Content area
Full text
Professional Write Plus is a new Windows word processor that falls somewhere between the basics of an executive word processor and the elaborate enhancements of professional products. Professional Write Plus is much better than its predecessor product, Professional Write, and it also exceeds the capabilities of LetterPerfect and Ami, the lightweight versions of WordPerfect and Ami Professional. Although Professional Write Plus is a winner in the executive category, it lacks the features required to compete in our professional category represented by Word for Windows, Ami Professional, and WordPerfect.
This review is based on criteria that we used in our last executive word processor review (see LetterPerfect, October 29, 1990, Page 100). However, we have changed our platform from an AT to a Compaq 386/20e. We also changed our version of Microsoft Windows from Version 2.11 to Version 3.0.
FEATURES:
Professional Write Plus' host of features and capabilities cause this product to redefine the executive word processing category. It offers a standard Windows word processing screen that provides icons and speed keys for effective operation. The product also supports a mouse. There are multiple editable views from draft through various zoom levels, as well as elaborate import and export options for text and graphics, and a host of other features that InfoWorld readers consider standard in the professional market. Professional Write Plus also offers style sheets and handles them gracefully.
What keeps Professional Write Plus in the executive category is the absence of features such as macros, tables, tables of contents, and indexing. Executive word processors, however, need not have such elaborate toolkits, and the strength of its core features, in addition to a superior grammar checker, allows Professional Write Plus to shine over its competition.
PERFORMANCE:
Basic editing: Professional Write Plus has all of the expected Windows editing tools including cut and paste through the Clipboard, although there is no columnar cut and paste. The program can hyphenate automatically or you can insert an optional hyphen with a keystroke. However, you can't hyphenate automatically with user approval, as you can in most professional word processors. Paragraph formats include full, center, left, and right justification. Tabs can be redefined by inserting a new tab ruler that controls a subsequent text.
There is only one...