Thanks for the info 987...

I've got XP and a DX9 card, so word 2013 won 't work for me.

I use ability office 2001 for my stuff, I just want an MS Word compatible Word processor program to send cv's and stuff to employers.

I thought MS Works would do that.

Of course, I now realise it means getting MS Word, but I want it on disk so's I can re-install it when necassary.

So I'll be looking for older Word versions on ebay.

Thanks for that link a4... but word 2013 isn't useable for me.

Thanks for the help, a435...

So just to check :

LibreOffice can write word compatible documents, if they're kept simple.

I can use Word viewer to open documents that LibreOffice can't, I then copy (right mouse click and left click on copy), then open LibreOffice and paste into it. fiddle about in LibreOffice and save. then open the saved document with Word viewer.

As an alternative, LibreOffice can save in .PDF format and this allows the others to see it as written.

I think I've understood that.

Hmmm, Can MS Works with the Filters and Converters installed work with MS Word? If so would it be best to get Works 9, rather than use the Works 8.5 I've got?

Using Windows 7, 8 and 10
 

I am currently using Windows 8 both my laptop and PC and Windows 7 at work. I am running Windows 10 in VMware 10 on both my laptop and pc. I have reserved a copy of Windows 10 when its release July 29, 2015.

Past is prologue...............
 

The Open Office question, continued
Downloaded a copy of Apache Open Office. Was able to take my resume from Word 2013 (saved in Word 97-2003 file format) into Open Office and back to Word 2013 with no problems.

PC software: An abridged history
At the start of my PC support career, the "Big 3" were WordStar, Lotus 1-2-3, and dBase II. Prior to Lotus 1-2-3, I had cut my teeth on VisiCorp's VisiCalc/16 running on an Apple II. VisiCalc was also available for CP/M (the only alternative operating system available prior to the IBM PC and PC-DOS) Tandy's TRS-80, the Commodore 64, and the Hewlett-Packard 80 series.

Of course a PC in the early days was a $3000 proposition. But when Lotus 1-2-3 came out, the Finance and Accounting folks went completely insane, and suddenly this wasn't such a hurdle. Definitely miles ahead of VisiCalc, which did not make a good transition to the PC world.

Ashton-Tate's dBase II was probably the first relational database app for the PC. It had a fairly large command set. If you knew a programming language it was easy to use. If you didn't, well...... Later came dBase III as well as competitors such as r:BASE, Paradox and Fox Pro.

WordStar was powerful for it's time, but was heavy on keyboard commands. If you didn't have a keyboard template, you were really in trouble. It had a steep learning curve.

Standalone word processors from Wang Labs and IBM (DisplayWriters) were popular pre-PC platforms. As the PC market expanded, word processors that were based on or closely emulated these products were popular: MultiMate and IBM's DisplayWrite. They made weening secretaries off the Wang and IBM machines easier. MultiMate was a superb product offering both menu based and keyboard based commands and supported over 300 makes and models of printer. DisplayWrite was tied to layer upon layer of menus. Plus IBM made the boneheaded decision to provide the product with support only for IBM printers. They assumed that if you wanted to use a non-IBM printer you'd write your own printer control table ! As the Hewlett-Packard LaserJet rose in popularity this pretty much doomed DisplayWrite.

Then came Microsoft Word and Satellite Software International's WordPerfect. The early Word didn't gain much traction against it's competitors. Frankly, WordPerfect 5.1 was a dream: a clean interface, powerful, and easy to use. I can remember using WP 5.1 on a IBM PC/AT tied to a IBM 3820 printer. The 3820 used an external processor card. The results were superb, very comparable to the desktop publishing software products like Adobe PageMaker that were available in those days. It was the word processor that made me finally lay down my copy of PC Write.

It was actually IBM that was the first to introduce an integrated suite of PC applications: The Personal Decision Series (PDS). The Personal Decision Series included a word processor, a database manager, a report writer, a graphics program, and a communications suite. There were also more specialized modules. It's modular design owed much to larger IBM platforms such as the System/370 mainframe computers. In fact, PDS would allow interchange of data and files from the PC to IBM large and midrange platforms. The problem was it could not supplant the lead that 1-2-3 had in the PC spreadsheet market, nor were businesses willing to toss out existing PC and mainframe/midrange applications to follow the PDS strategy. Adding to the confusion it even competed with other IBM product offerings. Needless to say, it never truly caught on as a standard.

Microsoft Office came to rise with the popularity of Windows 3.x. As was the case with VisiCorp when they ported VisiCalc/16 directly over to the IBM PC (instead of a total rewrite), Lotus failed to take advantage of the new Windows environment with a rewrite of 1-2-3. Accordingly both Word and Excel overtook their market competitors. Lotus 1-2-3 was passed by Excel in the early 1990's and never recovered.

Likewise, SSI fumbled it's rollout of WordPerfect for Windows, which came out two years after Microsoft Word was released under Windows 3.0. The release of the WordPerfect Office suite also missed the mark due to poor feature integration and an inconsistent user interface across it's modules.

A short quiz

Q: Who invented the first graphical user interface (GUI), Smalltalk-80 ?

Q: Who invented laser printers ?

Q: Who invented desktop publishing ?

Q: Who invented Local Area Networking (Ethernet) ?

For those who don't know, the answer, and the direction the company took are amazing.............................

Past is prologue...............
It never fails to amaze me how often in the technology field companies with seemingly insurmountable competitive advantages in the market (VisiCorp, Lotus, SSI, IBM) wind up failing because they either misread technology trends or the marketplace.

AGAIN, Microsoft could easily find itself with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel.

BUZZZZ.......WRONG !

Anyone else want to try ?

Smalltalk 80 came out in the late 70's.... LRG headed by Alan somebody or other...??

And you're refusing the FREE upgrade now for what reason...??

(check the right hand bottom corner by your network connections; if you're running 8 or 8.1 it will let you do a free upgrade now.... 7 is trickier though. you have to go to Microsoft's site and check your compatibility)

Ohh, getting close. Define "LRG"


As fate would have it, those are my words as a blessing to Billybunter. Glad to have a friend of Billy's here along for the ride.

OK, after dinner I'll give the answer...........

a research group belonging to xerox. the company most known around the planet for their early copiers. xerox became a household word for copying, so you didn't 'copy this', you 'xerox this for me will you'.

BB was a man who has no equals, and I'm pleased to have shared just a small part of his life. Gone, but never forgotten. Like Mandela. (only more irish)

Billy would be proud..............
 

BANG ! Give that man a cigar................

Yes. The Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) invented or pioneered an impressive list of technology. From the Wikipedia article.........https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARC_%28company%29

The most AMAZING thing about this is that Xerox executives FAILED to market the bulk of this technology. As the article states, the technology leadership position Xerox would have enjoyed probably could not have been matched for years. While no doubt they reaped millions in royalties, they probably passed up billions in revenues. Could you imagine what desktop computing would look like today if Xerox had moved forward in an aggressive manner with the innovations they had ? Instead, Xerox decided to market photocopiers as their principle line of business. As the old sage once said "The rest is history.............."

Other companies would benefit from Xerox's myopic vision. A number of the engineers left for a small startup in Cupertino (I'm guessing you know the name of the company).

So again, we see that the impossible has and can happen: great technology doesn't make it to the marketplace, lousy technology gets pushed out the door. Companies in dominant positions in the industry make mistakes and wind up becoming after thoughts, empty shells.

And now, in true BillyBunter fashion, I am going downstairs to try and piece together dinner, first checking for moldy leftovers........