4.0166 Wordprocessing; Bibliography; Fonts (3/108)

Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Tue, 12 Jun 90 22:42:52 EDT

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 4, No. 0166. Tuesday, 12 Jun 1990.


(1) Date: Mon, 11 Jun 90 11:56:33 BST (53 lines)
From: MFZXREP@cms.manchester-computing-centre.ac.uk
Subject: Wordprocessing query

(2) Date: Fri, 08 Jun 90 09:22:41 BST (12 lines)
From: ZLSIISA@cms.manchester-computing-centre.ac.uk
Subject: Bibliographic software query

(3) Date: Tue, 5 Jun 90 09:20 EDT (43 lines)
From: "Wile E. Coyote, Super Genius" <KEHANDLEY@AMHERST>
Subject: WordPerfect and Greek

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 11 Jun 90 11:56:33 BST
From: MFZXREP@cms.manchester-computing-centre.ac.uk
Subject: Wordprocessing query


This is a message that I have been asked to pass on by a working party
who are to report on wordprocessing facilities within the Humanities
and to make a reccomendation for future use encompassing as wide a
spectrum of humanities needs as possible.

Guy Percival, computing officer, Arts, University of Manchester.

We are at present investigating the capabilities of various word-
processing systems with the view of recommending the system(s)
to the relevant departments within the faculty.

We would be interested to hear from others who have carried out
similar studies, and who have practical knowlegde of the systems.
Our criteria for rating a system covers several main areas;

Right to left wordprocessing for Aramaic and Hebrew.

Good diacritics/character sets for a wide range of languages.

A wide range of fonts and printer drivers supporting them.

Ability to present parrallel texts/translations.

Bibliographic capabilities.

Indexing and tabulation.

WYSIWYG-iness.

General user-friendliness, good interface.

Good on-line help facilities.

Footnote and endnote creation/automatic numbering/renumbering.

As there are areas not included above which are neccessary for some
applications, we would also like to hear from users of systems in
various disciplines who have found certain systems to be most
desirable in their area.

We would like to hear from both MAC and PC users as we intend to
include a recommendation as to the preferred o/s in our report.

Replies to.
Mr Gordon Neal - mffgkgn@uk.ac.mcc.cms (g.neal@uk.ac.manchester)
Mr Guy Percival - mfzxrep@uk.ac.mcc.cms (g.percival@uk.ac.manchester).
Arts Faculty. University of Manchester. U.K.
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------22----
Date: Fri, 08 Jun 90 09:22:41 BST
From: ZLSIISA@cms.manchester-computing-centre.ac.uk
Subject: Bibliographic software query

I am writing on behalf of a working party which has been set up here
at the University of Manchester to review bibliographic software.
We have identified 18 different products, but for two of them we
have very little information. Does anyone out there use, or know
about, DMS4CITE or Papyrus? We would be glad to hear from you,
especially any specific comments about good and bad points.

Thank you. Sarah Davnall (Davnall@Manchester.ac.uk)
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------43----
Date: Tue, 5 Jun 90 09:20 EDT
From: "Wile E. Coyote, Super Genius" <KEHANDLEY@AMHERST>
Subject: WordPerfect and Greek


I have a Greek Language Module for WP 5.1. Installation is easy, as is
using it. Problems: Sometimes printing did not work. Once I tried
printing on an Epson LX-800, and it worked fine (except for the problem
with some characters being struck 6 or 7 times (the ones that WP has
to make graphically), while others are only struck once). Currently,
the output is not acceptable on an LX-800, and all 9-pins, I imagine
(unless they have a Greek font built in). BUT, sometimes I could not
get it to print "correctly" at all. I would get extraneous characters,
and not get the right ones.

There seemed to be no problems printing to a PostScript printer, though,
as far as the mechanics go. There is a problem with diacriticals
printed on a PostScript printer: they are not good representations of
printed diacriticals (for instance, there is often no separation between
the diacritic and the letter, and it appears that WP just uses ' and `
for acute and grave accents, which makes them difficult to tell apart
sometimes).

I also am not certain that the complete Greek WP character set is really
a complete Greek character set, that is, some possible character/dia-
critic combinations may be missing.

Also, I believe that (at least with a VGA, maybe not with a Herc+) you
can only have two languages installed at one time (English and something
else) so that multi-lingual documents that aren't mostly Western
European are still out.

What does all this say? To me, it means that WP is still way behind
Nota Bene in foreign alphabet word processing, but you all already knew
that. (based upon Humanists' comments on NB: I will get NB when the
new year comes in July)

(Also, a coworker tried the Cyrillic Module and really hated it, seeing
no reason to switch from Turbofonts, a third-party add in that makes WP
print and display Cyrillic characters.)

Keith Handley
Amherst College Academic Computer Center