PROCESSING WORDS ON THE SPECTRUM

DOMINIC HANDY sets his fingers flying over the keys of his computer and evaluates a trio of wordprocessing packageshat don't actually improve literacy, but make writing on the Spectrum much easier.

Producer: Tasman Software
Retail Price: £16.50 (Microdrive); £19.50 Opus Disk

The team at TASMAN SOFWTARE have taken the old favourite Tasword II and moved it onto Microdrive and Opus Disk, adding more commands, more memory and greatly increasing the ease of use. This seemed to me to be a very brave step on the part of TASMAN as they must think that all their prospective customers have Microdrives or disk systems. I can see them getting a bit worried about running out of memory, but all the rest of the latest batch of word processors made it out on cassette in a very useable form .. .

The main text editor loads in one chunk, and the only other drive access you need is for dumping the text to other peripherals (printers, backing storage and so on). As with Tasword II, when you load up you go directly into the text editor, which means you can get down to work straight away.

The text editor at first glance seems the same as Tasword II, but a closer look shows that table markers or tabs are available. These are shown on the switches panel at the bottom of the screen. A PAGE BREAK switch has been added that can be used to reveal on screen how text will be printed - a handy facility when it comes to producing the final version of a document. During one-screen formatting, a dotted line is displayed where the page breaks will occur on the printer.

One of the best features of Tasword III is the impressive HELP menu. This shows you every command available at the press of a key, and a quarter of the HELP page can be shown at the top of the screen while you are typing. This is useful - for instance if you use printer controls regularly, the graphics symbols which Tasword III uses as printer tokens can be shown in the top quarter of the screen, so you don't forget what does what!

Tasword III only features a few brand new commands, but the old commands of the Tasword II era have been expanded considerably. The most important addition to its array of over sixty commands are the TAB commands: very useful for setting out charts or tables. TABs act rather like TAB STOPS on an ordinary typewriter and are little markers on the screen which the cursor can jump between. The user can set up any number of character positions between any number of tab stops a very easy process and a definite plus over any other Spectrum word processor I've come across. The other new addition to Tasword III is the expansion of the screen width from 64 characters to 128, which means you can see exactly what your hard copy will look like on the screen, via the very ingenious scrolling of text across the screen.

The cursor movement has been expanded too, and it's possible to jump to the beginning and end of lines, paragraphs and printer pages (via page markers). TASMAN have gone to town on the deleting as well: words, lines, paragraphs, blocks and the plain old character behind the cursor can now be deleted, instead of just the cursor character as in Tasword II. Paragraphs and blocks have to be confirmed before deletion, and lines can be un-deleted, so there's not much chance of you ruining your text accidentally.

A very useful mode, which is missing from most word processors, is the AUTO INSERT mode. This allows the user to write directly into the middle of a piece of text without overwriting the existing text. Full use is made of the keyboard buffer here, as the existing characters have to be scrolled forward on to the next line.

Tasword III features a very comprehensive printer menu which has all the features of Word Manager and more. With all the headers, footers and page number combinations it would be fairly easy to print a simple magazine using Tasword III.

There's a word count in Tasword III; the search and replace option has been speeded up and the cursor speed has also been increased, thus rectifying the main problems with Tasword II. The package offers full value for money, with a word processor, a Tasword A translation program, a Masterfile interpreter, an introduction letter and tutor as well as a simple but very effective data merge file (which can be used instead of Masterfile) included on the cartridge or disk.

There is no doubt about it, to my mind TASMAN have now definitely got the top spot as far as word processors go. With the price of printers and disc drives dropping by the month it's almost worth popping out and getting a system to try it out on. One look at Tasword III will take the words out of your mouth.

FACILITIES
Screen Line (chars): 64
Printer Line (chars): 128
Word Count: Yes

WRITE ON...

In the beginning was Tasword. Somewhere in the middle was YS issue 1 with news of The Writer and Word Manager. Now, not quite at the end, Max Phillips looks at the new Tasword 3...

FAX BOX
Package: Tasword 3
Publisher: Tasman Software
System: Microdrive Only
Price: £16.50

There are poor demented people with posh computers who think you can't do anything 'serious' with a Speccy. As if playing games wasn't a serious business. They even take pity on it and call it 'the humble Spectrum'. Since when has anything Sinclair been humble, huh? And they laugh if you say you can wordprocess on it.

