by Clyde T. Linsley, AIW Board Member

Word Perfect has at least one foot in the grave, if not both

It isn’t dead, yet. Not really. But I think it may have suffered the fate worse than death.

It’s become Word.

First, I must confess a dirty little secret. I think the epitome, the quintessence; of word-processing computer software was Word Perfect. To be more specific: Word Perfect 5.2 for DOS.
I work on a Windows XP platform at present, but long after I went to Windows (Windows ME, I think it was then) I continued to write with WP 5.2. Like many writers, I’m keyboard oriented. The only advantage of MS Word, as far as I could see, was its amenability to the mouse. And the mouse held little attraction for me.

Eventually, though, I found myself working in Word. I felt that I had to make the switch. All my clients, or virtually all, were working in MS Word. I wanted to be able to communicate with them, and send work to them, without going through the hassle of conversion.

But I wasn’t happy about it. Word is clunky and, worse, Word is capricious. It makes the decisions it thinks you ought to make rather than the decisions you want to make, and it stands by its choices despite your objections. Try changing the default document format, for example; it’s an exercise in frustration.

I know, I know. There are ways to change all these quirks. But there are no simple or easy ways. No matter how many times I pound it into its head, Word continues to insist on underlining every word. Every time I start a new document, it requires me to disable that particular eccentricity.

Who came up with the idea: “I know! Let’s set up the “Normal” template so that it underlines every word this sucker writes! Wouldn’t that be neat?”

You can go to the “Help” function all you want, but you may never discover how to do what you want to do. I can’t even figure out how to come up with the right question that will inspire the “Office Assistant” to give me the answer I need. It’s good at giving me answers to questions I didn’t ask, but lousy at answering the ones I did ask.

And don’t get me started on the spelling dictionary and grammar functions.

So – back to Word Perfect.

The other day I was frustrated trying to cajole Word into doing something I desperately needed for it to do – I forget what it was, now – and Word continued doing things in its own idiomatic fashion. So I thought: I’ve still got Word Perfect on this computer. I’ll just go to that and then convert the project back to Word when I’m finished. By this time, I had the Windows version, version 10, I think.

So I called it up. But it wasn’t Word Perfect any more. Oh, it said “Word Perfect,” but the old familiar features were no longer there. The interface was like

Word, except that it had a few additional quirks that didn’t track Word.

Worst of all, the most useful feature of the old Word Perfect – the “reveal codes” function – had become virtually invisible. In the DOS version it could be called up with a simple touch of a function key. In this new version, it was hiding . . . somewhere . . . that required a road map to find. And in this new no-printed-documentation era, there’s no easy way to find it. Certainly not through the “help” function, which was, of course, unhelpful.

Well, that’s my rant. I’ll shut up now.

Call me a Luddite, if you will, but I long for the old days.

The old days of, say, ten years ago.

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Clyde T. Linsley has been a full-time freelance writer since 1986. He served two terms as president of WIW during the nineties. He is the author of four published mystery novels.