversion has formatting errors then I will then try saving it as a .doc document directly from WordPerfect.
In addition to reveal codes, superior footnoting etc. sorting capabilities that allowed for additions like Jr., MD, etc., WordPerfect was also better at working with images surrounded by text and the like. Word may have finally caught up on images but don’t think so with a reveal codes type of function.
MS won the marketing battle but not the full featured battle.
Yes, those days were great. Everything from one vendor, the Hardware, the Operating System and the Applications. When there was trouble, no question who to call! They did squeeze customers out of a lot of money though.
Open Office Suite. It's free, compatible with MS Office Suite, regularly updated, spell/grammar/thesaurus available in multiple languages. Been using it in my college courses. With two desktops, a laptop and a tablet I couldn't afford Microsoft even with a student discount.
I wrote code to analyze classified satellite data (CDC 6600) – in a building so secret it was not even listed in Lockheed's comprehensive internal phone directory – before there were any GPS sytems.
I learned LISP from the author himself, John McCarthy.
I wrote part of the operating system & many applications for the first full hospital information system – Spectra 2000 – in assembly code for a Schlumberger EMR 6135. I debugged that system for many months – correcting, inter alia, errors in the daily deceased patient list – working the graveyard shift at a hospital in an office next to the morgue.
I wrote / analyzed / debugged programs in FORTRAN / ALGOL / SAIL, & installed 16-bit Nova & Eclipse machines, which we had to boot up using fanfold paper tape.
I was the point man on the pioneer International Systems Engineering troubleshooting team that analyzed & solved multiple problems in the four-NOVA DG/DAC system controlling the flow of rail cars in the Santa Fe railyard terminus in Barstow.
I met the Peterson brothers (Salt Lake City & Sandy, Utah) who founded WordPerfect, & helped them sell their product as a third-party app on DG gear.
I liked WP as the best of all word processors right from the beginning, & agitated for it as the standard at a few companies. I finally switched to Word for compatibility with the overwhelming # of Word documents.
I became adept at MultiPlan long before it grew into Excel.
I loaned Stewart Brand (Whole Earth Catalog) a Victor 9000 machine so he could experiment with its newfangled graphics.
I wrote LISP fragments to manipulate wireframe elements of AutoCAD drawings, using the AutoLISP interpreter.
I hired the gentleman who is now the Autodesk VP of Product, worldwide, responsible for > $2 Billion in sales.
This thread might just persuade me to experiment with WordPerfect again, out of nostalgia, & well-deserved contempt for everything MSFT.
Computers will make yer lives easier!
where can i get me one of those? I hate cell phones with all those tiny little buttons that i don’;t know what they do- just want to rotary dial the numbers i need to call- New fangled gadgets- bah! Gimme the rotary phones back please- didn’t have to sit down for hours tryign to figure out how to store numbers- save addresses- etc- that is what pen and paper aRE FOR
My college computer class used WordStar, Lotus 123 and dBase 3.
Bless you! You were at the vanguard of the creation of useful business machines which actually contributed to society. Contrast that with the today’s “developers” of cell phone “apps” created to enslave and indoctrinate today’s youth.
I am in law and WordPerfect has many features which make writing briefs and pleadings faster than MS Word. There are so many things it does that MS Word does not do or does not do as easily. However, almost all the rest of the world uses Word. Fortunately, the later versions of WordPerfect will let save anything you write as any type of Word file that you need, including .doc or .docx. WordPefect also allows me to open and edit PDF files.
Aside from better functionality, WordPerfect is far cheaper. I had to buy MS Word for another computer my wife owns recently, and it seems MS is making it quite hard to simply purchase the program. Following the Adobe model, they want you to rent it on a monthly or yearly basis. Eventually, I succeeded in purchasing an MS Word program outright, but it cost me twice what the best WordPerfect program costs.
I guess in the end, if you know WordPerfect, you will find MS Word disappointing. BTW, does anyone miss WordPerfect 5.1? Any later version can be set to emulate it.
You had vacuum tubes? We had to use tree branches and were glad to have them!
OK, I concede. You win the oldest computer geek on the thread award.
I first learned programming (FORTRAN) in college using punch cards. The first computer I ever owned was a Radio Shack TRS-80 with a cassette recorder for data storage (it cost me about $400 which was an ungodly amount of money for a college kid in the late 1970s).
Old lawyer here to. Much prefer WP to Word. Just PDF the Documents and send them that way.
I worked for a company that had the Wang computers networked in the office. They ran on the CP/M operating system. They were replaced with a Xerox GUI system and the computers took 11 minutes to boot.
They say Xerox developed the original Mouse/GUI if I remember correctly.....
That is what I usually do. I only convert to Word if I have to send an editable document (usually to another lawyer).
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Word Perfect is still the best, no question.
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25 Grand. I think that was the downfall of the single vendor suppliers. They had customers over a barrel. I remember my billable rate for hardware repairs at the time was $300 per Hr. with a 2 hour minimum plus travel time charges. They would also rip off customers for telephone support, supplies, etc. That may have been the impetus for the move toward PC clones.
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