[Glastonbury] Re: Glastonbury Digest, Vol 70, Issue 5

[Rick Fitzsimmons]

Sorry to join in this topic a bit late in the day. Been a bit hectic lately.

<rant>
I used to use WordPerfect, so I know about the code view and how good 
that was /in its day/. Back then all formatting was done in-line, with 
no concept of styles and objects. Anyone writing a complex document now 
using in-line codes needs their head examining! (IMHO :-) A modern 
wordprocessor is a very different beast, and I don't think the old WP 
code view would be helpful any more (for new documents at least).  If an 
old document gets totally scrambled due to all the in-line codes, just 
select the offending section, return to default formatting 
(format/default in OOo) and start again - using styles!
</rant>

As for importing WP files, the original WP import filter in StarOffice 5 
used a proprietary library, and had to be removed from OpenOffice for 
legal reasons (but IIRC remained in StarOffice 6, along with various 
other proprietary bits and bobs like extra fonts, Adabas database, etc).

There's an open source project on Sourceforge that has produced a new 
free WordPerfect import library, and this is included in the new 
OpenOffice 2.0 (currently in Beta). There is also an import filter for 
OOo 1 series (writerperfect), and a stand-alone converter (wpd2sxw) that 
will simply generate an sxw from a wpd file. Also a wpd2sxwbatch.pl Perl 
script to convert whole directories at a time. I've used an older 
version of wpd2sxw, and it worked a treat.
All available for download from Sourceforge at: 
<http://libwpd.sourceforge.net>.

Cheers,
Rick.


info at wccl.co.uk wrote:
> Tim > When I joined my current employer in 1992, all the senior people in the
> 
>>office had been given laptops with WP 5.1. No one knew how to drive them
>>- because I had it at home, I wrote a training manual in my copious free
>>time and taught all my seniors how to use WP :) 
> 
> 
> Interesting! 
> 
> 
>>I upgraded as far 
>>as WP 6 and then gave up, having paid full price for each version.
> 
> 
> I never bought 6. I had 5.2 or thereabouts for win and it was OK. WP 6 had a 
> terrible reputation for being buggy and when I used someone else's version I 
> had to agree. It was completely horrible and looked cheap. But possibly they 
> hadn't added service packs.
> 
> 
>>Once Corel bought it, the product was doomed - just like Ventura
>>Publisher.
> 
> 
> I found the Corel WordPerfect 8 absolutely excellent. It was a revelation 
> after 6, an absolute joy to use, very advanced at that time, and the graphics 
> facilities were excellent. I could do so much more with it than with Word 
> which always seemed a stage behind WordPerfect and Word was particularly 
> tedious when it came to graphic insertion which I used a lot in WordPerfect - 
> there was a lot more hassle doing it in Word. Everything in WordPerfect was 
> so simple to use, everything in Word seemed to me (admittedly as only an 
> unwilling occasional user) very difficult. But of course Corel would be 
> interested in the graphics and make WordP look really attractive and fun to 
> play with - they did wonders for the manuals too and those are still good. 
> 
> I upgraded to 11 assuming it would be a lot better still but it isn't much 
> different that I can see and unfortunately the "look" of the basic screen 
> setup is cheap, like going back to WordPerfect 6 in some ways. I'd say 8 was 
> their real effort, the drive against Office. As I recall, after that 
> Microsoft bought a big share in WordPerfect. At least I think it was just 
> then. Anyway, MS got influence over WordPerfect Suite which had been 
> challenging Office hard, and the challenge evaporated  although what I heard 
> was the competition laws made it important for MS to have a rival. 
> 
> Worse, the Linux version seemed to die a death, just after they'd heralded it 
> as a great innovation and we'd been trying out a freebie. Since then 
> WordPerfect has been weak and the Linux version seems to get little attention 
> whilst actually buying a copy seems impossible now. They keep saying they are 
> redeveloping it but heavens, how long does it have to take? 
> 
> Ros
> 
> 
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