10-Sep-89 13:42:22 Sb: #Bedtime Story WP51 Fm: Pete Peterson (WPCorp) 72067,3552 To: All Well, I can finally talk about WP51. 5.1 is in beta, and official news of the release will now start appearing in the trade publications. I think you're going to like this release, which should be ready sometime in November or December. WordPerfect 5.0 for the PC has been a huge success. Our market share grew almost overnight from 35% to 60% of the US market. Sales jumped immediately from 50,000 units per mouth for 4.2 to more than 100,000 units per month for 5.0. In the first half of 1989, sales averaged more than 125,000 units per month. International sales have grown even more than domestic sales, making WordPerfect the market leader in most of the Western European countries. 5.0 was not an incremental step forward as were the 4.0, 4.1, and 4.2 releases. 5.0 was, from our point of view, a major technological step forward. More than two-thirds of the program code was new. The document format and the method of printing documents was changed completely. Printer drivers were rewritten and expanded. Support for graphics, including many graphic editing capabilities, was added. Our latest version, 5.1, while not as dramatic a change as 5.0, is not a minor release. The underlying structure of the program is basically the same, but there are many new and improved features. There will undoubtedly be those persons who ask why WordPerfect needs more features. They may suggest that new features are added only to continue the word processing features war and not to add value for the word processing customer. Such a position simply does not make sense to us. We are convinced there is a compelling need for an organization to have one word processing standard. While it is true that many people will never use more than a few features in a powerful word processing package, it is also true that what is important to one person is generally different from what is important to another. The features important to the legal department are different from those important to the engineering staff. Though the needs and wants are different from person to person and department to department, everyone must share their documents. An attorney may never create an equation, but he may have to prepare a patent application from a document with equations created in the engineering department. An executive who types her own rough draft and relies on her secretary for corrections and formatting, may still want to see the final draft on screen. Someone who never adds a picture to a document may still have to review a document which contains a graphic image. The challenge to a word processing developer is not to provide a different version for each department or to make different version with different levels of functionality. The challenge is to make one powerful, easy to use product which fulfills as many needs as possible within an organization. Ideally, this powerful, easy to use product should run on all PCs, not just those with a 386 microprocessor running at 25 Mhz. Given that many of the PCs in use are 640 Kb machines running DOS, network software, and a TSR or two, the product must run in a reasonable amount of memory. WordPerfect Corporation understands these challenges. WordPerfect 5.1 is more powerful, easier to use, and able to run well on a 640 Kb machine. We are sure that 5.1 is right product for the DOS market at this time. 5.1 primarily addresses traditional word processing tasks. Secretaries will get help with tables and statistical typing. Scholars will have a much richer set of characters to use in their documents. Mathematicians and engineers will gain the ability to edit equations. Power users will have a much more powerful merge and document assembly capability. All of us should benefit from better hyphenation and longer filenames, and the casual or occasional user will feel more comfortable with pull down menus and mouse support. 5.1 is not our response to a features war, or an imitation of any other product. It is our best effort to give our customers what they tell us they need today. Even though we are working furiously to produce Presentation Manager and Windows products, and prodms, we still perceive a strong need for better DOS products. The fact that DOS does not have many of the advanced facilities of these other platforms does not stop us from improving our DOS products. 5.1 is our best product to date, but it is definitely not the last of our DOS word processing releases. New 5.1 Features ---------------- *Tables A table is a new feature on the Math/Columns key. If you choose this option, WP asks for the number of rows and columns you expect to have in the table. (If you change your mind later, it's easy to add or delete rows or columns.) Once you enter your preferences, WP creates on the screen a grid which looks like a bunch of boxes or cells. With the grid on screen, you can join two or more boxes together (make one box out of two, or one out of four, etc.), you can split one cell into two, put math formulas in the boxes, change the format of individual cells, rows or columns, add headers for the table, and more. By holding down the shift key and moving the arrows, you can easily change the widths of the columns. Once the table looks like you want it to look, you can enter text or numbers into the table. The boxes or cells in the table grow automatically as text is entered. Spreadsheet data from PlanPerfect or 1-2-3 can be retrieved into a table directly. Columns and rows are easily moved. Tables can me many pages in length (no built-in limit), with the restriction that a cell of the table cannot span a page break. The table looks and feels like part of the standard text (which it is), so you can add footnotes, change the attributes of the text in a particular box, delete and undelete the text in a cell, put a date in a cell, etc. No other word processor that we have seen has gone this far to make the typing of tables so easy. *Pull-Down Menus and Mouse Support If you have a mouse, pressing the right button displays a menu bar across the top of your screen. If you don't have a mouse, pressing once on the Alt key (you can assign this same function to another key if you wish) will display the same menu. With the mouse or the arrow keys you can display the various menus and sub menus which appear under the headings, and select any of the WP features from one of these menus. The mouse can also be used to position the cursor, to select options in any of the WP menus, to scroll through the text, to highlight a block, or select a file from List Files. You can't reposition a graphic or code with the mouse, but still the mouse support is