I agree with Michael (G), Steve (H) and Stuart (B) that Word 2000 (9) is the "best of a bad bunch". I am surprised to hear Margaret (P), Allan (C) and Kevin (W) prefer Word 97, which I found to be buggy and unstable. Naomi (K) is correct, Alt+F9 (view Field codes) is not the Word equivalent of WordPerfect's Reveal Codes. Word's equivalent is, to quote the Help: View format settings for a paragraph 1. On the Help menu, click What's This? 2. When the pointer becomes a question mark, click the text you want to check. 3. When you finish checking your text, press ESC. A little used feature, these days, methinks. I remember it from the WordPerfect to Word conversion days, but haven't used it in years. Hence my visit to the Help, where entering "reveal codes" in the Answer Wizard brought up the topic. That the Wizard did so is evidence that this feature was almost certainly included as a sop to Word Perfect users. Interestingly, legacy items from the Word conquest of WordPerfect can still be found in the Word interface. For example Tools - Options - General tab has these two check boxes: * Help for WordPerfect users * Navigation keys for WordPerfect users Also at Tools - Options, the Compatibility tab has check boxes for: * Do full justification like WordPerfect 6.x for Windows * Set the width of a space like WordPerfect 5.x * Suppress extra line spacing like WordPerfect 5.x I read an article on the web by one of the developers of the first editions of Word for Windows. He emphasised the importance Bill Gates placed on having Word supplant WordPerfect. Having the dominant word processor was seen as vital to the success of the Windows OS. According to this article, one aspect that Gates understood to be critical was the ability of Word's file filters to successfully import and convert WordPerfect documents. Apparently Gates took a personal interest in the development progress of this aspect of the product. Peter Fagan IntraDoc Pty Ltd ************************************************** To post a message to austechwriter, send the message to austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx To subscribe to austechwriter, send a message to austechwriter-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with "subscribe" in the Subject field. To unsubscribe, send a message to austechwriter-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe" in the Subject field. To search the austechwriter archives, go to www.freelists.org/archives/austechwriter To contact the list administrator, send a message to austechwriter-admins@xxxxxxxxxxxxx **************************************************