High Standards In Wordwise

Collins is the first traditional firm to have published a proper book on Wordwise systems, and Bruce Smith has ensured that it sets a high standard. His book covers both Wordwise and Wordwise Plus, and helpfully signposts the differences where they matter without making a meal of them where they don't. Not only is Bruce Smith an experienced user of both versions of Wordwise with disc, he speaks with the voice of experience on cassette loading and saving - having written an earlier book that way! His friendly style is well-supported by diagrams showing chip-fitting, keyboard positions, tab stops, page layouts and screen dumps.

The book also contains a number of programs, and all but the keyboard masochists will be delighted to find that they are available on disc at a reasonable price (disc available at £7.95 from Lovebyte, Dept JM, 8 Grafton Street, London W1X 3LA. State 40/80 track). Some work with standard Wordwise: a lovely Basic utility allows disc users to boot the system and see an enhanced catalogue of files on the disc. This displays not only a list of filenames but also a comment line and indication of size in kilobytes. You just have to add a comment line to the top of any files you want picked up this way, using the pseudo-embedded command that the author calls CO. This is a boon to disc users who retain a mixture of different files long past the time when a seven-letter filename conveyed its contents.

The book also offers segment programs for Wordwise Plus users. The text processing chapter offers an admirable tutorial for newcomers to the Wordplus programming language. However, the examples of segment programs in part three of the book are somewhat disappointing - they only hint at the system's potential for transforming text in novel ways.

At £9.95, this is not a cheap book, but nevertheless, it will be a good companion to lots of Wordwise users and deserves to be widely read.

Jacquetta Megarry