The cure for these people is to get them a copy of Tasword 3 and tell 'em where they can load it. Not that the new Tasword cures all the problems of the Spectrum. It doesn't make keyboards grow or microdrives quicker or... Nor does it do anything that hasn't been done before. Like 64 characters across the screen or fancy page formatting.

What it does do though, is turn your Spectrum into a very usable, modern wordprocessor. And in particular, it incorporates most of what Tasword II users have been asking for and casually does the kind of thing newer programs such as SofTechnic's The Writer do - you know, those little extras like word counts, free space indicators and so on.

WEIRD!

The new program has a lot of its predecessor in it - it looks the same and has the same weird habits like letting you drive the cursor through thin air past the end of your text. But the real hassles with the old program are all long gone. It's also pretty radical in that it only works with microdrives; there is no cassette version.

There's around 17K free for documents - about 3000 characters less than alternatives but no great loss. Tasword is pretty speedy even with long documents (it scrolls better than some arcade games) and the only real time-sink as waiting for those 'drives when it goes for the main menu.

Handing blocks of text is still done by marking their start and end with two special characters. Like its rivals, Tasword is a bit sloppy here because you can put lots of markers in at once. It can get a bit slow as well because Tasword doesn't keep an eye on where they are and has to go and look for them whenever you do a block operation.

MOVIN' AND MERGIN'

Moving stuff between files is also a pain - you have to do Word Manager-style contortions of merging text and then block moving. A saving grace is the new extend-Z which does a copy but leaves the markers in place so you can repeat the copy several times.

The vast array of editing commands (mostly extended key sequences) covers everything you can think of. Some of the stuff that's appeared since Tasword II, like 'ignore case' and manual or automatic search and replace is all there as well.

PRINT OUT

Print formatting is greatly improved over the old Tasword though not as versatile as The Writer. You can specify a header and footer at the top and bottom of each page, page numbers likewise, and either in the middle or on alternate sides of the paper so that they look right when you staple the printout into a leaflet.

There are up to 32 printer control codes for your printer's special features - more than enough methinks. You can print just a section of text, ask for several copies of a document and, sensibly, combine any number of files on a tape together to form a long document.

Tasword III also has a mail-merge facility so that you can do tricks like automatically addressing letters to the members of your club and so on. It isn't as completely comprehensive as The Writer but it's probably sufficient for the few of us that'll use it.

You can set merge-fields in the text from a datafile (created with Tasword or preferably MasterFile - details included in the manual). You can prompt for variables at print time so, for example, you'd only enter the date once to get it stuck on every letter. And you can do limited conditional printing (only print this bit if this guy hasn't paid has subs yet and so on).

However, the text is not reformatted after fields have been merged and merge-printing can mess up both the margins and the page-breaks! Well, if it can't be good, you can at least be careful...

CUSTOM MADE

But the best bit of all is customisation menu. These go beyond the normal setting up for your printer interface (which is a bit iffy - you might need to type in some - shock, horror - lines of Basic). You can save versions of the program with your own margin and tab settings, help screens, printer control codes, screen colours and so on. So everything's just how you like it when you RUN the cartridge. Neat!

And I shouldn't forget to mention the great 64-page manual, on-screen tutorial program. Tas II to Tas III document converter and... All in all, Tasword III is good enough to be a strong alternative to The Writer, Word Manager or anything else knocking about on the Speccy. And it's out now, works reliably and does a good job.

So it hasn't quite got the same fabled - oops, fabulous - list of goodies as The Writer. But it's close enough to give you a hard time choosing one or the other. Someone we know was a bit miffed when YS called Tasword the "undisputed King of Speccy wordpros". Sorry... It was a touch unthinking. We should have realised that it's far from undisputed. But King? Yep, possibly so....

Publisher: Tasman Software
Price: £16.50
Memory: 48K

Since its launch in 1983, Tasword Two has been the acknowledged word processor for the Spectrum. Now, after three long years, and in the face of serious competition from The Writer and The Last Word, Tasword Three has been released.

