In the belief that bigger is not always better, a group of former WordPerfect developers started from scratch and produced a word processor with bare-bones features and speedy operations.
Leaving the animated help characters and myriad feature sets to the Office 97s of the world, Orem, Utah-based Word Place is offering Yeah Write, a svelte word processor that aims to speed up processing and simplify editing, printing, and other basic operations.
"As people spend more time with email and browsers and less and less time in word processors, they are going to want a real WYSIWYG program which has a nice environment for writing," said Pete Peterson, president of Word Place. "By starting over we've been able to make a much smarter product."
Yeah Write documents are created by clicking on a "New" icon that appears in an index that resembles a piece of fat-lined pad paper. The program saves documents automatically as each paragraph is completed, and saved files appear in the indexes by file type - including general, letters, and memos. Screen fonts are set independently from printer fonts, so a large onscreen font can be used even if the final version is to be printed with a standard Times-Roman or other font.
A freeware version of Yeah Write is available from the company's Web site, and another version, which includes an address book, envelopes, and email and fax support, is priced at US$15.
Peterson said the company will update the software later this year, and produce a kids' version - with a more colorful interface and special tabs for a diary, assignments, and papers - before school resumes in the fall.
