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  From:    D5B (Jon Ripley)              
  Subject: The big wordprocessor debate! 
                                         
  For many years, people have been       
  arguing about which wordprocessor is   
  the best for the BBC, these have       
  usually been biased to the persons     
  favourite, which I assume is a fair    
  point because people generally don't   
  advocate in favour of things they don't
  like!                                  
                                         
  In my youth, with an Acorn Electron I  
  often used Mini Office because it was  
  the only word-processor I had.         
                                         
  Later on, at school on the BBC Micros  
  I also used Mini Office a lot and was  
  introduced to Wordwise which I quickly 
  changed to my wordprocessor of         
  preference.                            
                                         
  When I had a BBC B to myself I         
  abandoned Mini Office in favour of     
  wordprocessors which didn't need to be 
  loaded from tape!                      
                                         
  These were Mini Office II which I      
  hardly ever used, View which I used a  
  bit more than Mini Office 2 but still  
  not much and finally Wordwise + which  
  I used almost every time I used the    
  computer.                              
                                         
  My liking of Wordwise back then was    
  mainly due to the fact that it produced
  pure ASCII text files which are useful 
  if you don't have a printer for the    
  fancy stuff. Aside from that I also    
  used it to edit BASIC and LOGO         
  programs, speed was the major factor   
  here and Wordwise + definitely has it. 
                                         
  Now that I have a BBC Master, Mini     
  office won't work, not that I'd use it 
  anyway. I have Edit, View and Wordwise 
  + plugged into the machine and I must  
  confess now that I have no favourites  
  inasmuch as I like them all for what   
  they do.                               
                                         
  When I am editing Basic programs I     
  generally use EDIT.                    
                                         
  When I am writing program              
  documentation or creating text files I 
  normally use Wordwise + unless the     
  files use control characters, then I   
  use EDIT. I also sometimes use         
  Wordwise + when chatting to deaf       
  friends. Wordwise + is also quite      
  useful when printing labels as         
  printer commands can be easily         
  embedded in the text.                  
                                         
  When I am writing letters I usually    
  use View because of the ease of        
  formatting and I don't lose the text   
  if I press Break!                      
                                         
  Recently I have discovered SideWriter  
  which I often use when debugging       
  programs because it is inobtrusive     
  and always available. Edword has been  
  gathering dust since I got it many     
  years ago, Pendown never really had a  
  chance, Folio was used a few times a   
  long, long time ago Stop Press needs   
  documentation, Wordwise + 2 won't work 
  in Sideways ram so it needs blowing    
  onto an EPROM. Interword eats into     
  valuable RAM space. I have another 10  
  or so wordprocessing packages for the  
  BBC each of which is never used for    
  various reasons.                       
                                         
  Overall, I don't think that you can    
  assign the title of best wordprocessor 
  to any particular program because they 
  are all so different in their          
  strengths and weaknesses.              
                                         
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