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Software Reviews: The Return of WordPerfect
Posted by: Valour on Apr 28, 2004 - 10:14 AM

In the late 90's Corel experimented with the GNU/Linux operating system, developing their own distribution known as Corel Linux and porting their WordPerfect word processor to it. It survived from version 7 to version 9, but in August of 2001 the entire GNU/Linux project was cancelled at Corel and assets sold, thereby ending Corel Linux and WordPerfect Office for Linux. At the time WordPerfect was easily the most popular proprietary application for GNU/Linux, and the hole that it left opened the door for many people to switch to OpenOffice, StarOffice, AbiWord, KWord, TextMaker and others. Now with new leadership, Corel has come back with a proof-of-concept GNU/Linux rework of WordPerfect 8; this review will examine this proof-of-concept software as well as the new WP Office 12 for Windows to see just where Corel is headed with their office software.

It was the promise of WordPerfect for Linux that got me to switch away from Windows in the first place, about a year and a half ago. Being an avid writer I was a die-hard fan of WordPerfect 10 (2002) and I didn't really want to switch if I couldn't use it anymore. Unfortunately after I completed the switch to GNU/Linux I was unable to locate any Linux-related resources on Corel's site -- they'd taken it all down. News came of Corel's money problems and rumor had it that a $135 million stock purchase (about 20% of the company) by Microsoft Corporation had kept Corel afloat with the understanding that they would terminate their GNU/Linux business. I don't know if the latter was true, but given the situation and the reputation of one of the parties involved I would say that it's at least likely.

Not long after, Microsoft sold their shares to Vector Capital at a 90% loss. More recently Vector moved to buy the rest of the outstanding shares of Corel, thereby turning it into a privately held company again. Overall this is a very positive move because it prevents underhanded manipulation by outside companies like Microsoft (again), but oddly there were some who resisted the buyout. It's hard to tell what went on behind the scenes, but the results are obvious and quite encouraging: there is a renewed interest in GNU/Linux porting and now there's a new version of the superior WP Office for Windows.

It's All About Microsoft

One thing that has definitely changed is the market focus of the WP product line. Corel has already realized their niche markets (legal and government), and WP 10 and 11 seemed to pander specifically to them without regard for the competition. Good for lawyers and governments, but not necessarily so good for people who want to do other things.

It's been a little over two years since WordPerfect 11 was announced and released, but I never had the chance to review it because there was some mysterious reluctance to sending out review copies of the software at the time of my request. No surprise that there was virtually no press on WordPerfect 11 except for legal and government-related print publications. That tunnel-vision focus is gone and has now broadened to include small and medium-sized businesses and cost-conscious consumers looking for a cheaper solution to MS Office; specifically Corel's press and marketing materials for WP Office 12 tirelessly compare their new products to the new Microsoft Office System 2003. As far as comparing the entire suites is concerned, WordPerfect Office easily wins that duel considering the high price, anticlimactic feature set and mediocre reliability of MS Office System 2003 and the general superiority of WordPerfect as a word processor. Quattro Pro and WordPerfect are far more adaptable and customizable than Excel and Word are, and the tools and guides built into the suite are much more powerful and capable. Business users will appreciate the more flexible licensing that Corel allows, even if it isn't anywhere near ideal.

The License

Both WP for Linux and WP Office 12 share the same license agreement. I make a point of reading through every license agreement I am faced with, just to see what I'm up against. As a rule I only use Free Software or sensibly licensed proprietary software on my work machine, but a review is a review and licensing is only one aspect of the program. Some people don't care about a program's license at all; those people should read this article before installing another program.

The usual restrictions are only slightly reduced in the standard agreement for Corel's WordPerfect Office 12, which gives the appearance of being more kind to the end-user than Microsoft, Macromedia or Adobe (the axis of evil for software licensing). You can install the software on your work machine and on a portable or home computer, but the two may not be used concurrently (Adobe allows for this as well). You can also install the software on a server for use over the network, but of course you must have each client machine licensed. The difference with Microsoft is that MS requires you to have two licenses for this situation: one for the server and one for the client, even though only one person is using the software -- in other words, Corel's licensing is per user instead of per CPU, with some limitations. Corel also will allow multiple licensed users to use that software concurrently as long as you have the proper licenses, whereas Microsoft only allows one client to connect to the software server at a time despite the number of licenses. The WP license states that you can only install and use one copy of the software per machine, which is kind of annoying. They could allow more than one copy per machine without any loss of revenue; many users have dual-boot machines or use virtual machine software to run more than one operating system at a time. For instance I have FreeBSD i386 and AMD64 on separate drives, and Gentoo Linux on another with Windows XP (for testing and software reviews only) through VMWare. According to the agreement if I wanted to use WordPerfect for Linux on all of these OSes I'd need three copies of the software unless I shared the same installation between the three. This isn't possible for me because my GNU/Linux home directory uses JFS and FreeBSD cannot mount a JFS partition, neither can GNU/Linux properly mount a FreeBSD UFS2 partition yet.

