MS Software Advise

[ChrisNeilan]

I personally never liked wordperfect but for those that do you can still get it but in a new offering. I've seen it at Sams Club for $60 I thought. Current version is X8, and the link here has it for a lot more $$ so perhaps I missed a digit or two on the price.

http://www.wordperfect.com/en/product/o ... AieT8P8HAQ

I have no idea what it is like now, we at work went with Office sometime back in the mid 1980's and that is the last time I ever tried it.

When I retired I lost access to Office update/upgrades so while I still have a copy of 2000 on one of my machines I don't use it anymore. The free suites work fine but of course the free costs drives that. I simply don't want to afford Office anymore especially since I found I don't need it.

The other thing I wanted to mention is that a version of Office is free on android, don't know if there is an ios version....

I think it is also stripped down but I haven't played with it. Big point is that it is free. Working on a tablet or phone for these sort of tasks in not something I do. But if that is how you want to work you are all set for free.

Ed

I have never really used Wordperfest although I played with it years ago. Working for the Government for most of my life it was always Office. We have two registered copies of Office 2010 that my wife and I got through the Government purchase program for $10 each before we retired in 2012. I really don't use it except the picture viewer/editor. It is very easy to crop and resize pictures to post here. Of course it is also nice to have if you need to open an MS Office file. I use Open Office for my personal finance spread sheet.

Save that copy of Office 2010. The new version makes it difficult to crop a photo. Still trying to figure out if it's even possible. Thankfully my work computers kept the old version when we migrated to Windows 10.
By the way, I've had no reason to disrespect Windows 10 (yet)!

[jsburger]

I personally never liked wordperfect but for those that do you can still get it but in a new offering. I've seen it at Sams Club for $60 I thought. Current version is X8, and the link here has it for a lot more $$ so perhaps I missed a digit or two on the price.

http://www.wordperfect.com/en/product/o ... AieT8P8HAQ

I have no idea what it is like now, we at work went with Office sometime back in the mid 1980's and that is the last time I ever tried it.

When I retired I lost access to Office update/upgrades so while I still have a copy of 2000 on one of my machines I don't use it anymore. The free suites work fine but of course the free costs drives that. I simply don't want to afford Office anymore especially since I found I don't need it.

The other thing I wanted to mention is that a version of Office is free on android, don't know if there is an ios version....

I think it is also stripped down but I haven't played with it. Big point is that it is free. Working on a tablet or phone for these sort of tasks in not something I do. But if that is how you want to work you are all set for free.

Ed

I have never really used Wordperfest although I played with it years ago. Working for the Government for most of my life it was always Office. We have two registered copies of Office 2010 that my wife and I got through the Government purchase program for $10 each before we retired in 2012. I really don't use it except the picture viewer/editor. It is very easy to crop and resize pictures to post here. Of course it is also nice to have if you need to open an MS Office file. I use Open Office for my personal finance spread sheet.

Save that copy of Office 2010. The new version makes it difficult to crop a photo. Still trying to figure out if it's even possible. Thankfully my work computers kept the old version when we migrated to Windows 10.
By the way, I've had no reason to disrespect Windows 10 (yet)!

No problem. They are official CD's with the key on the box. BTW, my wife's computer is running with W10 and Office 2010 with no problems. So far!!!

[reible]

A couple of links in case anyone is interested.

https://products.office.com/en-us/mobile/office

and

https://products.office.com/en-us/offic ... ice-online

Ed

[BuckeyeDennis]

I learned word processing on WordPerfect, back in the day. Remember when WYSIWYG was a huge buzzword? Well WordPerfect was, but not to a fault (like everything since). If your formatting got all screwed up, and you couldn't figure out why, WordPerfect had a magic "Reveal Codes" key. F10 or F11 or something. Press that sucker, and the ASCII codes that turned special formatting on and off appeared inline with your text. Don't want them, simply delete them. Very much like the editor window on this very forum editor, except that you saw them only on demand. Thirty years later, I still miss that visibility.

[everettdavis]

I started in WordStar, progressed into WordPerfect very early releases and kept it many years.

One of the WordPerfect tools that came in the DOS days was a program called ED for Editor.

It was a great DOS editor, but it was also a Macro Editor that allowed you to edit and correct complex Keyboard Macro Processes you had created, or study someone else's to find out how they did something.

As a programmer, I could load files in that editor and display in Hex or Binary if needed.

I still have a copy of it and I can still run it in Windows 10 even though it is a 16 Bit DOS Executable dated 6/14/1990.

Everett

ED EXE 6-14-1990 Program actually running in Windows 10.png (2.97 KiB) Viewed 7992 times

[JPG]

I started in WordStar, progressed into WordPerfect very early releases and kept it many years.

One of the WordPerfect tools that came in the DOS days was a program called ED for Editor.

It was a great DOS editor, but it was also a Macro Editor that allowed you to edit and correct complex Keyboard Macro Processes you had created, or study someone else's to find out how they did something.

As a programmer, I could load files in that editor and display in Hex or Binary if needed.

I still have a copy of it and I can still run it in Windows 10 even though it is a 16 Bit DOS Executable dated 6/14/1990.

EverettED EXE 6-14-1990 Program actually running in Windows 10.png

BATch files?

[Ed in Tampa]

I did not mean to start a discussion on the virtue of WordPerfect but rather compare it to what we have today. WordPerfect was the word processor of the time and Microsoft to steal the market gave away Word. Once everyone was using the freebie MS was free to charge and do whatever they wanted. There was no real competition.

Today these free Office products are trying to do the same. Displace Word. Once they do they then they will control the market.

Frankly I think PDF format should be the standard and every Wordprocessor be it Word, Open Office, WordPerfect, Wordpad, Pages, and whatever should be required to read, edit and create PDF files.
Then people could use what they like and everyone could read it and use it.

To do that everyone should send documents back to creators declaring them unusable unless they are in PDF format.

[garys]

Open Office and Libre Office read and write PDF files. I haven't used any of the pay office software for many years, but I suspect that the newer ones handle PDF files just as well.
PDF has limitations as a word processor so a better choice is open document format. It is open and free to use by everyone. Every word processor should be capable of using this format as it is the standard format.