Unlike its predecessor, Tasword Three is available only on microdrive, although a disc version? running on the Opus Discovery - is planned.

Any new version of an existing program must contain improvements and additions in either performance or ease of use. Tasman has made improvements in both. For a start, the manual is easy to understand and you can quickly get to any information you need.

Most Spectrum word processors are limited to a maximum of 32 columns across the screen - even Tasword Two offers only 64 columns. Most printers, however, can cope with 80 columns. The Tasword Three screen is a window over which you can scroll up to 128 character lines across the display. The only problem with this screen format is that you cannot see all of the text all of the time, but if you want to see how the text will look when printed there is no way around the problem.

At the bottom of the screen a status line gives information on how the program is dealing with the text and how your text is being split into pages - called page breaks. The information, which you must set up for Tasword, is necessary because the printer will have to know when to ask for a new sheet of paper or where to put extra spaces in at the end of a page.

Further information is provided on two pull down Help pages, which include details of how to move the block cursor - which does all the writing - around the screen. Those Help pages are useful but I relied more heavily on the contents page of the instruction manual.

Many word processors will fail to meet your requirements, simply because the computer hardware - the keyboard - cannot cope with your typing style and speed. If I hold a character key down for too long you may several copies of that character up on the screen. Alternatively, if you don't hold it down for long enough the character may not be picked up at all.

Tasword Three, however, has an option which will change the amount of time the computer takes before it repeats a character. If you are a slow typist you may want to increase the interval before a repeat and if you are fast you will want to make the repeat faster.

You may have noticed that some word processors cannot cope with the speed at which you are typing. The computer is taking the characters and putting them straight on the screen. When it comes back to get another character you are already on a new sentence and it has missed several words.

To combat this problem of losing text Tasman has incorporated a text buffer into its program. The buffer continually takes in text at one end and is continually putting text onto the screen at the other. A quick typist will notice that text is still appearing on screen after typing is finished. Despite the buffer, however, I found it difficult to get ahead of the word processor's display.

The flashing block cursor, similar to the one used to edit Basic programs, posed a problem in Tasword Two because it obliterated the character you were typing.

The same type of cursor is used in Tasword Three but the program gives you the opportunity to change the rectangular block to another shape - such as an underline mark. Unfortunately, whatever character you use, the cursor still flashes and obscures any text beneath it. The cursor can also be changed to print characters in different pen colours, although with the television display text legibility is not increased by much.

All the usual word processor functions are included. You can set and clear margins - making the text any width across the screen. There is also a facility to search for words and phrases which can be changed to other words if required. If you want to change large chunks of your text you can insert blocks of text - sections made up of a varying number of lines - and copy blocks from one area of a document to another.

In addition to those commands, which are also included in Tasword Two, Tasman has added instructions which will copy blocks, lines and paragraphs. Also, you can unjustify text which is already justified, so that some lines are short and some long.

An unusual, but useful, feature calls back the last line you deleted into the line in which the cursor stands. For instance, you could have deleted 'I Love' but you could recall it into the phrase 'The Work movement' making it 'The I Love Work movement'.

Another major innovation is the introduction of tabulation markers. Those are set at various points along the line and the cursor will be automatically positioned at the first when the tabulation key is pressed. Pressing that key again will send the cursor along to the next mark.

The Tasword tabulation settings are only left justified, so you cannot centre text on a tabulation mark.

For those of you who already have Tasword Two and Masterfile but want to upgrade, a program to convert Tasword Two text files to Tasword Three format, and a replacement for the Masterfile basic program, are included on the cartridge. On our copies the conversion program would not load, and apparently the first couple of hundred copies left out the address to load the code. If you find you have one of these Tasman can either tell you how to correct it or will replace it.

If there is a fault with Tasword Three it is that is has too many commands, especially for cursor movement. But that is unimportant when set against its features. With The Writer now on the market it is difficult to say it is the best available but what is clear is that it offers a highly professional word processor which more than holds its own.

