SOFTWARE REVIEW WordPerfect Thousands of years ago, people put 100, the Zenith Z-100, and the Tandy 2000. Powerful their thoughts down on clay tablets. WordPerfect is actually a collection of capabilities It was inexpensive and permanent, several closely integrated programs, includ- and they never ran out of ink. However, they ing a bundled 30,000-word dictionary with -and some had to write quickly before the clay tablets room for 10,000 user-included words, and had a chance to dry. Later they wrote on extensive mathematical and merge func- annoyances sheepskin parchment-better all around, ex- tions. It provides automatic text reformat- cept for the sheep. Now everyone had time ting, automatic footnotes, proportional to compose ideas and write them more spacing, document encryption, and macro BY RICARDO BIRMELE clearly. However, mistakes were expensive; instructions. The package comes on two there were only so many sheep. non-copy-protected disks: one contains the During the Middle Ages, people used program and supporting files and the other feathers plucked from birds to write on contains the dictionary. A comprehensive, paper made from wood and cotton. It was well-written tutorial/reference-style manual a time-consuming process and hard on the is also included. local bird population. Then the typewriter Instead of extensive on-screen menus, appeared. People could write clearly and WordPerfect provides a keyboard template quickly, fix mistakes easily, and not bother and key stick-on labels for the various word- the local fauna. However, they were limited processing commands. It uses all the IBM's by paper size. keys, some in combination with the Control, Modern authors have the word processor. Alternate, and Shift keys. Fixing mistakes is no more than a small in- This word processor requires a minimum convenience; the bottom edge of the paper of 128K bytes of memory, two double-sided no longer exists. In fact, word processors disk drives, a color or monochrome display, are such a good idea that everyone is try- MS/PC-DOS, and a printer. ing to write one. So many exist now that you It also uses a programming concept called must choose the one that includes the fea- virtual memory. This means that your docu- tures you find most convenient. ment can be as large as your memory and the program can access any part of the THE BASIC QUESTIONS document without your having to actively WordPerfect, a capable and very easy-to-use reload it. However, if you were writing a piece of software, was first conceived by book you would want to break it into Alan Ashton, a computer science professor chapters. Scrolling from one end of a 100K at Brigham Young University, and Bruce Bas- byte document to the other, even if it is in tion, one of his graduate students. They memory, can take a while. received immediate feedback on the pro- gram by testing each new feature on the THE SCREEN secretaries who would be using it in their When you first boot up WordPerfect by jobs. When the IBM PC appeared, they pressing WP at the A> prompt, you see decided to implement WordPerfect on that an almost blank screen. In the bottom right machine. Unlike most other word-process- corner are the obligatory line and column ing programs (which were first written for position indicators (column in this case 8-bit machines and then scaled up to a called "Pos"), and two other bits of Ricardo Birmele (714 Cherry St.. 16-bit microprocessor), WordPerfect was information. Berrien Springs, MI 49103) is an scaled down to the 16-bit machine and thus "Doc" refers to WordPerfect's ability to consultant and independent computer can use its capabilities fully. edit two documents without going through technical writer. His other main interests are flying, nature. The package runs on the IBM PC (and its a save/reload process-you can go from one and his family. clones), the Victor 9000, the DEC Rainbow (continued) DECEMBER 1984 • BYTE 277 REVIEW: WORDPERFECT document to another by pressing Al- WordPerfect if either of these docu- document appears to the machine to ternate-F1 and answering the prompt- ments is still open. be a number of related documents, ing menu with a "1". It takes about two The other bit of information is "Pg", rather than one continuous piece of seconds with a hard disk, somewhat or page number. WordPerfect is a information. You can print any one of longer with a floppy. You cannot quit page-oriented word processor; the these related documents indepen- dently of the rest. One of the best ideas in Word- Perfect is "what you see is what you get:' In order to insert commands to 0 