#Word(im)Perfect
32 messages in this thread
ALL:
I just thought I'd relate this. My mother uses Amigas. She has both a 2000
and a 3000 in her offices; they do a lot of work on them.
Recently, online on CIS, an associate of heres indicated that they wanted
to send paperwork in manuscript form, as a WordPerfect file. She enquired
around a bit and was told that WP 4.x for the Amiga could load those
files. She then called me, and I told her that buying WordPerfect was
probably one of the worst things she could do. She responded that she just
wanted to use it as a tool, to which I said yeah, but… and mumbled a
lot.
Now she's got WP. It won't install on the 3000 at all. It won't install on
the 2000. She called WP corp and they had _not one person_ who knew
anything about the Amiga available at tech support. No support, no
nothing.
This is FYI.
IMHO, WordPerfect is trash; it's always been trash; and I wouldn't wish it
on anyone.
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
Ben,
Having called WP many, many times in the past, (though, it's been two
years now) WP had offerred one of the best technical supports, bar none.
Like I said this was two years ago. I guess now that they don't plan on
any updates for the Amiga, they may as well trash their own name at the
same time. (I hope you are listening WP!) That is what Amiga users get
for be offerred a "ported product" which could have utilized many of the
Amigas' great features…Kay sa rah….Maybe we should all send them our
WP disks in protest…Nahhhhhhhh…why waste our time..BTW, WP was one of
my first programs I purchased for my 1000 in 1987..
Patrick White \ / O
"Before AutoPilot there was only a local BBS" O / \
Yes… WP was one of the first big programs I bought also. It's also the
first one to have eaten my hard drive, driven me out of my mind with bugs,
and caused me to decide that WP Corp didn't know programming from a hole
inthe ground.
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
As usual, I'm with you, Ben. I used WP at Transactor for only a couple
months; then decided I'd never run it again. Running WP on Ami is to have
a continual annoyance in your machine.
But I think they DO know programming; most anybody else would be
challenged to create such a user-abusive, MS-DOS style program on the
Amiga.
And that's why it deserves to be ignored. If it had been written the way
it should have, _every_ Amiga user would be using it.
Malcolm
Ben,
I have WP running on my 3000 and 2500. Your mom needs the Amiga Update so
that WP will run on Amiga/OS 2.x.
Joe Maulucci >>> AP ENGAGED
I guess she needs someone at WP to know that, too, eh?
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
Ben,
I have owned and used WP (4.1) ever since WB1.2. I now have Kick2.0/WB2.1
and WP still runs as it used to (apart from the menus being completely
useless due to my Helvetica 15 WB font ;^)
Tech Support at WP Switzerland has been flawless all the time. Last time I
checked (~1 Year ago) they still had an Amiga Version specialist there.
Tom / Amiga Imagineer from Switzerland with AutoPilot engaged
So, when are they going to give you WP 5.0 for the Amiga?
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
Ben,
-> So, when are they going to give you WP 5.0 for the Amiga?
Never, but who needs a ported MS-DOS character mode text processor on the
Amiga. I bought WP back then because I needed footnotes and WP was the
only one to offer them.
Tom / Amiga Imagineer from Switzerland with AutoPilot engaged
"who needs a ported MS-DOS character mode text generator on the Amiga"
Business people who need compatibility.
My mom.
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
Ben,
TransWrite will read and write WP format. Not sure what it does with
columns and such though.
Malcolm
Transwrite… that was the thing you and Nick did for GD and Transactor?
Or am I confused?
Is it commercially available? I think the use in this case is just to send
double-spaced manuscripts back and forth.
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
Almost right. All I had to do with it was bug-finding. 😉 Chris and Nick
did it. And yeah, it's from Gold Disk.
Malcolm
It's that last that's the killer for me… I'm still smarting from that
3-D thing.
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
Tom,
If you can get the upgrade to WP 4.1.12, it fixes problems like font
incompatibilities.
Denny,
Thanx. I'll probably try to get that upgrade even though I'm not using WP
much these days. We have AmiPro and a PS printer at work.
Tom / Amiga Imagineer from Switzerland with AutoPilot engaged
Joe –
Does the WP update for 2.x take care of the font problem? What is the
version number of your copy of WP? I wasn't aware that they had released
an update, so I was happy to see your message.
