Okay, time for the Holy War....
I currently use Wordstar 6.0.  I'm thinking of picking up an additional
word processor, since I seem to be the only one sensible enough to use
Wordstar, and it might not be a bad idea to put out documents in  the
same format(s) used by the faceless masses.  I can purchase MS Word
for Windows or Wordperfect 5.1 for approximately the same price.  Has
anyone used either of these, and any comments/comparisons?

23 responses total.

I have only recently started using WordPerfect 5.1 (four months ago)
and I like it very much.  I'm using the DOS version, and although
it runs under Windows, it doesn't use the graphical interface of the
Windows version and all that brings.  

Both Word and WordPerfect are now available in the Windows versions.
Is that what you're looking to purchase?  

Also, the little I've seen of both programs you couldn't go wrong
with either.  You've narrowed it down to two good programs, both of
which are well supported and will always be competitive in their features.

Word for Windows 1.0 was buggy and annoying...the new version is probably
great.

PC Magazine says (so take this all with a grain of salt) that Word
for Windows 2.0 is really pretty good while WP for Windows is still 
slow.  I'm thinking of getting Word for Windows.  I don't know what
price you can get, but Egghead is now offering an upgrade package
for only $120.  You can upgrade by bringing in the title page of 
practically any word processing package you can think of.

        Hmm, I have an elderly copy of the Leading Edge Word Processor...
        However, I don't have Windows installed on my computer.

        I've used every version of Word, beginning with 1.15, which was
copy-protected, which I ran on two 360K floppy disks on a Sperry PC (8088,
8 MHz, 640K).  All of the DOS based Words have the same look and feel,
except Word 5.5, which looks and feels like Word for Windows.
        I've ran Word for Windows 1.0 and 1.1.  I haven't seen version 2.0
yet.  I found it was very easy to make the transition from Word to Word
for Windows, though their commands are quite different.  If I were looking
for a Windows word processor today, I'd unquestionably go with Word for
Windows.

I've recently switched to Ami Pro from WordPerfect 5.1.  I prefer using
a Windows word-processor for a number of reasons: (a) Because I spend
most of my time on Unix, I find it infuriating to not have multitasking
when I'm running under DOS; (b) I prefer the selection of fonts available
with Windows 3.0 and Adobe Type Manager to that of plain WP 5.1.

I've also tried Word for Windows and WP for Windows.  I didn't like
either one -- they both seemed to be slow, bulky, and buggy.  (The
versions of each that I tried were somewhat old, though, so perhaps
the buggy part has been fixed.  Still, getting an UAE from WP for
Windows when I attempt to select a Windows printer driver leaves me
with little faith in the rest of the program.)  Ami Pro is lean and
mean, with quite a few features and an intuitive user interface.
It also can read and write files in dozens of word processor formats --
can WordPerfect read Word files yet, or vice versa?  The version of
Ami Pro that I have (2.0) has a few bugs in it, but mostly they're
pretty trivial and easy to work around.

I've got Word for Windows 2.0, and I like it a lot.  Yes, it can chew on
any other word processor file, like WP, Ami, Multimate, Wordstar...plus,
I mostly like it for its ability to handle graphics, with built in
conversion tools, plus MS Graph and the host of toys that come with
Power Point.  It just doesn't run in anything other than Standard or
Enhanced mode, and my little 1 meg 286 can't run in either 'cause it
can't make the extra memory extended, only expanded.  (There's an article
in the hardware.cf about that particular problem...which remains unresolved.)

Lots of legal boilerplates for WP... but then again, perhaps you
could convert them...

I think I've convinced myself to get Word for Windows 2.0, especially
now that Egghead is offering it for $10 off.

I took a look at the Egghead sale flyer I got and WordStar is definitely
one of the ones you can upgrade from.  It didn't say anything about
the Leading Edge wp, though.  It won't hurt to ask. 

Those with WordPerfect experience can move directly to WforW 2, as it has
a WP keystroke-compatibility-mode.

I'd like Wordstar for Windows, but from everything I hear, it's a lot worse
than 6.0 for Dos.
  
Looks like Word for Windows is probably going to be it:  but I've heard
that it's very slow compared to MS Word for Dos.  Can it convert files
to non-Windows formats?

Of course!

Whether it is slower or not depends on what you are going to do with 
it.  If you are simply going to edit text, then maybe you should stick
with a DOS word processor.  If you want to do stuff with fancy fonts
and graphics, then a Windows wp might actually be faster to use because
with a Windows program you can have a what-you-see-is-what-you-get
display.  

Windows 5.0 has a "preview" function that can display a simulation
of what will be displayed, but the first time you see the real thing
is when it's printed.

I'm using Word for windows at work for memos and documentation. It's not bad 
and I LIKE the print preview facility. It has also saved my ass a couple of 
times by being able to handle a 16mb datafile (which all of the other editors
and word processors could NOT handle in any sort of reasonable fashion).

One of the things I like about Ami Pro is the ability to actually
EDIT the document in full-page mode.  Most word processors only let
you look at the document in full-page mode; you can't actually do
any editing.  Ami Pro also lets you specify the size of "working"
resolution as a magnification percentage of "standard" resolution,
so you can tailor your view of the document.

I'm not a WYSIWYG fan.  Fonts and the like are fun, but I don't have to
see them in perfect detail on the screen.

What is nice is to see where they will wind up on the page, what is
bold, underlined and aprox. size.

I fell in love with Word 4.0 on the macs at UofM.  I quickly moved into
quite a few advanced features that I didn't really have to use, they simply
looked more cooler. ;-)  And this was all under time pressure doing assign-
ments.

Word 4.0 ate my Mac file the other day.  I understand it's important
to make sure there's a letter after "4.0" in the "About" window.
The larger the letter, the better.  Currently, I am "experimenting"
with Word 5.0.

  I try not to use any major new revision of a Microsoft product
until there have been a few minor versions to fix the hideous bugs
that make it into their touted releases.  I suppose I saw too many
people severely burned when I worked at CAEN.

  The hell of it is, despite their monstrously bad programming and
inadequate pre-release testing, they still write programs that are
often much superior to the competition.  Especially on the Mac, it
was a long time before people beat Word 3.x or Excel 2.x..  Those
programs may not be the best anymore, but they're still pretty 
impressive if you're lucky enough not to get bit when using them.

Four weeks ago, just after this item was entered, I took in 
the title page from my WordPerfect manual and bought Word for 
Windows.  I'll never go back to WordPerfect.  The program is slick,
plenty fast on my 386sx (4meg), and I like that tool bar.  Now,
when Windows 3.1 with TrueType fonts arrives, I'll won't miss my
Mac at all.  Maybe.

Word for Windows version which?

Version 2.0.

Ah. The new, improved version. Good.

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