Word processors: Can one fit all? Is your word-processing software well suited to your business tasks? This guide will help you find the right tool for the write job

Home Office Computing, Dec, 1990 by Steve Morgenstern

Ease of image placement. The Macintosh and Windows-based word processors have an advantage because they are can display images along with text in an editable display. Placing an image can be as simple as copying it from a graphics file and pasting it where you want it, as with most Mac word processors. With either version of Ami, in contrast, you place a box on-screen, import a graphic file in one of several formats, and place the image where needed by dragging it around the screen. Word for Windows works similarly.

The graphical preview mode found in character-based word processors, such as WordPerfect, displays a reasonably accurate version of your document with graphics in place, but you can't make changes directly in this mode. Instead you have to return to standard display, make any changes you want, then confirm the effect of those changes by jumping back to preview mode again. It works well enough for occasional graphics use, but becomes tedious if you frequently need this capability.

Image manipulation. You'll often want to change to size of an imported graphic to fill the available space and use cropping to cut away unwanted areas along the outside edges of the image. Both Ami programs offer a lot here, as does MultiMate among character-based word processors. On the Macintosh side, MacWrite II and Nisus not only let you size imported images using the mouse, they also offer more precise sizing by entering dimensions in a dialog box--a worthwhile convenience for fumble-fingered fellows like me. Some word processors provide additional options, such as rotating images, inverting colors, and placing a tinted background behind an image.

TASK 4: REPORTS WITH NUMBERS

The numbers you need are put together in your spreadsheet. The words you need to explain what the numbers mean are in a report written in your word processor. Surely there's a better solution than printing out the spreadsheet and attaching it manually to the report, especially when you have to crank out an updated version of the document on a regular basis.

In fact, recent developments have made the word processor-spreadsheet connection positively elegant. Here's what to look for.

Import spreadsheet data. At its most basic, you import spreadsheet data into your word-processing file in a ready-to-use format. That has always been easy to do on the Macintosh thanks to the Clipboard arrangement built into the system software. Just highlight the section of the spreadsheet you need, copy it to the Clipboard, close your spreadsheet, open your word processor, and paste in the data. With MultiFinder, which lets you simultaneously keep both word processor and spreadsheet in memory, you don't even have to close the spreadsheet to access the word processor.

The ability to import entire spreadsheets or selected sections is now found in a wide range of MS-DOS word processors as well, including several so-called executive models, such as Professional Write and Q&A Write. With these two programs, instead of copying and pasting, you draw spreadsheet data directly from its file into your word-processing document. However, the numbers will be accurate only if you make sure the spreadsheet file is up-to-date.