Precision Software Ltd.
There are something like a dozen word processors
available for the Atari micros, at least there are if you know where
to get them, so do Atari users need another one? The answer is yes,
provided it is good, easily available and at the right price. Does
Precision Software's Superscript fit the bill? Again the answer is
yes. In fact for the serious Atari user I would go so far as to say
that Superscript is the most important piece of software to have been
produced so far by a British company.
Although there are many word processors the only one
that has been widely available and the one with which most users are
familiar is Atariwriter and Superscript beats Atariwriter hands down.
Superscript gives you not only powerful text manipulation, but also a
unique facility to define your own printer driver using a simple text
document plus a built in spelling checker with a British dictionary.
It is a powerful program and comes with a pretty hefty manual which is
needed to understand all of its features.
FOR 800XL AND 130XE
First of all take note that Superscript is written
for the 800XL and the 130XE. Read that literally, it will not work on
the 400 or 800. The reason is simply that it takes full advantage of
the XL and XE facilities and offers full international characters,
including that elusive £ sign on screen. In addition it is the first
program that I am aware of to take advantage of the extra 64k in the
130XE by allowing two documents to be worked on in memory at the same
time. More about this later. The first thing you need to do with
Superscript is to sit down and work through the tutorial which is
essential if you want to use the program to the full. It is possible
to compose simple documents by just following the screen prompts, but
ignore the manual and you will miss out on many powerful features.
So, boot up Superscript and you will be prompted to
Insert an Existing Work Disk, Create a Training Disk, Create a New
Work Disk or Create a Dictionary Disk. The dictionary disk is easily
created, it is just copied from the back of the master disk onto a
disk of your own and may as well be created at the same time as your
Training Disk. Select Create a Training Disk and several files which
give exercises to be used with the tutorials will be copied onto your
disk. The Training Disk and the normal Work Disk primarily contain a
'Defaults' file which is booted each time to set up the printer driver
and certain program parameters which are completely user defined. You
can set screen and text colours, margins, standard printing features,
screen width or even assign special features to any key on the
keyboard and boot these in as standard every time you use your work
disk. More of these later, let's go back to the tutorial.
THE TUTORIAL
You start by loading in a letter to use as practice
for the standard features of editing and to learn how to view and
print documents which is fine for beginners and will get you used to
using a word processor. Experienced users could skip this but may miss
out a few tips to short cuts in using Superscript by doing so. The
tutorial then goes on to 'Cut and Paste' editing which simply means
moving blocks of text around from single words to whole paragraphs
before introducing one of the really powerful features of Super
script - the ability to do mathematical calculations on tables within
the text.
Here also is introduced another fine feature. Atariwriter is limited
to a 40 column screen and it is virtually impossible to set out any
sort of table without much trial and error. Superscript allows you to
define the width of the text screen to a maximum of 240 columns and
will scroll across and back as you reach the screen limits. Tables
could not be simpler, you just type them exactly as you want them to
appear on paper.
MATHEMATICAL FEATURES
Using the mathematical features seems at first quite
complex but a sample document is included and once mastered the
technique is simple yet powerful. Each column in a table is defined as
a numerical tab at the position of the decimal point, which
incidentally can be set as desired, and figures are entered by tabbing
across and pressing RETURN at the end of the line. Enter as many rows
as you wish and finish off with a row of dashes and you are ready to
calculate totals. Simply place the cursor at the end of a line, enter
a few keystrokes and the line total will be entered in the final
column. Calculate each line in this way and then place the cursor at
the foot of the table. A few more keystrokes and every column in the
table will be totalled automatically. Any figures included in brackets
or with a minus sign will be subtracted and the program has facilities
for division and multiplication as well In fact all of the commands to
calculate a table can be included in a format and can be executed with
just two keystrokes. There is an example included in the tutorial Just
run it and watch, you'll be amazed!
MAIL MERGE
Next comes Mail Merge which allows you to take a
standard letter and 'personalise' it by automatically inserting names
and addresses or other information within the standard letter. An
example is again provided. The procedure is somewhat lengthy but once
set up is easy to use. Your letter is composed as one file and the
information you wish to insert, in the example names and addresses, is
composed simply as another text file. You then simply insert markers
in your letter, which can be conditional, and start printing. This is
where the 130XE is used to good advantage for you can have your letter
in the upper half of memory with the merge information in lower memory
thus eliminating disk access.
The use of conditional markers makes the mail merge
another powerful feature. You can for instance set up a file, or
multiple files containing a full list of contacts or addresses with as
much detail as you wish and then print letters to them according to
conditions laid down in your main letter. You could for instance write
only to those in London or you could exclude London addresses. You can
write only to male or female contacts or, if you keep your contact
file up to date, only to people who have expressed an interest in a
particular product or service. It is obviously not as powerful as a
full database program but for simpler situations is more than
adequate.
The tutorials finish here but the majority of the
manual is unread! There is more that you can do with Superscript!
