How to Use Classic Amiga for Word Processing Today (2 of 2)
 

I’ve been on a long quest for what I consider to be the “best” Word Processor for the classic Amiga experience. I admit that my parameters are not the same as others.

My key requirements have been (which I also discuss in the post):
1) Legibility
2) Basic formatting
3) Transferability

I do not care about a pretty GUI encompassing my writing area (real estate is limited, as it is). And I'm not talking about OS 4, or 3.1+ and above.

I reviewed several packages along the way but was ultimately left unsatisfied, until last week. I finally found a winner and wrote about it (at length) here. Curious your thoughts if you care to read about this somewhat obscure topic.

I’m not entirely sure what the reach of WordPerfect was in the UK and other parts of the world. In the US, it wasn't huge (they bled cash on the platform). But for me, my search is finally over. It really is perfect - for me. Have a nice weekend, everybody.

I think you would like ProText. Many Amiga journalists swore by that.

I hadn't heard of that one. I found a few screenshots and it does look intriguing. I do wonder if the fonts - which appear to be bitmap fonts - are as legible as what I've found. WP's chunky Amiga CLI font is really hard to beat, IMO.

But I'll give ProText a look. thanks for the recommendation.

even while i like it simple, I never would bet on you haven choosen wordperfect.
but good article :)

Protext 6.11 you can find on the eab ftp.
it does support import/export to some different file formats. see image attached.

Edit: I found the old Arnor website - they gave away all of them for free a while back.
PC and AtariST version also available.

I've found Wordworth to be the best for reading/writing PC files. It will read and write RTF files no problem and makes it easy to interchange between Amiga/PC/Other. WordPerfect on the Amiga is way out of date compared to the PC version, the last Amiga version is version 5. It still comes a close second in ex-changeability though.

I always found Final Copy IIB to be my favourite. The same company who created Final Copy also produced 'Final Writer' with a few more bells and whistles.

Could never get to grips with Wordworth... it felt a little clunky to me.
Penpal was another which was okay but a little too basic.

Clunky or not Wordworth does the job regarding compatibility between PC and Amiga. I use multiple different programs for text editing and such, but when it comes to RTF files I run Wordworth. Not because of any preference, just because it does what its supposed to without any drama, I have transferred and edited RTF files both ways, some are multiple page documents with web links and email address links in them, they have opened and displayed/edited/saved fine on both PC and Amiga, just use what your comfortable with.

ShapeShifter-MS Word

You must have been looking at a different program than ProText, then. It uses the same bland system font as WordPerfect.

What speaks in favour of ProText is that it is much more modern than WP and is truly cross-platform.

I think Final Writer is still being updated.

I've tested out Final Writer as well as WordWorth 4 SE.
https://amigalove.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=41

Both use (IMO) really painful fonts, to the point where I just don't want to even try and proofread what I've done. WordWorth did seem the most "modern" but I really don't care about UI treatments - I just want to be able to easily read what I've written and know that it isn't trapped on an old machine - and all of the bold/italics/etc still carry over if I ever use any (which is rare, but still). I do like typing on my 1200 - hence my long quest for the Holy-Word-Processor-Grail. As I stated earlier, I realize my personal preferences are not going to be the same as for others. Some folks really like the fonts some packages provided. Wordworth got the closest, but the kerning on screen got really wonky between some letters, to the point where I wasn't always sure about what I was looking at. A far cry from simple Verdana, like on this site. Even tried and true fonts like Helvetica just didn't render on-screen in a predictable, easy to read fashion like we're so used to. The only place that occurs, in my opinion, is the CLI. The old chunky Amiga system font is simply gorgeous and easy to read. And WordPerfect is essentially full-screen, and doesn't put UI elements in my face that I don't need 99% of the time. That's why I landed there.

I'll look up ProText for sure, since it sounds like a very close cousin to WordPerfect, albeit without the same type of conversion support. Maybe RTF files are the way to go there?

A friend of mine posed an interesting question during this process - one I hadn't considered, "What if you type on the PC/Mac, and want to move those files over? Can you do that?" My thought there was - why the hell would I do that? But then I got to wondering. . .

It does appear that if you use an old version of WordPerfect (e.g. 5.0) you can transfer those back to the Amiga if you save as WP4 files. So, at least in WordPerfect-land, you can go back and forth in either direction. It was more of a "what if?" exercise, as I don't plan on using it that way. But interesting, I think, from a nerdy point of view.

FWIW - WP can work on any era Amiga and OS pre OS 4. Takes a lot of headache out of equation.

Thanks for the tips, guys.

I have loaded RTF files created on a modern PC in FinalWriter on the Amiga without major issues.

Very interesting read intric8, but just to correct you on one point, you say Wordworth 7 was developed for OS4, which it wasn't. Wordworth 7 was released in 1998, and OS4 wasn't out until 2006, almost a decade later.

OS4 wasn't even conceived until 2001, so it was many years earlier. I was a Digita betatester for WW5/6/7 and Organiser, and used to run them all on an OS 3.1 A1200.

Indeed. It is Wordworth 7 that I use on my A1200. It will also use Postscript fonts for printing if so wished, (both disk based and printer based), which gives a professional looking output on my networked laser printer.

Yes it is.

Back in DOS days my favorite word processor was Professional Write. Is Protext a similar WP?

Personally I always thought that Amiga Wrier was the closest to Word on the Amiga.

If you don't care for WYSIWYG, then as a former Uni student, I have spent quite a few hours using LaTeX. Never used it on Amiga but surely it must exist being a text/'compiler'-based system? Somewhat steep learning curve and takes some to set up initially but once it is running it is very nice for larger docs.

Is Final Writer open source now?

I believe terminills purchased the rights to Final Writer.

http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthre...t=69443&page=3