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From: clive@drutx.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Microsoft Word 3.01
Message-ID: <4580@drutx.ATT.COM>
Date: Tue, 14-Jul-87 15:47:42 EDT
Article-I.D.: drutx.4580
Posted: Tue Jul 14 15:47:42 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 16-Jul-87 00:49:54 EDT
References: <1364@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU>
Organization: resident visitor
Lines: 57

in article <1364@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU>, abr@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Adam B Rosen) says:
> A friend of mine working at Microsoft over the summer says that they are
> continually producing updated versions, and he was of the opinion that the
> version to be released to the public (3.1, if that's what they're calling it)
> was finished and being manufactured.  No guarantees on this, though, and customer
> support probably knows better, since my friend isn't working on that project.

Actually, for some reason a local computer store I deal with has 3.1,
gave it to me several weeks ago.  Has the name of some developer
placarded on the startup screen; nothing like fatal responsibility.

It works very well -- I have had no difficulties with two complex 50 
page range user manuals written in the past two weeks (from a quiet
town in North Dakota, where I go for things like this...).

Which prompts a comment.  I think many people might have a better time
with Word 3.x if it were presented the way it is clearly designed:  as
an object-oriented approach to document preparation.

The user interface isn't perfect, but makes much more sense if viewed
from this perspective.  The keyboard equivalents often obscure this,
because there are so many, and coded in such a disorganized way.
This part does seem to have been either lifted from blue versions, or 
just tacked on.  And it would be nice, since there are so many anyway, 
if _all_ the functions (menu selection, etc.) worked with old keyboards, 
instead of requiring the numeric keypad, which I and others refuse.

Anyway, I'm pleased, for professional use, and I think it's definitely
worth the money I paid for it ($175 for Word 1, $50 upgrade), which is
probably about what a mail-order direct would cost.

I was holding out for FullWrite, which now I have to also observe was
truly presented as vapor.  But after using the styles/object orientation, 
I think it's very likely a much better way to proceed, at least for technical 
writing and business presentations, than a desktop-publishing-like arrangement.

When figures are needed, I need SuperPaint, not a subset of MacDraw.  
More importantly, I like to write some text, touch it with a style, and 
get an elegant boxed viewgraph header.  This is much, much better than 
doing _that_ job piecemeal even in a draw program.  

One caveat:  don't depend on QuickSwitch for drawings:  only works with 
MacDraw/Paint, and full of tricky warnings about not altering figure size 
or lose areas of it.  Nice idea, it was.  But with a hard disk, also 
unnecessary.

The methods of handling side-by-side text/graphics and multiple
columns are much easier to use than describe.  Work really well.  A
desktop-pub paradigm would have to work very smoothly to be better,
though it could be.  For a counter-example, look at the review of 
(not sure of its name) in this month's MacUser.  There are blocks, except 
they're clearly some pain to work with.

Anyway, on to the next project.  I think you'll enjoy this one.


Clive Steward