RE: Word 2000 vs. Word97

["Ronica Roth" <rroth -at- exactis -dot- com>]

I'll begin the W2k v W97 discussion by noting a couple of improvements I've
seen in the couple months I've had W2k:

+Does not crash so easily with large docs. I've been working on a 70+ page
doc with lots of linked (not embedded) graphics and cross-references. As I
passed the 50-page mark I kept waiting for the crashes, but they haven't
come.

+If you download the free word-to-html filter, it does a much better job of
creating html files that you can then work with in your favorite html
editor. Still some junk to remove, but not as bad.

+Actually has backwards compatibility. I don't have to do anything special
to my w2k doc, and anyone can read, edit in w97 without any trouble. I've
tested this fairly extensively, as we two tech writers are the only ones at
the company with w2k; everyone else is reading our stuff using w97. Also, I
took a doc home and worked with it in w97. No problem.

That's off the top of my head. I will note that many of the old familiar
bugs remain:
-Numbered lists don't always behave.
-Text boxes behave erratically (good thing html taught me the many uses of
"tables").
-Weird things happen when cross-references capture too much.

Still, I'm fairly happy so far (can't be any more enthusiastic about MS
Word, ever).

Ronica Roth
Technical Writer
Exactis.com, Inc.
rroth -at- exactis -dot- com

*-------------!------------- -at- --------------&--------------x
"The difference between the right word and the
almost-right word is the difference between the
lightning and the lightning-bug."--Mark Twain
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