#AMIGA SOFTWARE
22 messages in this thread
Sorry about the previous "blank" message, I pretty new to this thing…
However, I've got a real problem I'd appreciate a little help with solving…
My son goes to school at the University of Texas in Austin. He bought an
Amiga 1000 when they first came out, nearly two years or more ago I guess,
and he wants to use it in his school work. He's a chemistry and physics major
and needs to analyze lab data and write reports. He bought Scribble for his
wordprocessor, but it is a poor excuse for a wordprocessor. He bought Analyze
for his spreadsheet, but it makes pathetic graphs. He bought Digipaint (I
think) for freehand drawings/pictures, and he likes it very much. Worse, he
can't combine his graphs/pictures with text for an integrated report. All of
his friends own Macs and love them… the Mac can do the things he wishes his
Amiga would do and do well. Can anybody tell us if there is software that he
can use to accomplish this goals?… He needs a good spreadsheet with good
graphs and a wordprocessor/desktop publisher which can import pictures from
Digipaint and graphs from the spreadsheet to write a final, integrated
report. He also thinks he'll need a 24-pin printer for high quality
results… something like the NEC P6 but isn't sure about availability of a
driver. He's tried long and hard to find the software combo he needs and is
about to give up… It was my idea to try the Amiga forum… If this doesn't
work, he wants to sell his Amiga and get a Mac… he's tired of the hassle
and I don't blame him… However, I'd hate to think that after all this time,
the Amiga can't be better than the Mac… But I've been wrong (often)
before… In short: HHEELLPP !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! \EX
John, one problem your son is running into is not being able to import
graphics from DigiPaint into a wordprocessor. Digipaint is a HAM (Hold And
Modify) paint program. No current wordprocessor that has the ability to use
graphics uses HAM images, mainly due to their special nature. The word
processors/Desk Top Publishing programs that allow use of images allow
stanard Amiga resolutions. Deluxe Paint is superb for creating such Images.
It also text to used, as Digipaint does not. (err, it also allows text to be
used). I can't help much on Spreadsheets or WordProcessors, but I'm sure
someone will have some input for you.
GreG
Greg, Thanks for the prompt reply… yes, he does have Deluxe Paint, not
Digipaint as I said (erroneously). I take it that there is a desktop
publishing system that can do wordprocessing and import his Deluxe Paint
pictures too? Is it asking too much for a combined wordprocessor/publisher
with a spell checker and a thesaurus? As you can see, I don't know a lot
about the subject, but I do know what my son thinks he needs… Thanks…
John, there are several wordprocessors & desktop publishing programs out. I
don't know the abilities of ANY of them I'm sorry to say. Hopefully someone
will jump in and suggest a few.
I know of one WordProcessor that imports IFF pictures, has spell hecking,
thesaurus, grammar checker, etc. But, it is not out yet. I was impressed
with it when I saw a beta of it at a private screening. It's called
Excellence!, and is from MSS (same people that put out Scribble!). I know,
Scribble! was not much of a WP, but this blew my socks off. It it totally
AmigaTized, and does the above mentioned functions, and more. As I said, it
is not out yet. It has been delayed several times and many people have been
getting on MSS's case. The only thing MSS did wrong was prematurely announce
it. Nevertheless, thats one program to look into. I'm sure you will get
more input from others.
Regards, GreG
The new upgrade of ProWrite (ProWrite Version 2.0) allows you to import both
normal and HAM pictures. It also now included a spell-checker. So far I like
it a lot — recommend you look at it as an answer to your problem.
–apl
John:
I wonder which version of Analyze he has. I understand that version
2.0 does some pretty nice graphics. Unfortunately, I can't help with the
wordprocessor question either as I use either Scribble! (for letters and
simple text) and WordPerfect for the serious stuff. I do know that it is
going to be awhile before WP 5.0 showes up on the Amy. WP is saying at least
a year. PageSetter and other DTP packages do handle graphics images and text
together. I believe that at least one will work with WP files. When using
the DTP I suspose that it really does not matter too much what editor/word
processor is being used anyway. I have to original version of Pagesetter and
it is not good for much in the way of serious work. I did see some
impressive stuff at the Amiga Expo in L.A. but have not used any (yet).