You can transfer your license to anyone provided the receiving party agrees to the license agreement. If that's your plan, bring a lunch -- it's a long license agreement and you'll have a lot of explaining to do. Microsoft allows only for one transfer for the life of the license whereas Corel's does not have a limit to the number of transfers.

The WP license says specifically that you can make a backup copy of the software, whereas the other proprietary behemoths refrain from specifically mentioning (and hint at prohibiting if possible) this once-common and certainly recommended safety precaution.

One of the great advantages of the standard WP license over Microsoft's EULA is that if you upgrade from a qualifying product, you can still use that old product in addition to the new software. Microsoft's upgrade license says that the old license is terminated when you upgrade it, thereby making your old copy of the software useless (and possibly subject to destruction of the media and other accompanying materials depending on how you interpret Microsoft's EULA). What this means is that Corel allows you to more easily make a transition from the old product to the new one. This is particularly useful because WP Office 12 accepts a number of Microsoft programs as qualifying products to upgrade from, including MS Office 2000, XP, 2003; MS Works 7; MS Works Suite 2003 and any newer editions of any of these applications or suites. You can also upgrade from Corel WP 8; WordPerfect Office 2000, 2002, 11; WordPerfect Family Pack 1-5; Paradox 8-10; CorelDRAW 11 and Graphics Suite 11 and 12; and Corel Painter 8. So if you wanted to switch from MS Office 2000 to WordPerfect Office 12, you can do so while still keeping the old software on your computer while you're making the transition.

The rest of the license covers exceptions for people in other countries and licenses for third-party programs and extensions included with WP Office 12.

Other Methods Of Licensing

In addition to the standard retail box single-user license (the standard license), Corel also offers two other licensing programs. The first is Corel Transactional Licensing, which allows a business or individual to purchase right-to-copy and multi-platform license agreements. This is the only way to buy WordPerfect Office 12 Professional (the Standard edition is available through retailers or through the Corel e-store). There is no minimum purchase requirement.

The second licensing program is Corel Contractual Licensing. This requires a negotiable 1-year term contract with Corel for the software (both new and upgrade editions) plus various services like software maintenance, ancillary products, training, consulting and support services. There is a minimum initial order due when the contract is signed, but the amount depends on your specific agreement.

Proof Of Concept: WP For Linux

What is a proof-of-concept? It's a lot of things, but mostly it's meant to test the feasibility of future GNU/Linux products. It's used for internal testing and development at Corel, evaluation by potential large customers, and as a kind of litmus test to see if a potential product will find a market. In this case Corel is attempting to find out whether or not they can re-enter the GNU/Linux market successfully, how much money and effort it will take, and if people are interested in buying their products. To do this, they've taken WordPerfect 8 for Linux and updated it with bugfixes, features and compatibility hacks to make it install and work with modern GNU/Linux distros.

So what we have is an updated but not really current product. It's fully functional, but it does look kind of old in terms of how programs are generally designed and laid out today. The new WordPerfect for Linux doesn't have a basic shell like newer versions do; instead it's divided into a master program control window and a document window as seen here. This makes the menus harder to customize, and the editable area of the document screen is smaller than normal.

Since WP for Linux looks old, I immediately assumed too much about it. After using it for a few days I found that the new WordPerfect for Linux has many of the same features found in WP 9 and WP 10, but they're not in the same places. The Grammatik grammar assistant is there and it works fairly well (even by modern standards) but it doesn't offer restructuring suggestions like WP 10 and above and it doesn't check pre-existing documents when they are opened (you have to modify and save the document to get Grammatik to kick in). The spell-checker is better than even some modern proprietary word processors, and the thesaurus is just as good. The only thing the dictionary is missing is definitions for words, a very useful feature that WP 10 and up have (I countered this by adding the KDict applet to my KDE taskbar, so when I want to look up a word I type it into the applet text box and I get definitions from three or four different sources). There is a watermarking feature (something MS Word didn't officially have until Office XP), but it doesn't allow for alpha-blending of graphics; in other words you can't make a graphic watermark partially transparent (it does allow this for text watermarks).

There is no print preview function, and the font selection is limited to 22 built-in fonts that Corel provides. They're nothing fancy -- just the usual TrueType selections mixed in with a few others. I eventually did find a ton of fonts on the installation CD, but they are not installed by default and you have to go through a special font installation process to get them into WP. These instructions are not covered by the standard readme.1st file in the CD's root directory, but within a further readme directory.

The help file, as seen here, seems to accidentally characterize hard returns, and the mouse scroll wheel is not operational within any part of WordPerfect for Linux.

The conversion filters are lacking good MS Word support (it works, but specially formatted things like bulleted lists do not properly convert) and there is no support for converting from .SXW (OpenOffice/StarOffice format) or .LWP (Lotus Word Pro format).