– Joe
WP version 4.1.12. I never had a font problem.
Joe Maulucci >>> AP ENGAGED
Thanks – Joe
Word Perfect runs fine on my 2500 with 2.04, Ben. I did have to send for
an update a year or so ago.
—Betty
Ben…
I have WP installed on my A3000 and have been using it daily for nearly
two years now. It does have some problems printing to my postscript
printer but otherwise I love it as a straight word processor. If you can
tell me what problems she is running into maybe I can help get it
installed.
Carl
The install script quits – no messages, nothing.
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
Which version of the OS was she using when she tried the install?
Steve
2.04
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
Hmmm…I was able to install the WordPerfect version I had….I think it
was the very last update they did. Do you know if she's using that?
Steve
Nope – I don't. Neither do they.
I plan to call her tonight and see where if anywhere she got with this
little nightmare.
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
Ben,
WordPerfect installs fine on the 2000, the 2500, the 3000, and, so I've
heard, the 4000.
Works fine, too.
…..Nancy
Apparently some versions do, and some versions don't. The kicker is that
WP themselves don't know which is which at this point, or so they told my
mother.
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
Perhaps people reading your message should pause to question *your*
reliability on this subject.
I had a 2000 and ran WP fine for over a year! No crashes, no problems!
Then I sold my 2000 and upgraded to a 3000 and I *still* haven't had any
problems. I would be the first to admit that WP doesn't have the layout
and WYSYIG powers that some other packages have but I use it quite often to
import and export to PCs and Macs.
Did your mother call the right number? Over a year ago, WP offered all
Amiga & Atari owners a trade-up offer to another platform. After that,
Amiga support has been grouped with Macintosh. There are still people
there who can answer questions. I know. I called after reading your
posting. They said it would be for a limited time though.
I personally feel that your coments reflect directly on BlackBelt Systems
(after all you are writing with the name in the message header) and I will
think twice before buying one of your products. Not because you have an
opinion to share but because you are so willing to jump to conclusions &
make false accusations about other companies. When I call for support,
what kind of closed minded, unthought-out things will you say to me . . . .
. ?
Matt
Matt,
You're entirely entitled to draw whatever conclusions you like. :^) You
don't know me so I have no reason to take offense.
However, the facts are: My mother called the right number, there was no
Amiga support person available, the software does in fact NOT install on
her machine, there is an upgrade required (which we found out HERE, not
via WP's offices… a situation that still obtains), and her *current*
state is that her 3000 has a crashed HD, which happened during the WP
installation process.
I am an EX-WP owner myself (took the books out and ceremoniously burned
them, with the disks) some time ago. I also have had it savage my HD,
screw up my documents, and just generally not work very well. We attempted
to product documentation for our products using WP, but it was next to
impossible. It couldn't understand its own tables of contents, it couldn't
keep track of where page boundries were, and it had that really nasty
habit of corking the HD. I have literally thousands of hours of WP-Amiga
experience to draw on, most of which were tinged or strongly colored with
frustration.
I will continue to recommend that WP be a NON-purchase for anyone. It's a
poorly written, poorly performing, unsupported, orphaned product and good
riddance to it and it's parent company.
I'm glad it works for you. Do you have a backup of your HD?
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
Ben,
I know we've been here before, but I bought and installed WP on my 2000 as
soon as I got it. It's never trashed my HD, it's always behave very well,
the upgrade information was sent to me without my asking for it and
subsequently installed with no problems. I still use it on a day to day
basis, although most of my work is now carried out on PPage/AE. The people
at WP in the U.K. are friendly and helpful, at least they were the last
time I needed to ring them which was two years ago. Given that you can now
buy WP for the Amiga in this country for around $100, I don't think that's
too much to pay . I'm sorry you've had such a bad experience with WP, but
it works just fine for me too.
John.
Mathew,
I think WordPerfect the company, and WordPerfect the program simply rots.
Their support people may be 'ok', but my copy of WordPerfect that was
supposed to run correctly under 2.0 didn't.
Of course we may have a conflict in terms here. I consider a program
non-running when I choose something besides the topaz font to work in and
the program begins to choke on requestors and such.
May I ask exactly–how do I use the Preview mode?
-mark=