73, bill
P.S. Though I would not trade my Amy for a Mac, the Mac is clearly the Kign
of the micro-DTP field right now and I don't expect that to change for at
least a couple of years.
RE: 'king of the DTP world, and I don't expect……' The newsletter
publisher for our club has BOTH a Mac and an Amiga, (he runs the DTP sig
also), and has said on more than one occasion, that he prefers the Amiga, and
feels that within 6 months it will far surpass the Mac for ease of use in the
DTP area.
Vic:
I don't think that your newsletter editor is in touch with reality! It
took Apple Mac several years to develop their position. Most of the
equipment in the DTP world already 'speaks' Macintosh and even a lot of the
commercial publishing equipment uses Mac.
Unfortunately, the issue as to 'ease of use' is irrelevant. I do
think that the Amiga display is the most serious problem for DTP right now
but with that problem licked then the multitasking of the Amiga will
certainly make DTP easier than on any other machine. Naturally how good the
machine actually is has little to do with the issue (ala IBM) and of course
the Mac actually is a good machine for the DTP job. 73, bill
Let's see now, the Mac's display is 512 pixels by 348. Hmmmm, that
means that the Mac displays LESS information than the Amiga. I agree that
the Amiga could use a display with more pixels, and I'm sure that Dexter
would agree with you. He does, however, put our newsletter together with
Professional Page (Gold Disk) and generates the masters on an Apple Laser
Writer. Yes, I realize that the Laser Writer was originally done for the
Mac, but he already HAD a Mac with the LW before he got his Amiga. Email me
your address, and I'll see that you get a few copies. When you come up this
way for a meeting you can talk to him about this in more detail. Just so I
don't get in too much trouble over mis-quoting him, I'll give him a call this
evening, and ask him exactly what he said. But it was definetly along the
lines of "…. given the ages of the machines, and the rate at which
publishing packages are coming out, I believe that the Amiga will be better
suited for DTP than the Mac within 6 months…..I already prefer Professional
Page to any of the DTP programs I have on the Mac, and with a few
improvements ….. " Anyhow, that's certainly what I heard at the DTP Sig
meeting…..well that and "You're gonna learn PostScript, 'cuz that's where
the publishing business is heading"
Bill, I'll check out the version of Analyze my son has… if he has a very
early version (and he may have since he bought it some time ago), perhaps he
can get it upgraded. Thanks for the help and comments!
Seikosha SL-80-AI 24-pin printer with 80 columns (132 also available, I
think) works well for my in draft/letter quality/ and graphics modes. It will
run off the Preferences "Epson' and "Generic' printer-drivers but does best
with an Epson LQ Series p-d, probably available in CIS DL for downloading.
Price was somewhere under $330.00 as I recall at discount house. I do
graphing of various types (bar, range, 3 value, scatter plot), so it would
probably be good enough for college class purposes.
John–
Word Perfect is THE wordprocessor for academic work just now. And there are
utilities for converting its files to a format that Page Setter can use with
minimal hassle. If he wanted, he could get Page Setter professional, but
that is overkill.
// Jim Students can get Word Perfect for $99. It is the best Amiga deal I
know of. The company's support it UNBELIEVABLY good.
GreG,
There is ONE word processor that I know of that will allow the user to
import HAM files and it's a damn good one. ProWrite 2.0 from New Horizons
software. Highly recommended.
-John
Thanks for the info John. As you can see, I'm not in the position to
reommend WP's because I have only seen a few. You being a dealer who comes
across almost all of them are in a better position. Thanks for the info.
GreG
GreG,
Sure thing! Im really excited about ProWrite 2.0. I really think
it's the only REAL Amiga word processer out there. Fonts, colors, interlace
or non-interlace, importable graphics (any mode), 95k word and 25k word
dictionaries, 1.3 printer-device/preferences, etc. etc… This is Amiga word
processing!
