[Glastonbury] Re: Glastonbury Digest, Vol 71, Issue 3

[info at wccl.co.uk]

Greg   
> Ros
> As an avid WP5.1 user (yes, I paid £200 for it) I found the change
> difficult to other WPs, but for all its advantages, it is a very
> limited programme. I think you would benefit from moving on at some
> time and climbing that learning curve.
> Open Office is very good. And the Star Office 8 beta is available for
> download, for free and as Rick said, has an amazing number of filters
> including Volkswriter, Ami Pro, Wordstar, Word perfect etc
> Greg
> (PS. Bring back those dot commands, I say<G>)

Er I haven't found OOffice living up to the standard of WordPerfect 8 and 11, 
not for what I need it to do and that may be the critical point. Don't forget 
I am only using WordPerfect occasionally, in vile Windows, when OOffice will 
not easily do what I want or is too much hassle to use. 

It may be OOf does everything I'd want except the reveal codes, if I had the 
time to spend hours trying to find out. It may be I need to pay for 
StarOffice to get something more fancy. My experience of OOf so far isn't 
that it's limited but that it's a bit antiquated in its approach - rather 
like going back to old WordPerfect 5.1 blue screen at times with all the 
demands in dialog boxes for figures to be entered where in WordP I'd just use 
the mouse and move stuff around "visually" or select from visually attractive 
dialog boxes.

But another person may adore all that calculating, hate the mouse, hate not 
having control over the calculations (though they can be accessed in 
WordPerfect if you want them). Some people like doing sums. I don't! It's one 
reason I don't want much to do with spreadsheets once formula are required. I 
would prefer to say "Look add that up" or "Look this is the sort of result I 
want, computer you work out how to do it please". You have to allow for these 
different attitudes and a complete lack of interest in some of us relating to 
some aspects of work and if an app makes it easier for me, all to the good. 
That's where WordPerfect/Corel has its genius- it suits me, it's visual, it's 
fun - and the manuals are excellent (ver visual). Word isn't fun, that's part 
of its problem. It's boring. OOf is between the two. I wouldn't revert from 
OpenOffice to WordPerfect 5.1 blue screen, you can be sure of that, nor even 
to the old WordPerfect for Windows 5.1 which was pretty dodgy but still a 
revelation after what we'd had before. Nothing so far has convinced me that 
OpenOffice is more fun to use or easier (for me) to use than WordPerfect 11 
or even 8. 

When we have time we can look at Star Office 8 beta, thanks for that tip. 

Ros