WordPerfect !!!
Now you are touching on my sacred territory! (Smile)
I remember my first word processor that I ordered along with my Commodore CBM II computer (I think that was what it was, circa 1982). This was before the C-64. That word processor I vaguely remember being called 'global' something or another. Anyway I never figured out how to use it.
However for my next and very long time computer, the AT&T 6300 (circa 1985 and lasting 15 years) I purchased WordPerfect (WP) 4.2 and was off and running. I did not learn all of the features well, but then in 1987 or so I was going to produce a newsletter and WP came out with 5.0. There was a training course that came with the program and I spent maybe month or so slowly working my way through it.
At that time WP was by far the absolute best word processor available and they supplied free telephone customer service for years, as long as you had one of their products. What was so great about it was that it mimicked typewriting very closely so that the transition from typewriting to word processing was very easy. In addition it allowed you to control minute details of your document in a very reliable and consistent way.
What I liked about WP 5.0 was that it let me create a professional looking newsletter, controlling fonts, typesetting aspects, etc, that I knew nothing about beforehand. This was when laser printers were just coming out. There were probably less than a handful of those printers at that time in the small town that I lived in. So WP 5.0 allowed me to print out a professional looking 32-page newsletter with standard typesetting fonts on a master copy from a laser printer which I then took to a printer. I remember him asking me "who did your typesetting?" I told him that I did, with WP and a laser printer. He looked at me, then looked at my master copy and shook his head in disbelief. Of course nowadays everyone does or can do this right off the bat, but back then WP was probably the first word processor to make that possible. The other programs that allowed such things at that time were much more expensive and complicated: Ventura Publisher and Aldus PageMaker.
So, winchester, all the other programs available in the 1980s were vastly inferior to WP, that is why everyone rolled over. Coupled with the super program and the free and friendly customer service there was simply no way that the others could compete. WP became the standard in the college systems and law offices. I cannot speak for businesses but it seems likely that they were the first choice there too.
Sadly, WP was not able to adjust to the advent of Windows in time, and Microsoft began bundling their then-inferior Word product with Windows. (WP eventually sued Microsoft over this bundling and other monopoly tactics, and eventually won. But by then it was a Pyrrhic victory. The damage had been done.) This led to the great changeover where now Word is the dominant product, but not necessarily the best product for straight forward writers. And of course lawyers still swear by WP. But apparently the good times are gone for WP never to return.
Myself, I still have many versions of WP on my computers. The document compatibilities go all the way back to at least WP 5.1 for DOS, and probably back to version 4.0. Thus I am able to open and use all of my documents from 35 years ago with formatting and everything else mostly intact.
I still type everything personal in WP and then transfer it over to a Word document if necessary for sending to someone. Of course at work I am forced to use Word but I have made my peace with that.
One insightful person eventually described the distinction between WP and Word by saying that WP was designed for writing as a continuous flow (like on a typewriter): you set something one way and it will stay that way until you change it. Word on the other hand works somewhat like discontinuous blocks in any given document. I found that insight to be true about a decade and a half ago, but I do not know where such a comparison would stand these days. I remember back then that making changes to a document in Word could and would produce unexpected and problematic results somewhere else in the document; whereas in WP, as mentioned above, you were and still are able to control the minute details of your document.
I do know that working with discontinuous blocks works well in this internet age with the web and all, and thereby WP by its original design would work less well than Word and its many imitators. But again for straightforward writing and editing WP still seems to be one of the best if not still the best tool available. Maybe I am a little biased!! (Smile)
Thank you for reading! (Smile)
