| ★ APPLICATIONS ★ BUREAUTIQUE ★ BRUNWORD ★ |
BRUNWORD (Amstrad Computer User) | BRUNWORD (Amstrad Action) |
For most users this latest Amstrad word-processor probably won't compare very favourably with either Tasword or Protext. There are several reasons for this. For a start, the program is not particularly user-friendly -there are no on-screen help menus, so constant references to the manual will be needed. Secondly there is no automatic”word-wrap”on text entry - so words can be split on-screen bet ween the end of one line and start of the next. This immediately gives your work a peculiar look, although it's not that severe a drawback. The text will not be printed that way, and can in any case be formatted on-screen to reunite broken words. Text is always entered in 40-column mode, although you can view the results and carry out some limited editing in 80-column mode. For a green-screen owner, this switching between the two can be tiresome, but if you have a colour monitor, 40-column mode is probably preferable in any case. The range of editing and printing options is not as extensive or sophisticated as those on the other two processors. For example there is no Replace command, only Find. And there is no facility for automatic page numbering or the printing of headers and footers. Another point is that it is impossible to turn off right-hand "justification”. All the documents you print out will have extra spaces inserted to ensure the right-hand column is straight. I personally feel this can look very strange, especially when there are relatively few words to a line. Finally on the debit side there are a number of slightly quirky aspects to the program. For example, if you try to enter a line of characters longer than the current margin settings without any spaces, the results are very strange. But there are also some good features. The program comes complete with spelling checker, and currently represents the cheapest way of getting this feature (with Tasword you have to buy a separate program, just released). By using data compression techniques, the program can hold a dictionary of 7000 words in RAM (10,000 in the disk version) and use this for a fast check through your text file for words it doesn't recognise which it will query. The cassette version is supplied with a dictionary of 4000 words, while the disk version comes with 6000 both can be expanded by you. The spelling checker works fine, but it is questionable how much use it will be with these relatively small dictionaries. The 6000 entries in our version of the program did not include words such as "understood", "challenge" and "discover". Using the dictionary also reduces the maximum size of your text file to' about seven pages'. One other feature that will appeal to some is that inserting or deleting matter within a document is extremely easy -text is automatically pushed along or closed up to compensate. You don't have to worry about ragged lines being formed. And if you don't trust the people you work with you may appreciate the facility to assign a security code to each document. AA |
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