Preston are continuing to produce re-runs of good software and breathe new life into them by halving the cost of the package. Editext is their latest offering, being originally produced by Nectarine at £12.95. Please do not dismiss this program on the basis that at £6.95 it cannot be any good; quite the contrary! Editext is a versatile word processor providing most of the faciltties found in very much more expensive word processors, and can be operated via disc or cassette.

The disc version is called Deditext, and is on the reverse of the tape. The main features allow normal or justified printing, automatic wordwrap, and include full editing faciiities. The latter are fairly comprehensive, enabling letter, word or combination of words to be added, deleted of changed. There is even a Find and Replace routine which couples the Move Lines and Paragraphs to anywhere in the text, and makes form design, or standard letters requiring customisation, very easy.

Additionally, the program allows upper and lower case printing to any required typewidth, print formatting to include multiple top copies, and various typefaces.

The standard choice of print fonts is:

1. Elite (12 characters per inch, enabling more text to be printed in a given line width).
2. Double print (prints the line in two passes of the head, minutely advancing the paper, thickening the dots to achieve a higher print quality).
3. Emphasised print (each dot is printed twice to produce the effect of bold type).
4. Enlarged print (gives the impression of double-height characters printed in bold type - very useful for headings and title pages).
5. Condensed print (prints 16.5 characters to the inch, compared with the normal 10 characters to the inch, or 12 using Elite type - very useful for half-sized documents and wide tabulated data).

You can of course mix typefaces if required by printing the document in sections, using the Change Type Face menu incorporated into the program, which will also automatically revert to the normal Pica type.

Once you are satisfied with the layout and content of the actual print fonts you can then execute a draft print which prints out the text line by line as it is stored in the Dragon's memory. Each of the lines is numbered and all carriage returns are marked. When you have completed your draft print or even if you did not require it at all, you can enter the Formatted Print routine which enables you to format the text for printing to virtually any typewidth up to the maximum allowed by your printer, and with any desired number of lines per page. The text can be justified, margins altered, and line spacing adjusted. Of course, if you wish to save the text to tape or disc there is a very useful facility for doing so, which incorporates a special header file, identifying the text, into the filing routine.

The instructions for the operating of Editext are clear, concise and simple and also contain a prompt chart to assist you in your early running of the program. As if all this were not enough, there is even a short appendix outlining examples of how to save time using the facilities overall.

Suffice to say this program is very adaptable, easy to use and given all the facilities it contains, at £6.95 it must rate as one of the best buys of the year, and receives my wholehearted endorsement.