The menu system had two structures, one for beginners and the other for experienced users. Most of the program's other features were presented via a pull-down menu bar in which the top-level options were activated by function keys.
The PCW's keyboard offered clearly labelled, one-press special keys for many common LocoScript functions, including cut, copy, and paste, while LocoScript's competitors required a wide range of key combinations that the user had to remember. LocoScript was regarded as easier to use than Wordstar and WordPerfect, which in the mid-1980s were the dominant word processors on IBM-compatible PCs, and many users needed no additional information beyond what the manual's "first 20 minutes" introductory chapter provided. According to Personal Computer World, the PCW "got the technophobes using computers". The PCW, regarded as extremely good value for money, gained 60% of the UK home computer market, and 20% of the European personal computer market.
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These programs and a dot matrix printer were included in the price of the PCW, which was £399 plus VAT for the base model. For the Amstrad PCW, introduced in 1985, Locomotive produced the LocoScript word processor and Mallard BASIC, and also wrote the PCW's User Guide. LocoScript's developers, Locomotive Software, had produced Locomotive BASIC for Amstrad's CPC 464 home computer, introduced in 1984.