Labels:text | screenshot | majorelle blue | electric blue OCR: The Writers Toolkit for DOS version 2.0 by Tony Curro Have you ever started typing, and suddenly forget how to spell a Jord? Is it freind or friend? Are there 2 C's and 2's in success? I am sure many of you have had this happen. You are writing a letter, or a quick note, or writing a message while online to a BBS, and you draw a blank. It happens to me often. Well, with The Writers Toolkit (WTK), you can say good-bye to this ever happening again. We do not stop there. WIK is more than just an aid to your spelling mistakes. The name says it all. It is a WRITERS TOOLKIT. When a plumber, or repairperson, comes to your house, they have more than ONE tool inside their toolbox, right? The same is true of WTK, which comes with seven such tools. WTK comes bundled on either 9-3.5" or 18-5.25" disks. I evaluated the DOS version of the product. They also make a Windows version, which if it works as fine as the DOS version, will give you much assistance. You even get a 30 day money back guarantee if you are not satisfied. It took me about 10 minutes to install the whole package. The full installation requires 7.3 MB of hard disk space. The whole operation is menu driven, but allows you to select which of the modules you wish to install, and which drive/directory you want then on. During installation, the program modifies your AUTOEXEC. BAT file, to place the directory in your PATH. This is an excellent idea, as you can then bring it up from anywhere. To start, you type CWT, or WTK. You will see a notice that the program is now in memory. ALT-M will ALWAYS bring up the menu. From here you can select the module you wish to use. This can also be accomplished by using hot-keys. For example the dictionary uses a default hot-key of ALT-D: the Quotation Reference is brought up by hitting ALT-Q. I use Q EDIT quite a bit in my writing. Once I enable WTK, I cannot quit Q EDIT by using ALT-Q, as this combination is in use. This is not a problem. Many of the programs out there use ALT and another key as combo; others use CTRL and a key. WTK allows you to modify this very easily. I chose to change ALL the keys except the menu hot-key. I elected to use CTRL-ALT-Q for Quotations. This solved my key conflict very painlessly. I have not mentioned the best feature of ALL. The Writers Toolkit requires only 10K to have six of the seven modules always in memory (TSR). The other module that it does not load is the Grammar Checker. This is run from DOS, used, and removed from memory. Grammar checker requires 495K of memory. The only time it uses memory, though, is when you are using it. If for some reason, you wish to remove WIK from memory, you can do that. As long as you have not loaded anything after WTK, you just bring up WTK, and press CTRL-F10, and it is removed. I have WTK as the last line in my AUTOEXEC. BAT file, and it is ALWAYS there for me. Whether I am typing a letter, or leaving a message online, I just hit my hot-keys, and I quickly can check if I spelled the word correctly. Some of you may say, why do I need WTK? I have a word processor that has a spell checker and thesaurus. All the better word processors, and even some of the smaller ones, do have some type of spell checking. WTK, however, goes beyond that. It gives you a dictionary and thesaurus with definitions, Style guide, Quotations, and several other modules, which I will discuss later on. The thesaurus is very useful when you want to find that perfect word to add the right touch to your document. Having a list of synonyms, with definitions of the words does help. You can cross-check a word to see if it conforms exactly to what you wish to say. WTK has a Grammar Checker, which in the short time I have used it, has vastly improved my writing. When you first run the program you are presented with a split window. On the left are the filenames; and on the right the text of the highlighted file. To select a file you can hit the first letter of the file. So hitting W, will take you to the first file that starts with W. Hitting W again takes you to the next file, and so on. The first several articles I wrote, I was getting tired of pressing keys. You must press F3 to ignore; F4 to correct; or you can manually edit the text. As I became familiar with the program, I learned quite a bit about passive voices and the like. If you are unsure about an explanation that Correc Text Grammar gives you, just pop up the Style Guide, and look for a fuller explanation, many with examples. There are options that you can set for the type of writing you do. You select from seven writing styles: Business, Fiction, etc ., to a Custom option, where you set it up the way you wish. I use quite a few words in my reviews, which are considered jargon. I can turn this option off, so GRAM will NOT warn me that I am ising jargon. The options are too numerous to mention here. When I write articles now, I very rarely see a line highlighted, which means that there is no problen. I was always a fan of the complete package. There are several grammar checkers out there. While they may all be good, they are just grammar checkers. One company does have several programs that can be used like WTK, but I believe that are run separately. I know they're all sold individually. WTK, has all of them incorporated into one package. Less of a chance of anything going wrong . WTK works with over a dozen word processors, between DOS and Windows. In addition it works on straight ASCII files, and will save changes to an ASCII for several MAC WPs, and others it does not support directly. I have had one problem with the Grammer part of WIK. Certain programs like WordStar, Displaywrite, PFS: First Choice and others do not rewrap text automatically. What this means is that after you run Grammer Checker, and save the changes to the file, you will have to go back into the word processor and reformat the text. Another feature of WTK, is the ability to cut and paste. This can even be done in DOS. You check the Dictionary of Knowledge for computer, and you see the following: An electronic device that stores and manipulates information. It differs from a calculator by being able to store a program and to store and retrieve information in its memory without human help. The above was pasted into Q EDIT, using the cut and paste feature of The insatiate itch of scribbling. William Gifford (1756-1826) English journalist The above was from the Dictionary of Quotations. DOS users can en joy this cut and paste feature. With, WTK taking only 10K, you can load all the same programs you did before without a worry of running out of room. And your tools are always there. TOOLS INCLUDED: Houghton Mifflin Correc Text Grannar and Style Checker. American Heritage Electronic Dictionary. a Dictionary of Quotations. Roget's II Electronic Thesaurus. Houghton-Mifflin's Abbreviation Program. Written Word III-Principles of Grammer & Style. The Dictionary of Common Knowledge. this covers 19 subjects on western culture. If you are a would be writer, or if you are a writer, this program will help you to write better. I have seen articles written by people with a background in journalism, that could benefit from this program. The Writers Toolkit will run on any IBM or compatible with at least 512K and DOS 2.0 or higher. It is available in DOS, Windows, and network versions . Product Information The Writers Toolkit for DOS version 2.0 Suggested Retail Price $129.00 Upgrades to v2.0 is $29.95 Systems Compatibility Corporation 401 North Wabash Ave. Suite 600 Chicago, IL 60611 800-333-1395
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