Compare--Pathagoras to MSWord's 'native' features:
How does Pathagoras compare to MSWord's "AutoCorrect" and "AutoText" features?
Word has some pretty powerful tools to help you compose documents. For example, whenever you are typing, Word can check for correct spellings of your work, or offer to complete text before you finish typing or it can call in a whole 'nother clause in place of the one you typed. If the character combination exists in MSWord's AutoCorrect or AutoText libraries, MSWord will automatically insert (or propose to insert) the text it finds.
This is a very nice feature -- sometimes. Here is the problem: let's assume you have typed a word that you really want to remain intact in you document. If it exists in the AutoCorrect library, AutoCorrect will take over (anyway) and its version will be inserted. If you frequently type those words, the consequence can drive you crazy. You can press <Alt-Z> to undo the insertion. However, if you are a fast typist and (as good operators do) are not watching your screen, you may be well beyond the point of the insertion before you notice the problem.
Because of this, many users turn off these functions. PATHAGORAS is a good substitute for them, and then goes far beyond them. PATHAGORAS the speed of AutoText and AutoCorrect but PATHAGORAS provides much more versatility for document assembly purposes. AutoCorrect and AutoText just were not designed for document assembly. For example, you cannot save all formatted text, or database fields, in an AutoCorrect library. By contrast, any text, with full formatting and database links, pictures, etc., can be saved in a PATHAGORAS glossary.
AutoText and AutoCorrect allow you to add text to your document only one term at a time. PATHAGORAS allows one term, multiple terms, hundreds of terms. It spans the range. So what PATHAGORAS has to offer is the best of both worlds.
- PATHAGORAS allows you the benefit of an AutoCorrect and AutoText library without the problems. Plus, inasmuch as PATHAGORAS runs inside of Word, you still have the benefit of these Word features in addition to those of PATHAGORAS. But you can turn them on and off at your pleasure. (We leave them off at our office. If PATHAGORAS doesn't find a term we are searching for in a glossary, it will search in the AutoCorrect library automatically.)
PLUS:
- PATHAGORAS' glossaries are available across the network. AutoCorrect and AutoText are typically local computer oriented. Along these same lines, a change to a glossary term (wherever the glossary is located) is equivalent to a system wide upgrade.
- A glossary is transportable. It is a Word document. You can take it home, edit like a regular document, use it at home, bring back the edited version to the office and save it over the original just like any other document.
- A glossary can store not only text, but pictures. tables, links. Anything. Everything. If you can save it in a standard Word document, you can save it in a glossary.
- You can easily edit a glossary because it is a Word document. Try editing AutoCorrect directly. Can't be done.
- All formatting in the original text is preserved.
How does Pathagoras compare to Windows' "My Places" feature?
Window's (XP and later) allows the user to assign folder's down the left edge of a document folder which greatly speeds up navigation from folder to folder. The idea is similar to what PATHAGORAS has done (but Pathagoras has done it since 1998). The differences are these:
- While both have unlimited capacity to store SmartPaths (or its MSWord equivalent), there is a practical limit in Word's display. Only the first few are visible on the screen.
- PATHAGORAS groups folders into convenient profiles which can be user or subject matter oriented. Word does not. All of Word's MyPlaces display all the time. (See above entry.)
- PATHAGORAS' SmartPaths are Word-centric. Only Word document folders are mapped. Word's favorite places are set at computer level and, assuming that you have set My Places for each program you run, all such folders will be displayed. (See above entry.)
- PATHAGORAS filters before the display. Word (including My Places) displays the entirety of the folders contents first. Only then can you filter.
- PATHAGORAS allows mouseless access to any folder. No way with My Places.
- PATHAGORAS allows the user to quickly move (copy to new location and delete from old location in a single step.
- PATHAGORAS allows active document deletes. If the current document is trash, then delete it without having to close it and then relocate it.
Filtered displays:
Word can display a filtered listing of files within a particular folder. However Word requires you to first display the entire folder before you can request a filter. (If you have thousands of files in your folder, even the simple process of displaying the initial screen can take a while). Then you can insert your filter criteria. Even with the filter in place, If there are a lot of sub-folders in the parent folder, you will have to scroll to below those folders before the file listing starts. Pathagoras simplifies this for you.
- Pathagoras displays filtered file lists right on the face of the PathSmart screen. This improvement is unmatched by any other program. Here are some benefits:
- If you have stored all client work in a single folder, you may have thousands of files. (Typically, that is not a good file management technique, but Pathagoras will work well with you nevertheless.) If you want to see all of the 'Thompson' file, just type in the first few characters of the name (e.g., "Thom'" and Pathagoras will immediately filter the display for you in a split second (not the four or five seconds required by Word just to display the unsorted folder). You than can scroll the available choices and select the appropriate document.
- If you need to check other SmartPaths folders to locate the file, just click any one of the other 12 buttons on the screen.
- You can quickly rotate through all of your SmartPaths. The filter remains intact without additional intervention. You have got to see this to believe it.
- Once the filter is in place, and if you decide not to select a file from the dropdown listing, you can click the file display bar and display the filtered files in the standard Word selection screen.
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Even with all of its features, PATHAGORAS has made the learning curve to move from program installation to initial document production very short. In effect, PATHAGORAS has taken document assembly to a new level -- to that of the typical user.