By Steve Higginbotham
I am a faithful devotee of WordPerfect. For those of you who may not know what WordPerfect is, it is a word processing program. Oh, I know that Microsoft Word has the “lion’s share” of the market, but WordPerfect cannot be beaten when it comes to outlining (and I do a lot of outlining).
I began using WordPerfect 30 years ago, starting with version 4.2, and now using version X8 (i.e. 18).
But to the point of this article. About two months ago, I upgraded to the latest version and I was eager to check out something. Do you have any idea what it was?
Well, I can tell you it wasn’t to see how well it converts Microsoft Word files. Nor was it to see how well it allows you to edit .pdf files. The first thing I did after I installed this latest version of WordPerfect was to type in the word, “Philippians.” Why, may you ask? Because I was curious to see if WordPerfect X8 had learned the books of the Bible, and sadly, it still has not.
You see, nearly all word processors come with a built-in spell checker. When a word is misspelled or when a word is used that has not been placed in the spell-check database, that word will be flagged as suspect with a red underline. When I typed in, “Philippians,” my WordPerfect underlined the word, meaning that it is unknown and unrecognized. As fundamental as the names of the books of the Bible are, the developers of WordPerfect have not seen fit to include their names into the database.
Now, before you tell me how to add the books of the Bible into the database so that WordPerfect will recognize them as legitimate words, let me tell you that I already know how to do that. But I choose not to do so. For me, the red edit line that shows up underneath the names of the books of the Bible is a constant reminder to me of my purpose. The world is still filled with people who do not know God, and who need to be taught. Let’s not lose sight of that fact.