-John
John,
You have not hit on the right software to do your job. I recommend
Maxiplan Plus for a spreadsheet, ProWrite 2.0 for a word processor and
DigiPaint (Since he likes it) for your son.
MaxiPlan Plus has great graphing capabilites, and allows you to save the
graphs in standard IFF format so that they can be easily modified from your
sons favorite paint package (DigiPaint).
ProWrite 2.0 will import IFF graphic files into a document allowing you
to flow text around it, resize and move the graphic to where he wants.
These are both excellent, very Amigatized programs, and will do your
sons job much better than the mac.
-John
Thanks so much for your input John, Perhaps a combo of Maxiplan Plus,
ProWrite 2.0, and DigiPaint will get everything done he needs. The fact that
he can treat Maxiplan Plus graphs as importable graphics to ProWrite should
"seal the deal". Bill Leach suggests that my son's version of Analyze may not
be the latest. Do you know if Analyze 2.0 graphs can be imported to ProWrite?
Anyway, thanks for the timely help… helps maintain the reputation of
Amigans as a great, knowledgeble bunch of folks!
John:
Just to throw my own $2 (inflation) into the discussion: in case your son
isn't aware of it, there is at least one product on the market that lets you
grab screen images from other programs and store them on disk as IFF files.
I have GrabiT, which works pretty good. I used it to steal the hands off the
robots when I drew my CTV image, because I'm terrible at drawing hands (yes,
the truth comes out). So your son could run GrabiT in the background and
capture Analyze! graphs, then import them into DeluxePaint to doctor 'em up.
I have had MaxiPlan Plus for a few weeks and it seems like a pretty good
product. I haven't played with the graphs because graphs don't impress me
much (viewgraph engineering, one of my bosses once called it), but the
pictures on the box looked real purty.
BTW, if your son does decide to buy MaxiPlan and ever needs to import a
text file into a spreadsheet, I've got a crude little C program to insert
TABs into text files so MaxiPlan will read it properly. MP wants TAB
delimited text files to import so it knows what cells to put things in. I
ran into this moving a bunch of files off my Apple IIc into MP and ended up
writing the program real quick to get the job done.
Good luck in your search … as you're finding out, there's a lot out
there, it's just a matter of finding out what. Suggestion: subscribe to all
magazines that remotely touch on Amiga. And stop by the Amigaforum
frequently, of course.
Regards,
…Mark…
Mark, Thanks for the tip about GrabiT, sounds like just the thing… We'll
definitely give it a try…
Wordperfect ($99 to him–and note, Amiga WP files are compatible with all
other WP 4.1 files ((ibm, apple, atari)) whereas the new MAC Word Perfect
files are NOT compatible. Thus, I can use my Amiga WP files on my school's
IBM Word Perfect, Mac users cannot.) Page Setter with Laser Script will let
him produce Postscript output. That should do it for reports.
I have Oxxi's spreadsheet and it seems to have good graphics, but I have not
used it. Maxiplan, it is called. Check these products out.
// Jim /s
Jim, I assume the $99 version of WordPerfect is a student discount of some
kind? Yes, I'm aware of WP's great reputation… I use it at work on my
PC-AT. I assume that WP text can be imported into PageSetter? PageSetter's
Postscript output could be important to my son, I'll check with him tonight.
The exciting thing is that all the help I've gotten on the AMIGAFORUM seems
to say that the AMIGA really IS better than the Mac! Thanks again…
Yes, the $99 price on WP is for students (and teachers.) Get in touch with
them directly. Obviously, WP can produce ASCII files to import to
PageSetter, but there is also a pd program to convert regular WP files to
PageSetter format, keeping many of the attributes. It is not all that
cumbersome. Also, you can set up templates, etc. with a program called
Journal–also in pd.
Some of the other WP/DP programs (like Prowrite) and the promised
Excellence! look good too, but I know nothing of them. The best thing would
be to get your son a modem and let him get on the national nets. But that is
pricey. Next best, get him a subscription to Amazing Computing, Amiga World,
etc.
// Jim