Essential Software for Writers

Authors of books on computers and software must feel very frustrated these days. No sooner have they gone to print than commercial upgrades can render their work outdated. Hy Bender is a computer and IT insider, and he has done his best to anticipate this problem. Much of what he has to say is generic to software, and on specific products he has a specialist knowledge which can predict future trends. What he has produced is a superb general guide that will be of interest to both beginners and specialists. 

He kicks off with a discussion of the relative merits of DOS and Windows programmes [speed Vs usability]. Despite personal preferences which he freely acknowledges, he has the fairness to discuss the positive advantages of competing products. The section on word-processors deals with what they can and can't do. WordPerfect and Word for Windows come out well, but he is also full of praise for AmiPro.


He discusses software some people must dream of - idea generators, rhyming packages for poets, and even humour processors and joke generators. At a more complex level, he explains the workings of software for very advanced data management, text-retrieval and editing; and the section on grammar-checkers almost made me want to start using mine again. 

It is the specialist sections which advanced users will probably find of most interest, and they certainly make the book valuable as a source of reference. There are sections dealing with software for writers in the fields of film, music, theatre, journalism [which commonly uses his own favoured word-processor XyWrite]. He also covers programmes for business [addresses and telephone numbers] for lawyers [document comparison and editing] physicians [dictionaries of pharmacology and drug trade names] linguists [translation software] and academic [bibliographies and text searching].

The section on electronic dictionaries is particularly interesting. Reviewing both products on floppy disk and CD-ROM, he discusses not just the number of entries and range of information about each lexical entry, but he analyses the usefulness of the search engines - using wildcards [* and ?] before, within, and after words in order to control the range of searches. For instance, a search on c*t can produce 'cat' and 'catalyst', but also 'cryptologist'. He also demonstrates how to use search facilities to create what he calls 'reverse dictionaries' - ones in which you can create a definition, then search for a word that fits it. 

He discusses general purpose tools: file compressors, virus detectors, memory managers, and file conversion programmes, explaining en passant more succinctly than I have ever seen in any DOS manual exactly what programmes do when they are moved in and out of memory or cached. 

One interesting feature relates to the issue of publishers' time-lag. Hints in the text suggest that the book was written in 93, and now reading it in 95 one is struck by the fact that the Internet and World Wide Web have wrought profound changes to information technology in the last two years. How quickly things change! In the section discussing On-Line services he says "it's difficult to join the Internet" [!] though he adds presciently "that's rapidly changing". Some of the software he is reviewing is now challenged by alternative products which are available free to download [but that's another story]. 

On DTP, the big packages (Quark XPress and PageMaker) are fairly discussed, and it is only when he comes to printers that there seems to be any bias. [All others are swept aside in favour of a rave for Hewlett-Packard.] If there is a criticism to be made, there is a certain amount of repetition here and there, but in a work of reference this seems forgivable. Full details of suppliers are given, with their full addresses and phone numbers, and both the official and street prices of their products. OK, they are all American, but many have UK distributors. What I found more a shame was that there are no Email numbers quoted, but maybe these will be added in a second edition.

NB! 2000 - This book has recently gone out of print - but it is still well worthwhile searching for a copy.