Ann Arbor Software's Textra Word Processing
The shortest distance between your thoughts and the printed word.
The Company
Curtis R. Anderson founded Ann Arbor Software, Inc. on December 5, 1983. According to an entry on WinWorld, the company was associated with the University of Michigan. Archive.org user Der AppleSeed referred to the Ann Arbor Software employees as “these U of M college kids”. The company was dissolved a decade later on May 15, 1993.
During my research, I stumbled across a great testimonial for the company. The November 1983 issue of PC Magazine has the following letter to the editor:
Mail Order Marvel
I recently answered an ad in PC for a product called Textra, a word processing program offered by a company called Ann Arbor Software Associates. The program sounded as if it would suit my needs, so I called the company and ordered a copy. I was promised that it would be shipped by Federal Express the next day.
A week passed, and no Textra. When I called Ann Arbor Software, a secretary listened to my complaint and said she would find out what had happened.
Within 10 minutes, news of my lost order had reached the higher-ups, and I received a phone call. I was assured that the company was very embarrassed to be starting off on the wrong foot with a new customer. The program would be shipped to me via “next day” air service, at the company’s expense. I was speechless.
The software was in my computer and working in less than 40 hours. There are some mail-order firms that do back up their promises, despite the horror stories that have circulated.
Robert Hafernik Houston, Texas
The Application
So, what features did Texta have? The September 1983 issue of PC Magazine had a short blurb about the program:
A word processing program featuring block copy and move, global search and replace, wordwrap, and merge from file, and which allows text from one file to be copied into the file being edited. Characters can be inserted by simply positioning cursor and typing, without the need to enter a special insert mode. Six delete functions are available, as are 21 cursor movements controllable from the keyboard.
Other features include paragraph reformatting, line shifting and centering, and definable margins. Printing functions include automatic pagination, headers and footers, and single sheet operations. (List Price: $70; demo disk only $10) Requires: 64K, one disk drive, PC-DOS, monitor.
December of the same year, Softalk also carried a short description of Textra:
Textra. Features full-screen editing, modeless insert and delete, overstrike, undelete, search, replace, copy, move, merge, extensive reformatting including automatic reformatting, on-screen boldfacing and underlining, full printing, and page preview mode. Documentation includes a 135-page manual and on-line tutorial, $95.
A year later, Alex Holmes wrote an in-depth review of Textra. Here are some excerpts:
“Textra is a recent entrant to the growing field of powerful, low-cost text processing programs that have emerged in the last 2 years. Designed by Ann Arbor Software for first-time users, Textra features basic word processing functions and a low price tag ($95). In many respects it rivals word processing programs costing hundreds of dollars more. Although it has none of the extras you would expect in a more-expensive text processing software, such as mail-merge or a spelling checker, it does provide an economical way of meeting most word processing needs.
…
Textra is easy to use. It loads quickly and presents you with the initial screen: a directory of the logged disk drive (with files displayed by number); the copyright statement: and two menu choices, "Changed logged drive" (sic) or "Exit to DOS." Loading the file you want to edit is easier with Textra than with any other text processor I've used lately — all you do is type in the number corresponding to the file. You can still load a file by name if you choose, but using the file numbers is easier and more convenient.
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Everything in Textra is keyed to the editor, which forms the core of the program. For instance, instead of showing the main menu at the bottom of the screen, Textra presents you with the editing menu and you must toggle back to the main menu. This takes some getting used to, but you’ll probably be using the editing options more, so it makes sense to do it this way.
It also takes a short time to get accustomed to the number of choices available for saving a file, but after learning them thoroughly you can be very comfortable with them.
…
Textra gives you a dizzying array of delete options, most of which are implemented with the function keys. The current version of Textra makes use of the F6 key for deletions at and to the right of the cursor. Other deletions are handled similarly; F8 deletes the end of a line; F5 (or the Backspace key, or Ctrl-H) deletes text to the left of the cursor; F7 deletes a line; Ctrl-F9 deletes the top of the file; and Ctrl-F10 deletes the bottom of the file. The delete modes present few problems, and after using Textra for a while, I found that it handles deletions quite conveniently. It’s much easier to hit one key, F8, to delete all the text to the end of a line than to use one or two keys in combination with the Ctrl key for deletions. Ann Arbor’s new release of Textra. 3.0, corrects a problem in earlier versions that some users had complained about: the use of the PC’s Del key. Earlier versions relied solely on F6 to delete text to the right of the cursor; with Version 3.0 you simply hit the Del key to do this.
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Once you’ve booled up with Textra, you find yourself in the edit mode. In this mode, the bottom line of the screen becomes an editing menu that shows the functions you have access to. (You can gain access to other functions by shifting to the master menu, which is also an option displayed on the bottom line of the screen.) From the master menu, you are given options for the search, replace, move, copy, print, merge, shift, switch, and save functions. The copy and move functions allow you to cut and paste copy within a text file, while the merge function lets you bring in text from another file. The shift functions are used to center lines and move them around so you can format the text.
