More than twenty books on WordStar exist—maybe because of the old manuals’ failings—and one of the better guides is Arthur Naiman’s Introduction to WordStar. Published by Sybex Computer Books, Berkeley, California, it’s generally as intelligent and helpful as the program itself.[[101]]

Remember the basic criteria for evaluating manuals of any kind, factory supplied or not:

1. The general logic of the manual. The author should have written it from your viewpoint, not his—from the viewpoint of what you do with the program, not how the programmer coded it. Ideally, you’ll find descriptions of related commands in the same chapter.

2. The quality of the index. I’ll charitably assume it’s there to begin with. It should list even the most obscure commands—telling on what pages you’ll find them.

3. Simplicity of vocabulary and sentence structure. A manual shouldn’t impress; it should teach.

USEFULNESS TO OLD PROS AND BEGINNERS ALIKE

WordStar adjusts to different levels of skill. You have some menus to guide you, to help you decide, say, whether you want to print or see material you’ve already written. But most of the time you won’t need menus during composition. Not after you’re experienced, anyway. Some rival word-processing programs have menus that bog everyone down, beginners and old pros. But not WordStar. It has four “Help” levels, including one that keeps messages constantly on the screen to guide you. But you can zap all this once you’re a WordStar pro.

WordStar is only as “friendly” to you as you want it to be. It isn’t like a puppy leaping up on you and licking your face at the wrong time.

SPEED

WordStar lets you do your job in a hurry. Well, basically. If you’re just turning out short business letters, for instance, and don’t want to store them on your disk, try something else. WordStar makes you electronically save your words there before you can print anything. And that takes time. For swapping words around, however, for additions or deletions, few programs could surpass this one. Were I writing long sales pamphlets or annual reports, WordStar would be my choice.