Word and WordPerfect summary

[Mary Howe <thunder -at- IDIR -dot- NET>]

Last week I wrote a message to the list about switching back and forth
between Word and WordPerfect.  I think it's rude not to send individual
notes to everyone who responded, but there were so many that I don't have
time to write back to you all.  Many thanks to Mark Duerfeldt, Margaret
Packman, Bill Sullivan, Chuck Melikian, Charles Good, Manny Blatt, Stan
Radomski, Peter Gold, Andrea Sanchez, Elizabeth Reed, Tom Potter, and one
person who wanted to remain anonymous but who had good comments and _should_
write a book.

The main points, with my comments, were:

Help for WordPerfect Users is available, at several levels from tutorials to
key remapping.
-I've used the option in the Help menu, but I find that it rarely addresses
the fancier features I like to use.  I've resisted the key remapping for WP
because I wanted to learn the Word commands.

In WordPerfect you toggle commands on and off, but in Word you format
selected text.  Formatting commands stay with the text.
-This is actually true in WP as well, but only if you are careful to select
the right block.

Turning on the paragraph mark (on the toolbar) in Word is very helpful.
-Now I leave it on all the time.

Word uses style templates to be applied to paragraphs.  These are stored as
*.dot files.
-While WP uses styles as well, they're not as crucial as in Word.

Formatting (in Word) after the text is all typed in may be more efficient
than formatting on the fly (as you do in WP).

WordPerfect uses more keystroke combinations.
-This is less true with the Windows versions.  There was some complaining
about the Wordiness of the Windows versions of WP, but I like it.  I also
like having the option of using keystrokes.  I keep looking for a keyboard
template for Word, but so far haven't found one.  Does such a thing exist?

From Manny Blatt: "If you delete a paragraph mark, the paragraph preceding
this mark will acquire the
formatting of the adjacent paragraph if this formatting is different.
Note that Word contains dozens of built-in commands and macros that don't
appear on the menus by default--many of them are very useful. Look under
tools/customize. Also, check-out shareware interface enhancements called
WOPR and MegaWord (both have Word 6 and 7 versions) and a book called
"Underground Guide to Word for Windows" (Word 6 only)."

Chuck Melikian wrote, " the most useful book
I've seen on Word is by Peter Rinearson. . . . The Rinearson book has a
chapter on how Word works, which has helped me many times sort out
why Word has done what it has done. For example, Rinearson suggests
that you think of Word as storing all paragraph formatting in the
paragraph symbols (which you can reveal or hide)."

Newsgroups to check out (I haven't done this yet):
os.ms-windows.apps.wordprocessing
bit.listserv.wpwin-l

Elizabeth Reed said, "It's like any foreign language, it just takes a while."
Mary Howe
Thunder Works, Inc.
thunder -at- idir -dot- net