Spectrum
Tasman Software
Word Processor
£16.50

One of the reasons that professional disc-based packages like Wordstar can offer so many features is that they use a system of program overlays, so that all of the programs need not be resident in memory at the same time; if that was so there would be no room for the text file. It was impossible to implement on Tasword Two, since it was written before Microdrives were available and had to be loaded from cassette. Tasword Three will not work from cassette, and the program cartridge has to be resident in drive one at all times to enable the overlays to be loaded as needed.

Tasword Three retains all the features of Tasword Two and has a number of additional ones. It is also faster. It can print 128 columns of text, with the screen window scrolling smoothly sideways to accommodate the extra width. Two comprehensive help pages are available, with the top third of the screen being set up for a resident help menu. That feature can be turned on or off. After an hour or so of practice, the help menu can be removed to show a full screen of text.

The delete menu is comprehensive, allowing the user to delete to the left of the cursor in the normal way, or to delete the character under the cursor. Whole words, lines, paragraphs, blocks or even the entire text file may be deleted. A pleasant feature is the way the program remembers the last line you have just deleted, enabling it to be recalled in case it was done in error.

Inserting text is simple, with a choice of three insert modes - character insert, line insert and full automatic insert - with re-justify if automatic right justification is "on". When using search and replace, Tasword is told the text to be found and with what it is to be replaced. Replacement may be defined as selective, in which case the program stops at each "find", enabling the user to decide whether to replace or not. Tasword will re-form each paragraph automatically during all replacements.

Tasword Three supports Tasprint, a utility permitting a variety of interesting fonts to be printed using a dot matrix printer. The most impressive new feature is that Data Merge files may be set up using Tasword Three, or the Masterfile database program by Campbell. A standard letter or document may be printed any number of times, each copy addressed individually from a list of names and addresses held in Masterfile.

In addition to the program files, the Tasword Three cartridge is complete with seven tutor/text files for practice and education, a program for converting Tasword Two text files to Tasword Three format and a program called "MF" to utilise Masterfile. The 64-page manual accompanying the program is very extensive and clearly-written, with many examples to demonstrate the new Data Merge features.

Fortunately there are only two grumbles. Tasword Three is all machine code and so those with discs must rely on Microdrive. The other moan is that a 128K Spectrum owner will be annoyed that the program overlays could not be stored inside the machine and paged in and out, instead of relying on the program cartridge.

Tasword Three is a very impressive package and obviously well worth £16.50 price, even if you already have Tasword Two.

A WORD IN YOUR SPECTRUM

The Spectrum is under-estimated as a word processing machine, says John Wase. Here he reviews eight programs in support of his argument.

Word processing does not require much computer power. PipeDream on the new Z-88 uses exactly the same Z-80 chip as all versions of the venerable Spectrum. Thus the Spectrum, too, should, in theory, provide good word processing facilities, although in practice there are limitations like memory. A 48K Spectrum has around 41K for both program and text file, around 110K for the 128K version, and the screen display at only 32 columns.

Nevertheless, I found eight readily-available packages, plus variants for various models, of assorted prices, features, sophistication and complexity. Each has been written with some particular purpose in mind and all have virtues and vices associated with what is, after all, a compromise, for no word processing program suits everyone or all applications.

The constraints of the 32-column screen are overcome in a variety of ways. In some programs text lines continue along a second or third display line and end with some recognisable symbol, while in others the screen is re-defined to up to 80 characters per line, further augmented by multiple lines or sideways scrolling, giving as many as 148 characters per printer line.

While it is possible to provide a good deal of the information about the packages in tabular form, it really gives little feeling for the strong and weak points, the aims and the overall success of each package. Therefore I have chosen a combination of tables and comment to provide sufficient information to guide you in choosing packages suitable for your needs. The packages are Mini-Office, a suite of programs for younger children; Ramprint, an add-on printer interface with integral word processor; Spectral Writer, bundled with Wafadrive; WordMaster; Word Manager; The Last Word; The Writer and finally, the Tasword family. They are listed in table one, along with the outstanding features of each package, the cost and supplier.

The easiest thing to do is to take them in groups. First, Mini-Office, which has a very simple set of instructions on a cassette-sized book; interpretation by an adult will be necessary. There is a simple test piece to be typed-in; it appeared in big letters an inch or more high in yellow on a black background on my old TV; it is very easy for a child to write a simple letter but with very little more scope.

