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.
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>> “If you like viruses, ransomware, etc keep using Word.” <<
And then some.
Word is and always has been a pretender.
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Word Perfect 5.1 was the best of the DOS word processors. Combined with an HP Laserjet II with an Arial font cartridge, you could easily make professional documents. I always liked the grammar evaluation. I called me vague and pretentious and taught me not to use passive voice.
The spell checker on Wordstar was the best. It would show you the proper spelling, but you had to type it. After a while, you learned to spell pretty much everything in your speaking vocabulary.
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>> “I first learned programming (FORTRAN) in college using punch cards” <<
Ditto!
And heaven help you if the pile of cards got knocked over.
Used to carry mine around in a compression tray.
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“Near the end of the novel, a word count took about 10 minutes to complete.”
probably more a function of the floppy-drive based OS and computer than WordPerfect itself :)
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>> “I always liked the grammar evaluation.” <<
I always hated it. It would make your letters look like they were written by a 10 year old that was slow for his age.
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WordPerfect for DOS was better than MS Word for Windows. It was so powerful. When WP conformed to Windows, it lost some of it’s wonderfulness.
WP 5 and 7 were like heaven. Easy to use. Microsoft sucks.
Wordstar. Yes, Wordstar. Can anyone besides myself remember the control key clusters for moving the cursor?
Can you remember the cursor movement control-key cluster?
Those Xerox computers had a 19” monochrome GUI, a hard drive and a mouse when IBM PC’s still had DOS.
It was wonderful when the word processing software came onto the scene. Anazing what could be done even with an ordinary 25X80 CRT.
I have plenty of scars from the software / hardware wars. 16 years in corporate management; hired 125 talented individuals, mostly mathematicians & programmers. Our teams performed honest, productive work. We installed, debugged, & supported many systems for important businesses across the US, mostly in the northwest quadrant.
I was lucky enough to have the honor of attending graduate classes taught by McCarthy, Alan Kay (designed the original laptop computer; became an Apple Fellow), and Don Knuth – the legendary genius who created much of modern computer science.
Stanford was (& is) keen on developing algorithmic thinking.
Working at SAIL at the Beginning of it All was otherworldly. It was mentally invigorating to work closely with many brilliant, forceful thinkers.
How far we have come with computer technology!
In retrospect, it was all worth it.
I use LibreOffice. It’s free and very similar to MS word
A truck would deliver a Costco pallet of new tubes every week to replace the burned-out ones. That was long before Costco existed. "Costco pallet" is just the modern standard unit of industrial measurement.
I hate Word. It's always trying to think for me, always trying to format for me. Hate. It. Thankfully Word Perfect will save a doc in Word format for those rare occasions when I have to send someone a Word version.
Bawhaha. Used WordStar for a long time, never much liked the early versions of Word. I still have a place in my heart for XyWrite. Great bit of software.
Doug Englebart invented the mouse ~1963, & perfected it (at the time) at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), along with other GUI innovations.
Wow. I’ve never had to opportunity to see a Tube computer. Oldest I’ve seen was an 1970’s vintage Westinghouse computer which booted from punch card and used Drum memory. After that it was DEC PDP’s, and time marched on.....
Word pays big dividends if you use Styles to format your text, and don’t try to apply lots of stuff to various bits of text here and there. Get your styles set up right on the front end, and turn on reveal paragraph marks. Know that the formatting, the style, is in the paragraph mark.
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