surprising robust for a DOS product. The menus and mouse support should help the casual user a lot. All features are available from the pull-down menus, and most of the advanced features are hidden on sub menus. The new interface should make the program less intimidating for the new user. The function key interface, familiar to today's WordPerfect user, is, of course, still in the product. *Labels Once you create a form with the information about the size and number of the labels you are using, you can select that form and do your merge. WP will then automatically fit the information from the merge correctly on your labels. This same feature can also be used to print side by side pages on the same sheet of paper. *Spreadsheet Links You can now retrieve a PlanPerfect 5.0 or Lotus 1-2-3 2.x worksheet into 5.0 as a table or as tabular text. Warm links to a spreadsheet are supported so that the information is updated when desired or each time a document is retrieved. *Equation Editor The equation editor may not appeal to all users, but for those who use it, it will be an incredible time-saver. When an equation is included in a printed document, there are very strict formatting rules for the equation. Variables like x and y must be italicized. Numbers are not italicized. Spacing between different elements of the equation are well defined. Exponents must be superscripted and of a certain size depending on the level. A square root or division symbol must grow or shrink to a specified size. In addition to these formatting rules, the equation must also be printed. This is not a trivial job, since many printers do not have all the necessary characters built into the printer or available in a cartridge or soft font. WordPerfect handles both of these problems. If you type x+y=3 in the equation editor, WP automatically italicizes the x and the y. More complicated equations with square roots, integrel signs, division bars, etc., are formatted correctly by the editor and the various symbols and variables are adjusted as needed. The editor is built into WP and is available on the Graphics key. The editor window takes up about 40% of the screen and uses a relatively simple syntax for entering the equation. The rest of the screen is divided between a preview area (so you can see how WP will print the equation) and a palette for math symbols. You can point with the arrow keys or the mouse and select the math symbols from the palette to include and of the symbols in the equation. If you have a printer capable of printing graphics, like an HP Laserjet or an Epson dot matrix printer, WP can print the equation. WP prints the equation in the same way it prints graphics which are added to your text. Every character available in the symbol palette can be printed and displayed when you preview the equation (either in the equation editor preview or the normal Print preview) if you have a printer which can print graphics. *Printing and Displaying All Characters Version 5.0 introduced a character set of more than 1,600 characters. Unlike most software which lags behind the hardware technology, 5.0 supported more characters than the printers could handle. The printers did not have the characters available in their cartridges or downloadable fonts. Many of our customers were frustrated to find they could enter a character in a document which their printer could not print. 5.1 eliminates this frustration for those customers who have a printer capable of printing graphics. A larger .DRS file is included with 5.1 (DRS stands for Device ReSource) which contains the complete WordPerfect character set. When you preview a document, WP will go to the .DRS file to get a character--even if the character is not normally in your computer. In the same way, if your printer does not have a particular character either built into the printer or in a cartridge or in a downloaded font, then WP will send a fairly good representation of the character to your printer in a graphics format. WP will also bold, italicize, or underline the character if needed, and will send it in an appropriate size for the font you have chosen. In other words, attorneys can get section, copyright, and trademark symbols, scholars can get ancient Greek characters, mathematicians can get all the different hats on their characters, and secretaries won't have to explain why a particular character won't print. *Dictionary-Based Hyphenation WP's dictionary now contains the hyphenation information for each word in the dictionary. If automatic hyphenation is turned on, WP will look at the dictionary rather than make a rule-based guess as it did in the past. The separate hyphenation module, which was available for a fee with 5.0, is no longer necessary. *Long Filenames You can now save and retrieve documents using the standard DOS eleven character filenames, or you can choose to use longer filenames. WP now keeps and index of your documents so you can name your document with up to 40 characters. Improved 5.1 Features --------------------- *Context Sensitive Help In previous version of WordPerfect you could not press the Help key everywhere in the program. Now WP is smart enough to help you when you are in a menu or when you have a message on your screen. *Merge Merge has been one of the features which has been neglected a little over the past few versions. Now the same types of commands available in the programmable macros are available in merge. The merge commands which were displayed with control codes, are now shown by name to make them easier to use and understand. You are also now allowed to merge into headers, footers, and footnotes. *Outlining Greater flexibility for formatting an outline has been added, as well as the ability to move all the sub-entries when an entry is moved from one part of the outline to another. (5.1 still does not have all the facilities of a "true" outliner. We are, however, certainly headed in that direction.) *Relative Tabs WordPerfect has always positioned tab stops relative to the edge of paper rather than the margin. In 5.1, tabs can also be defined relative to the margin. So you can define a tab to be 1.5" from the edge of the paper, or 5" from the left margin. If defined from the margin, the tab will move as the margins are changed. *Improved Justification In the past you had a choice of justified or unjustified text. In both cases the text lined up with the left margin, unless you centered the text line by line, or made the text flush with the right margin line by line. With 5.1, you can choose text to be left justified (which would leave a ragged right margin), right justified (which leaves a ragged left margin), centered (centering the text with a ragged