The normal mode is insert and there is also a crude copy, so letters or lines can be added or deleted; crude tabs complete the features. The main menu offers the usual save, verify, load or options with a further choice of double height, double width, margin setting and characters per line.

It could have been an excellent program to introduce a child to an integrated suite had it been revamped but there are no facilities to use a printer other than the obsolete Sinclair gadget or compatibles, and the other options integrate badly into the word processor. You would need a suitable printer for your child to make the most of it.

The next pair are proper programs, both intended for the serious user, and both released relatively early. Tasword 2, a development of Tasword on the ZX-81, provides a 64-character line, a fixed text length of 320 lines - 10-and-a-bit pages of double-spaced A4. Spectral Writer is similar but with squarer letters some say much more legible. In both programs insertion is by opening a word or a line and then re-justifying; there is no auto insert mode.

LINE AND COLUMN

Line and column are given on-screen but there is no word count. The cursor will move by line, character, or to the start or finish of the text; in Tasword 2 it is very slow. Word wrap is automatic, characters and lines can be deleted, blocks can be moved and copied and there is a crude search and replace.

Text can be justified with smooth or ragged right margin and centred and margins can be set for tables but there are no tabs in Tasword 2 and no headers, footers or auto-page numbering, no mail-merge, conditional printing or macros; just start and finish lines, one copy only. You can put eight printer codes in the program at once and change them whenever you like.

Both programs are good, straightforward, very simple word processors. You can achieve professional results very quickly Spectral Writer scores by having tabs, a line-end bell and is a little slicker but it normally is only bundled with Wafadrive, Tasword 2 is ubiquitous and bundled with Microdrives.

The chief advantage of both programs is that they are very simple; much is in Basic and is easily user-adapted. The major disadvantage is that printer control codes in the text destroys WYSIWYG concept unless you adopt low cunning or a patch. For simple letters of only a few pages they are easy and adequate.

The other processors are, in general, more sophisticated and it is probably easier to deal with their main features in a large table and just comment briefly on their strengths and weaknesses. The simplest is probably Ramprint, a printer interface and joystick port with a built-in word processor on ROM. I found the documentation brief but the gadget easy to use.

Although it contains most features one needs, there are disadvantages. It will work only with tape or Microdrives, for instance, and it will display only 32 columns when you are entering text, making complex work almost impossible, although it will display a 64-column screen to show you what the work will be like at the end.

That apart, having the works in an EPROM means that there is no software to load; plug it in, type one command and go. For straightforward documents, also those needing underlining, italics and other such fancy bits, even page numbering, it works and works well.

Word-Master again is for the Spectrum owner who has no discs. It works well with tape or Microdrive and an EPROM-driven interface. Within limitations I found a program which was specifically aimed at crude desk-top publishing. The documentation could be improved and I did not particularly like its 64-column character set. A further problem is that right justification could not be implemented on-screen, although was satisfactory when printed; that does not help DTP layout.

Against that, several files can be held in memory at once, page numbers, headers and footers are catered for and printer control codes are handled beautifully, either in a command line which does not print but affects the text below or as special characters for the more common sorts, so that H2O can be printed readily without upsetting justification.

PICTURES

Pictures can be incorporated with the graphic commands and text can be printed either to the right or to the left of it; again, instructions are a little sparse. Graphmate, a separate, stand-alone program, produces bar charts or pie charts easily but with provision for labelling axes left to Word-Master. The programs are independent and the products of Graphmate have to be saved before incorporation.

Cardex also supplied Headliner on a separate tape. It will produce headlines in a variety of styles for subsequent incorporation. This is a useful suite as it stands; further development and the production of disc/128K versions using more interfaces would make it still better.

Word Manager 4 is aimed at a different end-user, evident from its being bundled with Mail and Address Manager II. The review version 4.2 has a number of improvements over earlier issues, including a completely re-written Address Manager II. All saves and loads are in Basic and I liked particularly the single keypress to modify and transfer everything to disc. The 64-column character set looked almost like script, unlike any of the others; I liked it. The normal screen is bright. Lines longer than 64 characters are wrapped round and shown on the line below - not bright.