…
I found Textra to be easy to use and straightforward once I learned the correct keyboard moves, which didn’t take long. This program should easily fulfill your basic word processing needs. It is good for short documents, memos, letters, and just about any other quick word processing chore.
Textra is one of a new breed of full-featured, low-cost word processing programs. It comes very close to being what a standalone word processor/program editor should be.”
Eric Grevstad wrote a glowing review of Textra for the April 1987 issue of Modern Electronics.
Rave Review Revisited
Forgetting my objectivity as a reviewer, I recently wrote a fan letter to a software company. What’s more, forgetting that manufacturers usually give or loan me products for free, I paid for the program involved. That tells you two things: the software’s got to be special, and it’s got to be cheap.
It’s Textra 4.0, the final version of the word processor I first praised in the January 1986 column as prototype 3.1A. Ann Arbor Software’s Scott Anderson isn’t the world’s fastest developer — I’d forgotten Textra over the 14 months from prerlease (sic) to production — but 4.0 was worth waiting for the last tweak and printed manual. I’ve even bought AAS’ novel offer of a “subscription” to Textra 5.0, which promises mail merge, spelling correction, and other enhancements in about a year, with partial updates and disk-based documentation every three or four months in the interim.
What Textra offers hasn’t changed since my last review: effective word processing, controlled by easy function-key menus (you cycle through them with the FI key or execute commands directly with Shift or Alt). Documents are limited to 60,000 characters, headers or footers to 39, and you either use the generic printer or customize your own.
But Textra has practically all the editing power you’d ever want, from undelete and timed backup to automatic reformatting and page preview, at up to 20 times the speed of programs costing 10 times as much. Version 4.0 does 4,600 single-character search-and-replaces in five seconds on an old PC, and costs $22.45 without telephone tech support ($42.45 with support; subscriptions to 5.0 are $54.95 or $84.95).
To quote my fan letter, “Textra 4.0 has one of the best, smoothest command structures, the best on-line help, and the most amazing price/performance ratio I’ve seen in four years of reviewing software.” I also wrote to complain that reformatting deletes an occasional hyphen, but once I give a company $50 I think I own the place.
Textra wasn’t just for personal use. The March 9, 1992 issue of Computerworld had a story about an insurance company that picked Textra over WordPerfect:
The Jackson National Life Insurance Co. in Lansing, Mich., for example, was searching for a cheaper, easier-to-use alterna¬ tive to WordPerfect. Teresa Spalding, the company’s training and PC support manager, tried LetterPerfect and several other low-end products before deciding on Textra, a $95 DOS-based package developed by Ann Arbor Software in Ann Arbor, Mich.
“When you’re putting a word processor on 400 or 500 machines, the cost definitely adds up,” says Spalding, who paid $250 per copy for WordPerfect and approximately $30 per copy for Textra.
Textra also has an automatic conversion for the WordPerfect format that left virtually all format codes intact, she adds.
David Wilson wrote a review of Textra for The Orphan Peanut (The Chronicle of the Atlanta PCjr Users Group):
Those who know me are aware of my long and enthusiastic support of a rather obscure Word Processing program called TEXTRA. I've been using it for more than three years, through several versions and refinements, and have always felt that, for those who don't need the power of the "big guys", this one made a lot of sense. Now TEXTRA has made it harder to say that - they've really become one of the "big guys" themselves, with features comparable to Word Perfect and Microsoft Word.
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One thing that's missing in TEX1RA 6.0 that I noticed immediately is the lack of mouse or Windows support. I don't imagine that this will cripple sales among PCjr owners to any great degree, but it may be a factor to those of us who, like me, use a 286 or 386 machine in addition to our Junior. I'm rapidly getting hooked on Windows and it's a little bit of a jar when I go into TEXTRA after a session with my rodent. I presume that that's a refinement to come, and I can certainly live without mouse support until a later version.
Well, in a very small capsule, that's TEXTRA 6.0. I've used it for years, and I have loved it for that time, but this version is something else. While it doesn't have all the features you expect in heavyweights like WordPerfect and Microsoft Word, it's a very, very, nice word processor for the average family. There isn't much that most of us need which isn't provided here, and the price is as good as you're likely to find for a similar product. I have no reservations in recommending it to anyone needing a good program that you don't have to take a two-week course in before you can use it. Come to the March meeting and see!
Finally, Archive.org user Der AppleSeed had a short review of Textra 3.1:
Good low cost option compared to WordStar
This sold for a fraction of the price of WordStar - the then reigning king of full screen editors (there weren't many!). Very low system requirements, was quite snappy, even on a bone stock 4.77mhz XT.
Responded to a small ad these U of M college kids ran, drove out, met them, bought a stack of Textra 3.5" disks from them, and sold them to friends and family.
Later acquired by Symantec Corporation, and like many products they bought, it quickly just disappeared.
Bonus Content
If that isn’t enough, here are a few Textra-related items:
Have you ever used Textra Word Processing? Do you know anything about its history? Tell us about it in the comments below.
