Re: Sodding Word

Adrian Tuddenham <poppy.uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Adrian Tuddenham <poppy.uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Chris Ridd <chrisridd@xxxxxxx> wrote:

(Adrian Tuddenham) said:

Tim Streater <timstreater@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[...]
At this point I gave up on Word and did the doc in PageMaker 7.

If you had had Claris Works 4 on OS 7.6, you could have done it with
ease (and it was free).

It might have come bundled with some Macs, but not all.

I paid for my copy of CW 4. I think we got v1 or v2 when we bought the
Performa 475 (with System 7.1).

It was free by the time I bought a 5500

Bundled with the machine, surely?

It was.

Which isn't quite the same as free, is it?

The point I was trying to make was that it was superior to Word in so
many ways,

Almost all, if you ask me. It's so hard to get MS Word to do what you
want. I've not tried to use it for years, but I hear about the problems
my other half has with up to date versions, and it's worse than it was
back in '95.

I'm still amazed at the ease with which I can embed spreadsheets, text,
photographs and 'paintings' in a drawing document, or drawings and
spreadsheets in a word-processor with text-wrap. I have discovered that
it is even possible to open a second text window in a word processor and
have a column of numbers for the lines on a page (very useful when you
are printing scripts for performers).

Coo.

yet it has gone the way of most decent easy-to-use software.

<sigh> Yep.

I have some idea that sort of thing might come back one of these days.
There's definitely a space in the world for it, isn't there? And
half-decent documentation...

I'm afraid that is a good description of the documentation. I have been
using it for over 8 years and I am still finding things I didn't know it
would do.

At least CW 4 comes with a manual of sorts - not a great one, but it's
more than you get with modern software. But Apple's always been very
bad at user documentation - mind you, they never used to supply their
OSes without a manual at all, but it's what we're supposed to put up
with these days.

I still can't work out what the Apple-supplied Apple menu services do or
how to use them. I can't use the built-in OS spelling checker with OS X
because I've no idea how to manage its learning (well, that and the fact
that it doesn't know about TeX, so it's pretty much useless for almost
everything I write).

The great thing is that you can give it to an absolute beginner and they
won't be over-awed by it, it looks so simple. I remember a review in a
magazine which implied that it had a poor range of advanced features;
they were all there, but, because they weren't screaming and shouting at
him from the first window, the reviewer hadn't noticed them.

<chuckle> Yes, I've often come across stuff like that.

Rowland.

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