The instruction book was adequate. Some features were easy to use but I did not like the constant switching between modes to use cursors and delete, the lack of on-screen prompts - particularly caps - or the way in which paragraphs were completed before on-screen justification took place.

Page numbering is there but not headers or footers. Address Manager II is a database specific for Word Manager; Mail Manager takes the text from Word Manager and the names and addresses from Mail Manager and integrates them. There are conditional indices for Mr. Mrs. M/s or Miss but no real conditional printing is available.

For circulation of simple club letters or even, at a pinch, a short club magazine, this would do the trick satisfactorily if you get used to the vagaries involved in editing and, at the price which includes all three programs, it is unbeatable.

In contrast, The Last Word has a very well-produced and extensive manual. I found it very easy to use. Again, all the loads and saves are in Basic but you will have to type-in some new lines - supplied - to get it working from Microdrive or disc; a novice might not like this.

The screen display is changeable from 40, 48, 60 or 80 characters per line - not too good on a monitor, better on a large television set where the slight fuzz causes the eye to assume a good deal. It has most of the features one might expect, like headers, footers, page numbers, selected printing from Basic and mail-merge, with its own data files.

Because lines are terminated by a carriage return symbol there is no insert mode; you have to split a line to insert letters or words. Screen refresh is a trifle slow and the program is 48K, although the author says that there is the possibility of a 128K program in the future.

That said, everything else is good. Control codes do not disturb justification; by screen wrap-around you can get up to 148 characters per line; formatting is very flexible, exiting into Basic to insert your own routines is encouraged and examples given.

Tutor files loaded from tape help you to learn to manipulate text and load and save mail-merge information. Although I had never used it previously and am very familiar with another processor, I found the keys logical and liked the program.

NO COLOURS

The Writer is in two versions, 48K and 128K. Although Softek was very helpful on the telephone and promised to send both programs, plus The Artist, plus a pre-release version of The Filer, they did not arrive in time for this review. Fortunately I was able to borrow a 48K version of The Writer. It is well-presented with a good instruction book. No colours are used; the screen is uniformly white letters on a black background and looks very smart.

The 64 characters a line lettering is clear, square rather like Spectral Writer - and easy to read. The normal text manipulations are on symbol or extended mode and the program starts in insert mode. Press "Edit" and move the arrow over the top-line menu; up comes an overlay menu with obvious choices for all the things like file handling, saving and so on.

Printing includes mail-merge, conditional printing and can include calculations. All in all, a very impressive package. I found it easy to use, too, and liked it. The 128K version contains a pagemaker facility which imports pictures from The Artist. I had hoped to be able to look at this, too, and compare it to the Word-Master DTP facilities.

Finally, the Tasword series. Tasword 3 uses the same black on white character set as Tasword 2 - adequate and readable but scarcely exciting - but there the similarity ends. Because, unlike several of the other programs, all loads and saves are in machine code, there are a number of versions to fit various machines and devices, including Microdrive. Opus and Disciple discs, but there is no tape version, because to fit in all the features and still keep a respectable length file, the main menu is fed in as an overlay; it is frustrating to have to wait seven seconds for it to load from Microdrive or Opus.

All the standard features are present; mail-merge from Masterfile or from its own address lists produced from within the program, headers, footers, pagination, plenty of control codes to send, print several text files sequentially, print multiple copies, customise program, overtype - standard - or insert mode, word count, space remaining - do not fill it too tightly, though.

The main menu is, like all the Spectrum Taswords, accessed by symbol shift and A; the rest is easy. The manual is well-printed and laid-out and a tutor file is included. The 128K versions are almost exactly the same, except for the control key for insertion and some tidying as the Amstrad Spectrums no longer have symbols on the keys.

The main menu appears instantly and the text file is large, between 40 and 50 pages of double-spaced A4, which is a tremendous advantage if you write complicated documents and need to keep referring to what has gone before. The new +3 version appears similar to the user but contains code enabling a spellchecker to work and the extended mode bug which locks the main menu has been fixed.

The biggest disadvantage is the lack of justification when control codes are inserted - redeemed by a patch from Seven Stars Software; against this is the ease of use and the fact that Tasword and Masterfile are both available on a range of machines, even PC compatibles. Again, I liked Tasword; it works well and is good value.