Let's take a look now at the editing features as controlled by the
keyboard. At first sight any action seems unnecessarily complex
requiring the SELECT key to be pressed followed by selection of the
feature required and then selection from a sub-menu. In some cases a
further menu is presented. If you don't study the manual you could
waste a lot of time performing almost any function but once you have
executed a particular action, no matter how complex, it can be
repeated by simply pressing CONTROL R. In fact most of the commonly
used editing features can be accessed by using CONTROL with an
appropriate character. There are several really neat features here
such as changing words between upper and lower case. CONTROL -F will
change a word from upper to lower case but on first press will leave
the initial letter as a capital in case it is the start of a sentence.
Press again and this turns to lower case. If you prefer to use the
cursor movement keys without holding CONTROL simply change them so
that the cursor movement is standard and the arithmetical signs are
accessed with CONTROL!
USER DEFINED KEYS
What if you need to repeatedly use a series of
commands? Easy, just assign these commands to any key on the keyboard
in either upper or lower case. Press ESC followed by the key and the
program will perform the action you have assigned. Almost anything can
be assigned to a key from passages of text to single commands or
series of commands. Your name and address for instance can be inserted
in a document with two or three keystrokes. It can even be
automatically centred or ranged right. Often used words can be
inserted at a stroke or the cursor can be moved as desired. Several
examples are given in the manual but the applications are limited only
by your imagination. Suppose for example you often transpose two
characters. Simply assign a key to reverse them, place the cursor on
the first character and change them about. You can change disk drives,
obtain a directory, initiate a search, exchange dates and much more.
All that seems quite powerful, but the real beauty lies in the fact
that every key stroke you define can be made permanent so that the
keyboard is configured to your specification each time you boot up a
work disk. If you wish you can have different configurations for
different tasks and change midway through a session. You may not
appreciate the power until you have used it, but what it basically
means is that Superscript is not a program to which you need to adapt
but a program which adapts to you. Your working version of Superscript
will be exactly that, your own personalised program.
LAYOUT FEATURES
Before I go on to the search and replace functions
and spelling checker, a brief word about the layout capabilities as
regards the printed document. All the expected facilities such as
setting margins and page lengths, centering and justifying text,
including headers and footers are there as well as page numbering but
a few more features are included. Margins as well as page numbers can
be offset alternately so that if you are producing a bound document
the wider margin will always be in the centre of the pages. To produce
a double-sided document you can print odd numbered pages first, turn
the paper and then print even numbered pages. Four levels of indent
can be set and released as desired allowing hanging indents, such as
you see in numbered paragraphs, to be easily produced. A nice report
is included on the training disk to illustrate many of these features.
SEARCH AND REPLACE
One of the useful features of a word processor is
the ability to find words quickly throughout the document and replace
or amend them and Superscript naturally has this feature. You may
change all occurrences of a word or verify each change or simply find
a particular word to position the cursor for editing. It was here that
I found one of the few limitations of Superscript as it cannot search
for spaces. I often used Atariwriter to check for and replace
inadvertent double spaces in a document. A useful feature of the
Search facility is to search forward or backward so you do not need to
go to the start of the document for multiple searches.
THE SPELLING CHECKER
So now let's assume that you have typed your
document. Before you print it you will want to make sure that the
spelling is correct so a few keystrokes (or assigning these to a
particular key) brings the spelling checker into action. If you have
two drives insert the spelling checker into drive 2 and the program
will look for it first in drive 1 and then in drive 2. If it is not in
either you will be prompted to insert it. The first action is to
analyse your document. You will be told how many words have been used,
how many sentences there are and how many paragraphs as well as the
average word length. Then the spelling will be checked in alphabetical
order throughout the document. This method is slow but it works well
and incorrect or unrecognised words will be highlighted for action as
they are reached. You may either accept the word in which case all
further occurrences will be ignored, ignore the word so that it will
be flagged again if found or have the program learn the word and
insert it in the dictionary for future use. Words which you use often
can thus be added to the dictionary automatically so that each time
you use the spelling checker, its vocabulary expands. If a word is
incorrect you simply edit it and resume the check. When it is finished
you can replace the original document on disk with one keystroke - One
point to bear in mind is that, being a British program it checks for
English and not American spellings!
The spelling checker has other uses. You can use the
disk as a straight dictionary. If you don't know how to spell a word
just look it up by typing the first few characters and you will be
shown all of the words that begin with those characters. Whilst the
program cannot check grammar, you can display all of the words used
with their frequency so that you can see if for example you have used
'nice' or 'great' too many times.
CONCLUSIONS
Superscript's manual is several times the size of
this magazine so you can see that it is possible only to scratch the
surface in a review. The program was originally written for the
Commodore but the Atari version is no straight 'dump' to another
computer. In fact Precision Software have produced a remarkable
program especially since the first time they touched an Atari was only
four months before producing this version of Superscript. In that
short time they have discovered and used more of the facilities of the
XL and XE computers than many of the well established companies in the
States that have been writing for Atari for years. I will finish by
repeating that for the serious user this is the most important program
to appear this side of the Atlantic. It heralds the final recognition
of the Atari as a serious computer, something we have known all along.
Superscript is scheduled to retail at £69.95 - the
same price as the Commodore version. If you think that is expensive
compare it with Atariwriter at £39 plus a printer driver at £20 and
a spelling checker at £30. You will save £20 and believe me you will
get much more for your money.
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