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The three popular microcomputer word processing packages are:
- Word Star
- Word Perfect
- Ms Word
Word Star:
Word Star, from Micro Pro International Corporation, is one of the best known, most long- lived micro computer application packages. Originally introduced in mid 1979 word star become the most popular program for early 8-bit microcomputers running under the CP/M (conrol program for Micro computers) operating system. Soon Apple II Computers, equipped with CP/M circuit boards, also began running word star, finally when the IBM personal computer became a hit, Micro Pro released a version of Word Star to run under PC and MS-Dos. It has been estimated that more than three millions copies of word star has been sold so far.
Word star si an interesting phenomenon. Despite its immense popularity, reviewers and circuit have breated it as poorly designed, old fashioned, difficult to use and slow. However the most recent version (release 7) of this venerable package is much faster, much easier to use and offered many advanced word processing features. Thes include pull down menus, context sensitive online help, automatic paragraph, reformatting, mail merge, a index generation, an undo command, macros, character formatting, proportional spacing and math functions.
Word Perfect:
According to sales figures from retail computer stores word perfect, from word perfect corporation remained best selling word processing package till 1997. Since its introduction in October 1982. Word Perfect has won the highest praise from both reviewers and users like. A rich set of powerful new features seems to be added with every release. Versions have been developed to run on many different machines including IBM, Apple II, Apple Macintosh, Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, and Digital micro VAX computers. The current versions of word perfect includes many of the advanced word processing features.
Microsoft Word (MS-Word):
Microsoft word is a state of the art word processing package for both IBM and Apple computers first introduced in April 1983 and its subsequent version especially Word 97 and Word 2000 became the program of choice for many people with laser printers. World is often used with a graphics display and a mouse. Like word perfect, MS Word include many of the advanced features.
Word occupies a unique place as the word processing package most often used in desktop publishing systems. Its graphics interface, along with advanced printing capabilities make ;word ideal for this purpose. Word works with a wide range of printers and it is especially adept at driving laser printers. Backed by the most likely will remain one of the leading word processing packages for a long time to come.