Compared to most other machines, the choice of word processors on the Spectrum is wide and some are technically very good. There is no need to buy that new Amstrad or PC-compatible if all you want is a word processor, particularly if you have a +2 or a +3 with their good keyboards. After all, Tasword is very similar on the PC. Moreover, the PC will not play budget games as well when you are not using it.

SON OF TASWORD

The recent arrival of The Writer and Word Manager have threatened Tasword II's reputation as the best Spectrum word processor, but now Tasman are fighting back with Tasword III.

Tasman Software
£16.50

Tasword 2 has long been the definitive word processor for the Spectrum, so the arrival of Tasword 3 is quite an event.

Tasword 3 is only supplied, and can only be run, on Microdrive. The reason is that it now has many extra features and in order to accommodate them the program is stored on the microdrive cartridge in sections. When loaded, it goes straight into the text entering mode. When, as with Tasword 2, you use the STOP key to go to the main menu, another section of the program is loaded from the cartridge. This handles text file saving loading and printing, and program customizing and saving. When you return to the text file, the other section of the program is fetched from the cartridge.

NEW FEATURES

The new Tasword has been given its extra features without sacrificing any of the existing ones. In text entering mode part of the 'help' page is displayed at the top of the screen and the TRUE VIDEO and INV VIDEO keys are used to scroll this, so that the whole of the function key index is available to you as you write your text. If the presence of this prompt window annoys you you can switch it off, or the full help" page can be accessed.

There are now 15 ways of moving the cursor: one letter or word in either direction; to the end of the line; to the start or end of the paragraph or page; up or down line by line; to the start or end of the text; fast or slow scrolling through the text. The speed of the cursor movement, which I found painfully slow in Tasword 2, has been speeded up and is much better.

In addition to adjustable margins, Tasword now has full user-definable tabulation and you can move to the next tab in either direction. Deletion options have been extended, so that letter, word, paragraph or block may be deleted. Spaces and blank lines may be inserted into the text, and there is still an insert mode for insertions without over-writing existing text. The useful search and replace mode, which allows you to replace every occurrence of a word with another word or phrase remains, but now you also have the option of stopping at each occurrence and indicating whether or not it is to be replaced. The text formatting and block handling commands are the same as those in Tasword 2.

A useful new feature is the page switch. When this is on, a line is drawn across the screen at the end of each page, so that you can see the page layout as you write the document. Justification and word wrap may be turned on and off as before.

Text capacity is now measured by the number of characters used, rather than by the number of pages. You can produce 1000 pages or more with only a couple of words on each, but less than 300 if you fill up every line. A word and character count is now included, and displayed on the main menu, but it is a pity that this is not displayed in text entering mode, since going to the menu and back, involving two program loads from the cartridge, is a chore if all you want is to check the word count.

Some of the major improvements are in the printing. Multiple copies are now available, and the program will number pages, print the number at the top or bottom. In the centre or at the side of the page, and provide a page header or footer as required. The printing margin, which is used to centre the text on the page, is specified at print time.

There is also a mail merge facility, with graphics printer controls entered into the text in the same way as those which indicate underlining or type face change, to indicate where in a document information from the data file is to be inserted. Unfortunately the review copy of Tasword 3 was so hot off the press that the handbooks had not been printed, so I was unable to discover how this feature works or test it. I suspect that, like Tasmerge with Tasword 2, it makes use of Campbell Masterfile files (actually, a quick call to Tasman confirmed that this is the case, but Tasword 3 is also capable of creating its own free-standing files - Ed).

Without the handbook, I could not customize the program to run with the Kempston interface - the method used with Tasword 2 did not work. Having written this review with Tasword 3, I tried to load it into Tasword 2 to print it, only to find that the two programs are not compatible, and all I got was a 'wrong file type' error report. Where Tasword 2 saved the text as a block of code Tasword 3 saves it as a Microdrive data file.

Being unable to get the printer to work with Tasword 3 meant that I could not test another valuable facility, the alternative character set. These are a useful set of signs, symbols, fractions, diphthongs and foreign letter forms, and they are re-definable if required.

