Book Review Jim Tevis. Desktop Publishing with WordPerfect 5.0. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1989, pp. xiv, 276. Appendix. Index. by Terrence Erdt The reviews appearing in the popular press of the word processor WordPerfect 5.0. were enthusiastic, rightly so, to judge retrospectively. However, the early releases of the program that reviewers received contained a number of flaws, most of which were never uncovered before press time and so were not mentioned in published evaluations. To produce a DOS text version of a document, for instance, required using a then largely undocumented utility program (convert.exe); the command C N T R L F5 and the selection of DOS Text from the subsequent menu from within the program left too many printer commands in a document. Certain difficulties encountered while printing were rarely uncovered. Most reviewers were probably unfamiliar with using "soft," or downloadable fonts, and they did not encounter in time for their copy deadlines the difficulties that lie in store for anyone who has composed a document for one particular printer, with a certain set of fonts, and who then finds himself having to print the document out on a different printer with different fonts. The hurriedly produced revisions to the handbooks for using WordPerfect 4.2, which several publishers offered, in several cases ventured but haltingly into the new territories that existed in the revised WP 5.0, particularly in the new region of desktop publishing. In some cases they described sets of commands and procedures that had been significantly altered between the time of test, or "beta," releases and the published version of WP 5.0. Now, WP 5.0 seems to have settled down; the

Terrence Erdt, the Associate Editor of CHum, teaches at Villanova University.

Computers and the Humanities 23: 479--480, 1989. © 1989 KluwerAcademic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

pace of new releases to counter flaws has abated. Users have had time to discover some of the remarkable powers of the program and to become familiar with soft fonts; alas, they have also discovered the limits of available documentation, both that supplied to purchasers of the program by WordPerfect Corporation and that contained in the various handbooks published by third parties. Among the remarkable powers of the program afforded meager documentation are those of desktop publishing. In classes that treat the subject, as some journalism and composition courses are coming to do, there is need for supplementary materials. The purpose of Tevis's book is to redress the omission, and while it does contain some useful information not to be found in a number of guides to WP 5.0, the volume fails to justify its high price ($22.95).

Desktop

Publishing

with

WordPerfect 5.0

comes with little "filler" in the way of a rehash of the basics of the program; its author assumes that the reader is relatively knowledgeable about microcomputers and about WP 5.0, so that the reader not already familiar with the majority of commands and options will not immediately benefit from the presentation. Neither may more advanced users of the program, for the book only infrequently expands upon the instructions supplied with WordPerfect 5.0. The opening chapter provides a brief history of desktop publishing; it has little to offer advanced users but may be useful to readers quite new to the subject. Then follows an introduction specifically to the desktop publishing capabilities of WP 5.0; it addresses the subject of the WP Style feature (particularly useful to former users of WP 4.2 who through experimentation and some minimal consulting of the manual may have picked up a working knowledge of the program's successor), the use of multiple typefaces, kerning, auto-hyphenation, and page layout. The third chapter is more specific and technical, and it constitutes the best in the book. It takes up the "Convert" program supplied with WP

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5.0 to transform documents from one format to another: WP to ASCII, Wordstar 3.3 to WP5.0, MultiMate to WP 5.0, and so forth. Tevis describes here, helpfully, the differences between file formats of files saved with the Text "In/Out" and "Generic" as opposed to the ASCII function of the Convert program. The DOS text file created through the Text "In/Out" command inserts spaces in order to retain the appearance of a WP document, so that a phrase that was originally centered will be saved with spacing to give the appearance of centering. The Generic format also contains spaces to make a document appear as it did in WP format, but retains the tab code, recognizable to most printers. Only convert.exe produces a true ASCII file. Other topics broached here are that of obtaining soft fonts through public bulletin boards, and of creating printer files with the WP printer definition program (ptr.exe) so as to have specific printer definitions for particular tasks. The discussion of the printer definition program is particularly needed; most of the published guides to WP 5.0 shy away from the subject, saying it is too advanced; and the documentation supplied with WP is not at all adequate (WP 5.0 users can purchase from WordPerfect Corporation documentation devoted to the definition program, but unless one is creating printer drivers the cost may not be justified). Here one learns a number of intriguing secrets, such as how to reduce the size of the printer file (wprintl.all or wprint2.all); how to define the appearance and attributes of fonts, while calling for assistance from the large help file that supports the printer definition program; and how to discover from the "Character Map" section of the printer definition file just what characters the font will print. After viewing the limited range of the ASCII character set, the scholar with a need for umlauts and accents may decide to regenerate some of his fonts, and then use the WordPerfect's Compose feature to have the proper printer commands placed in his documents. Tevis also explores in the chapter the creation

of printer resource files, which allow for specifying selected options that are supported in the wprint 1 [2].all file that contains all the data needed for using any of numerous printers. If the WP5.0 user finds that for a particular desktop publishing endeavor, he would like to have certain fonts that he customarily does not use available as the initial font and loaded into the printer's memory upon initialization, he can copy then further customize the specifications for, say, a HP Series II. Chapter four takes up the subject of incorporating graphics into a WP 5.0 document. Here Tevis keeps his discussion at too general a level. While he mentions that there are several means of acquiring graphics to use as illustration in a document, he skirts specific discussion of available "paint" programs, scanners, and "clip art" libraries. The user of WP 5.0 may encounter a number of pitfalls in each of these areas, as in regards to the limited file format options that come with some scanner software and "paint" programs, so that a detailed presentation of the programs and equipment that have acquired the status of "standard" is in order. The strength of Tevis's approach to writing documentation lies in part in its not requiring (as does the workbook that comes with WP 5.0) that the reader duplicate a tedious letter or execute a long series of commands without being given to understand what he is doing at a particular point. The author manages to keep an overview before his reader and to write lucidly; unfortunately he and his publishers settle for less than comprehensive treatment of the subject undertaken. There is little if any discussion of the problems to be encountered, for instance, in generating fonts, in using fonts acquired for one program with another, or in trying to print text and graphics when the printer has too little memory. To navigate this still new dimension of word processing, desktop publishing, the user of WP 5.0 likely will want a more definite course to follow and a more detailed map pointing out the pitfalls along the way.