left and right margin, or fully justified (justified right and left). This new method of justification works on any number of lines in the document. *Dormant Hard Return If you write a document with single spacing in a paragraph and two hard returns at the end of the paragraph, you could end up with an extra blank line at the top of a page. WP will now eliminate that extra line automatically if a paragraph happens to end at the end of a page such that there would be the blank line. This improvement combined with widow/orphan control, should eliminate a lot of document previewing. (Anybody have a better name for this feature?) *Link to Graphic on Disk 5.0 supported graphics which were retrieved into a document. Since a graphics can be quite large, an option has been added to "link" to a graphic. With a link, you do not have to retrieve the graphic into your document. WP will work as if the graphic is part of your text, but the graphic can be separate file. *Install The WordPerfect files now come on fewer diskettes in a compressed format. An install program to make the installation easy is included with the package. At installation time you can modify your autoexec.bat and config.sys files if necessary and if desired. Other Improvements ------------------ There are many other small improvements to the program. You now have the option of changing the size of the Reveal Codes screen. With Block on, CTRL-DEL is now a shortcut to do a Move, and CTRL-INS is a shortcut for Copy. When you change your tab settings, you now see the changes to the text on your screen as the tabs are changed. You can now format text in a graphics box in a column format. Leading is changed drastically to be more consistent with typesetting industry standards. The Forms features has been improved so you can choose a form from a list of forms rather than by specifying paper size and type. You can now merge into a Style and place a graphic image within a Style. Page numbering is more flexible. New macro functions have been added. If you print the document on your screen, not only can you print the full document or a page, but you can select any number of pages. 5.1 System Requirements ----------------------- WordPerfect 5.1 should run in 384 Kb of free memory (we won't know for sure until the official release version is ready). 5.1 recognizes Expanded memory, and the entire program can be loaded into memory if you have enough Expanded memory available (estimated at 768 Kb, maybe less). If you have a RAM disk, you can use the RAM disk for your document overflow files. A hard disk is strongly recommended. You can run on a two floppy system if the floppy disks have a capacity of 720 Kb or more. You cannot run on a two diskette drive system if the floppy capacity is 360 Kb or less. Pricing and Licensing --------------------- The price for a standard, standalone copy of 5.1 is the same as 5.0--$495. The network first station or server version which was $695 has been discontinued, since the standard $495 version can also run on a network. The network additional station versions, which were $150 for 5.0 are now $295. The price of the update from 3.0, 4.0, 4.1, 4.2, or 5.0 to 5.1 will be $85 (tax included--we're now required to send state sales tax to almost every state) plus $2.50 for shipping and handling. The updates will be available from WPCorp directly, and from a few select computer dealers. We will announce shipment of 5.1 in the January WPCorp Report. We're hoping 5.1 ships in November or December (we would like to be shipping by COMDEX, but, of course, we don't want to have a buggy first release), so you'll probably see a notice earlier than the January WPCorp Report in many of the computer trade publications. As soon as the product ships, we will take orders for the update, but we are not accepting money before the ship date. ************ Well that's the story. I hope no one minds getting all the 5.1 stories at the same time. I just couldn't sit on the information any longer and dribble it out one night at a time. (Those beta sites under non-disclosure may comment on anything which I've mentioned here. We'd prefer you not talk about the beta process (bugs that are there, things you want fixed, etc.), but you may comment on the features themselves which I've described.) I'm using 5.1 already, and it is a terrific release. Pete ----------------------------------------------------------------- [Further comments in response to questions] The file structure does change a little as the new features are added. Some of the old add-ins will work, some will not. The .ALL file has been changed to allow for font libraries (more than one .PRS file sharing the same font information--something I didn't mention in the messages), so Bitstream is working furiously to get a new version of Fontware ready. The changes are well documented in the new Toolkit. We did not conciously try to stay compatible with the add-ins, but will instead give them as much information as possible so the add-in makers can change as the program changes. Most of what we had on the 5.1 list was already on their before 5.0 was even released. We've got years worth of work we want to do already to the program. Priorities are changed based on the different suggestions we get, whether these suggestions come over the phone to Customer Support, from letters, from CIS, from our reps meeting face to face with the customer, or from inside WPCorp. We listen to all these sources, and then do what we think is best for the product. We intend for 5.1 to supercede 5.0, although we will offer 5.0 for sale for the usual year after a new release. 4.2 will be supported and sold through the end of 1990, and longer if we ae still selling a significant number of copies. I suspect we will sell 4.2 for a little longer than the 1990 date. And I haven't really begun to do justice to some of the features. For example, my description of tables doesn't even start to explain how the tables work. Once you start using the feature you'll find that any of the lines between the boxes can be single, double, or not displayed. Different cells in the table can be shaded. Cells can be locked, which I assume means that you can stop the cursor from moving to certain cells in the table. The tables can have a header at the top of each page. If you have spreadsheet data from PlanPerfect or Lotus, you can retrieve it directly into WP, and WP will automatically create a table definition to accomodate the data (or you can choose to bring it in as text). You can put formulas in tables in addition to totalling columns as you can now do with the math feature, so you have quite a few math capabilities in the tables. 5.1 is a lot of fun.