boldface, underline, or center text, you press a function key and the text This is all actual picture of how WordPerfect looks on the screen appears bold (highlighted), under- lined, or centered. Nothing in this pro- you ^re in the docume,,t. gram interferes with your thoughts (see photo I). If you need to see the gold, underlining , or both appears right on your screen as well as hidden formatting commands, you use the reveal functions command (Shift-F2). One caution: because of the map(gin settings (thiS Cole hdS heen changed way in which the character-attribute to 20 and 68). bit for underlining is manipulated, any characters underlined on a mono- aw""Affl-IN In chrome monitor will appear in blue on a color monitor; if fed by a color video drive board, they will appear in reverse video on the monochrome monitor. WordPerfect also lets you select in which colors you would like your background and text to appear. You Photo 1: An example of WordPerfect's "what you see is what you get" screen. can change color combinations be- fore starting your word-processing session by entering WP/S (Word- Perfect, slash, System) from a DOS prompt. (This is how you change basic system default parameters from one session to another.) With IBM's built-in international/ mathematical-character screen-map- ping capability, you can easily set up WordPerfect for French, German, Ox- Greek and math syrhols for equations, ford English, or mathematical Greek (see photo 2). Screen mapping refers „Z -, to "what you press is what you should m - (i - - ) me , R g R Rn ( 4 E = mct get;' unless previously redefined. This cz pT PT PT means that if you need an A-umlaut you should get one. One method of adding accents to your printed text is with overstrike. This involves typing a letter, A for example, then Shift-F5 (overstrike), and finally an accent, such as a double quotation mark for an umlaut. FORMATTING All word processors get your thoughts Photo 2: Some of the foreign characters and mathematical symbols down on paper. The best ones make available with WordPerfect. (continued) 278 BY TE • DECEMBER 1984 AT A GLANCE Name WordPerfect Type Word processor Manufacturer Satellite Software International 288 West Center St. Orem, UT 84057 (801) 224-4000 Computer IBM PC (and compatibles), Victor 9000, DEC Rainbow 100, Zenith Z-100, Tandy 2000 Other Versions Personal WordPerfect, also for FIND (SEC) SAVE (SEC) the IBM PC, and WordPerfect 50 50 . Jr. for the PCjr Disk Format 40 40 MS/PC-DOS 2.0, double- sided, double-density 30 30 Language 24.9 8088/8086 assembly language 20 20 15.7 Documentation 9.9 10 10.7 Loose-leaf manual with index 10 10 in a three-ring binder Price 0 $495 SCROLL (SEC) SEARCH (SEC) 50 , 50 54 44.9 41.2 40 40 30 30 20 20 10.5 10 10 3.5 Vj WORDPERFECT VOLKSWRITER ® WORDSTAR 3.3 These graphs show the timing results of per- are for WordPerfect, Volkswriter, and WordStar forming various standard word-processing version 3.3. The tests were performed using an functions using a 4000-word text file. The times IBM PC with monochrome monitor. DECEMBER 1984 • B Y T E 279 Circle 74 on inquiry card. COMPUTER BROKERAGE REVIEW: WORDPERFECT SERVICES We do the Shopping for You" 800/233-1147 your thoughts look good. WordPerfect file is a similar Home, Home, and up TX Residents formats headers and footers: up to arrow combination. 713/240-5515 four of either or two of each. It also You scroll up and down with the "n" 4242 BLUEBONNET • STAFFORD, TX 77477 displays the current output page function. When you press Escape, you number by including a Control-N in see "n =" at the bottom of your M O NITOR S the header or footer text. screen. The program is asking how reen m er ...... Direct IBM Plug In Footnotes are taken care of almost many lines you want to jump at a 115 Green/116 Amber ...... 125/130 automatically. Superscripted numbers time-the default is eight. You can 411 RGB-IBM Look Alike ........ 365 and formatting are also taken care of High Res/With mono switch change this temporarily by entering a 425 RGB-IBM Look Alike ........ 465 within the program by using com- number after pressing Escape and Super High Res/With mono switch mand keys. All you have to do is enter more or less permanently by using AMDEK New Color Monitors ........... CALL 310 Direct IBM Plug In ......... CALL text. If you need to insert a footnote the WP/S command. You can also ac- 300 Amber/Green ............ CALL between two previously written foot- tivate word-left and word-right func- notes, WordPerfect renumbers all of tions by pressing Control-left arrow TECMAR All Boards .............. SAVE$$$ them for you.