Textease

[speckytecky]

Can anyone offer feedback on the Textease software suite please :?:

 

Geoff

[Geoff]

V5 is ok. Make sure you get the updates otherwise it crashes and misbehaves with limited users.

 

V6 is very expensive license-wise. You have to buy all the components seperately. There is no site license any more. I don't think there's any upgrade option either.

 

Most of my schools have stuck with v5.

[crc-ict]

Don't get the Mac version if you're running OS X - we had terrible problems getting it to work properly and never fixed issues with Spreadsheet. Finally, tech support said there was no way to solve them.

 

Windows version is fine, though, no real problems with that.

[deerwood]

As an educational wordprocessor, Textease is great and I'd recommend it to primary schools and, possibly, KS3. One of its key features is the ability to import all many of files into a word processing document (including audio and video files), this makes it very versatiile for producing multimedia documents. It also has a very flexible layout system which can be a great tool for more creative pupils (and staff).

[SimpleSi]

After BlackCat Supertools programs - Textease (V5) is the program that I find locked up on computers when I come into school.

 

However, this could be because it is used a lot - since I'm not in classes all the time - I don't know what exactly happens to make it do this.

 

As far as using its concerned - I find teachers very polarised about the wordprocessor module.

 

Almost everyone agrees that it is good for KS1 but quite a few think it should not be used in upper KS2 and that pupils should move onto using MS Office/OpenOffice.

 

regards

Simon

[contink]

Going to reopen this thread as it's popped up and bitten me in the butt this past month.

 

In a nutshell the teachers got used to it and then we realised that someone made a small error when it came to licenses so we've had to remove it completely to the sounds of gnashing teeth.

 

At present I'm trying to find a way to resolve the problem by finding a replacement but I'm also going to be given softease a call about the older versions they have (ie: not their new version) and seeing if we can source those at a reduced rate.. £1k for a site license is just daylight robbery as far as the head is concerned and I'm in agreement given that we can kit out our whole IT spec for less with Office Pro 2003..

 

 

Anyway, any help at this point would be great.. rock and hard place springs to mind..

[Geoff]

Agreed. Office 2k3 is about half(?) the price per machine. OO.org is even cheaper.

 

The other bits of software in the suite can be replaced with other software cheaper too. For instance there are plenty of Logo apps around (including some OSS ones):

 

 

http://sourceforge.net/projects/fmslogo

[eean]

You can customise word really easily to make it easier for the kids. So, for example, when the reception children log on they get big icons and hardly any options, working gradaully up to year 6 that get the whole lot.

[contink]

You can customise word really easily to make it easier for the kids. So, for example, when the reception children log on they get big icons and hardly any options, working gradaully up to year 6 that get the whole lot.

I'm game but as per this thread:

http://www.edugeek.net/index.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=4596

... I'm at a loss as to how I can remove the default toolbars from Word so that only custom made toolbars are shown with the sorts of features you describe..

 

If you've got any hints on how to achieve this I'm all ears because so far I've lost hours trying to figure it out.

 

Help a man close to the edge.. 8O

[contink]

Just to note.. I know how to do it for a local user but distributing it to everyone else is proving mind numbingly difficult.

[eean]

I did it by leaving the default toolbars there and just removing the options i didn't want (or adding new ones - for example, I removed the quick print icon and replaced it with the print dialog icon - makes it harder to accidently print).

On our network each year group shares a username, which has a roaming profile so it's fairly easy - I just updated the profile on the server. It's all stored in the normal.dot, so you might be able to make a little script to copy it into the local profile and then start word.

Perhaps tell us your network setup and we might be able to think of something.

[contink]

Hmm, sounds like a plan.... Hadn't considered editing the standard toolbars but I guess it is a good example of can't beat so why not join em.

 

As to the network setup we've a WinXP network serviced by a win server 2003 with GPO policy