Tasword 3 can rival any word processor, and with it the Spectrum is a serious word processing machine. It is difficult to see where further improvements could be made. Certainly it now has all the features that I ever felt were lacking in Tasword 2. Now all I want is a Wafadrive version - with a handbook! (the handbook's on its way, honest! - Ed.)

TASWORD IN THE ROUND

John Wase examines the Tasword Three Opus disc conversion.

Back in April (the first ZX Computer Monthly, p.19) Carol Brooksbank reviewed the new Tasword Three. Following the excellent review. I eagerly awaited the disc version. Tasman stated at the time, "Tasword Three is supplied on, and will only run on microdrives." Discovery is not compatible with microdrives and Tasword Three has only a short basic loader; conversion was beyond my capabilities. However, Tasman assured me that an Opus version was on the way and eventually it has arrived.

NEW FEATURES

Just to recap on Carol's review. Tasword Three includes virtually everything Tasword Two omits: plenty of printer options, lots of control codes, fast cursor movement with every conceivable variant, multiple copies, headers, footers, pagination, printing sequential files (for large documents).

So what's new about the Opus version? Firstly there's the added reliability. Secondly, as was mentioned, every time STOP is pressed for the main menu, this is pulled from the disc. I did some timings on this: as near as I could get it, it took 7.8 seconds - just acceptable. I suspect microdrives took longer.

Thirdly, there are some essential differences to the program. When the disc is catalogued, the catalogue fills the top half of the screen in three columns, and then asks for a scroll if there are still more files: this permits the extra disc capacity to be used. And. of course, the number of permissible drives is cut to two. Finally, a label in the front of the manual gives information on using the Opus Centronics port (I would have preferred hash to pound) and, naively, tells you to read disc for microdrive (what about cartridge?).

BUGS FIXED

In the original microdrive version, there were a few bugs. The first few copies omitted the loading address for the Tasword Two/Tasword Three file conversion program; more obscurely, there were one or two copies where font changing in Tasprint was difficult, where the last print line from a Masterfile merge was too low, or with a few minor problems in Malilmerge. These have all been fixed in the disc version, which is essentially bug-free, as far as I could find.

IMPRESSIONS

My initial impression was one of complexity. One of the big advantages of Tasword Two was its simplicity, and in comparison, Tasword Three looked formidable. However, it didn't take long to get used to it; the tutor is so good and the instruction book so comprehensive that most of the features are readily explained. My first task was to print 50 copies of a letter, and although I used the form-feed option, it wouldn't! (This is because there are so many options; the one I chose applied to page breaks, but not to the end of text). I couldn't find the force form feed option, either - I was looking at the wrong page of the manual. So all in all, I started up by fouling it up pretty well. Nevertheless, I got it to work within 20 minutes and printed out my fifty letters.

REPLACES

When I got a note from our Ed, about this page, I thought I'd better check all the goodies. Tasword Two's "Search and Replace" was glacier-like, so I tried Tasword Three's version with the following (I must have got Ed, on the brain):

Ed is a little boy, just like ed, Ed's dad; uncle ed; cousin Ed and ed. They are like ed: like ed's dad, Ed, ed is a suitable sort of word to edit.

It happily and rapidly replaced Ed ed Ed, ed. ed: ed; with Edward, but ignored Ed's or ed's or Edit (that is it allowed for most punctuation marks). Pretty good.

T2/T3

Finally, the Tasword Two to Tasword Three conversion program. The instruction manual (p.63) asks you to ensure that your Tasword Two text files are in drive 1. Mine are all on five and a quarter discs in drive 2. and not interchangeable. Fortunately, it's relatively easy to edit lines 110 and 180 of this program to drive 2, and that solves the problem.

BITS AND PIECES

There are still a few irritating features. Control codes (even including spaces) can still spoil justification. Fortunately, there is a version of "Taspro" for Tasword Three giving equal justification and overcoming this problem. The Tab feature is left justified only. You can't save sections of a file, (although deleting is much easier than with Tasword Two). These, however, are small gripes: all in all it's a superb program, excellently documented and easy to use. I'm a convert already - pass me T2T3!