Priced at US$30 (click here to buy it from the Corel e-store), the proof-of-concept WordPerfect product is certainly competition for TextMaker and Sun StarOffice 7 (and of course OpenOffice.org), but you shouldn't expect WP 12-quality features and performance from it at this point. Even as it is, WordPerfect for Linux is a useful program with a lot of excellent features that make it valuable, such as the famous Reveal Codes function and the thesaurus suggestion box. It also offers full WP for Windows compatibility, so you can easily use and edit your WordPerfect 5.1 and newer files on GNU/Linux or any system that offers full binary compatibility with the Linux kernel.

WordPerfect for Linux seems to work reasonably well in most respects. Overall it is an excellent starting point from which to continue development on a GNU/Linux edition of WordPerfect. If you have any suggestions for Corel in regards to how they can better improve their product or how they can add important features, click here and create a customer service login account to tell Corel what changes or additions you'd like to see.

WordPerfect 12

WordPerfect for Windows started its comeback with version 9, made a lot more progress with version 10, and then version 11 didn't seem to have much more to add. Here we are on version 12 now, with the primary advantage over the previous editions being the more liberal corporate licensing programs.

There just aren't any new features to add to word processors anymore, and it's been that way for years... but you can't have an upgrade product without adding new features or functions. Here's a list of the new features in WordPerfect 12:

• Workspace Manager
• MS Outlook Integration
• Wireless Office Suite powered by ZIM
• OfficeReady file browser
• Enhanced export to PDF functionality
• Enhanced PerfectExpert
• Better MS Office compatibility
• Export to HTML and XML capabilities
• Support for three scripting languages

The Workspace Manager allows you to choose a compatibility mode for your interface. You can make WordPerfect 12 look and feel more like Microsoft Word 2003, or like WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS, or you can adjust the toolbars and menus for legal mode for those in legal professions, and of course there is the native WordPerfect standard mode. This auto-customization is especially useful for those making the transition from Word or older versions of WordPerfect; believe it or not there are still a large number of WP 5.1 users who refuse to switch to a more modern version of the program because it looks different. WP 11 had this feature, but it has been updated for the new version. Personally I prefer to start with standard mode and customize it for my own needs, removing any buttons from the toolbar that I know I'll never use.

Oddly, Corel has dropped the Corel Central PIM/email application from the suite. While Corel Central was never an outstanding application on its own and was no competition for Lotus Notes or Microsoft Outlook, it was at least an option. I was expecting a new and improved Central, but instead the project's been whittled down to just an address book. It's a little strange that Outlook integration would be a priority for Corel, being that their perceived chief competitor is Microsoft. Among the MS Office suite, Outlook is often believed to be the most important to productivity, so perhaps Corel is conceding that Outlook is a necessity even if Word, Excel and PowerPoint are not.

I had no means of testing the Wireless Office Suite, but it looks quite useful for connecting with your PDA. Again, WP Office 11 had this program but it has been updated to support MS Outlook 2003.

The OfficeReady template browser is more or less superfluous; all it does is help you preview groups of template files. If you don't use document templates or use few of them often, this program might never be used. If you're looking for just the right template or need to compare a lot of templates at once, the OfficeReady browser could be quite useful. In looking at the entire WordPerfect Office 12 package, the OfficeReady file browser adds value but doesn't really stand out on its own.

The export to PDF function has been available since WP 10, but in version 12 you're given much more control over your PDF -- almost as much as you get with the full Adobe Acrobat program. In all of the word processors I've used, the export to PDF function is by far the best in WordPerfect 12. This function alone can make the upgrade price worthwhile if you're using WP 10 or MS Office and regularly use (or would like to use) PDFs.

The PerfectExpert is a collection and amalgamation of writing tools, help files and wizards to assist you in analyzing or modifying your document in interesting ways, or in creating a new document from a complex template. The features have been incrementally improved, but nothing major has been added since version 10. PerfectExpert is at once useful and annoying; I wish I could separate some of its functions into buttons that can be added to the toolbar rather than swim through two menus to get to such important operations (to me) as the word count. PerfectExpert, being more useful and easier to navigate, is leaps and bounds above Microsoft's insipid and intrusive Office Assistant.

The ability to import and export files in Word .DOC format is very important to many people, and the ability of your word processor to do it right is equally important. Unfortunately WordPerfect is, well, not perfect at exporting Word files. I didn't find any problems with importing .DOC files written in Word, but I didn't have any heavily formatted Word documents to test with. If you'd like me to test one of your Word documents to see if WP 12 or WP Linux can convert it properly, just email it to me and I'll send you a screen shot.

For my conversion testing I used my personal letterhead. Yes, I know it's not very fancy but it incorporates a lot of strange and unusual formatting that you might find in other letters or documents. Ideally I'd have this as a template and I'd use custom headings for the title and my contact information, but since most people don't do it the right way, I decided to do it the hacky way for testing purposes. Click here to see the test document (letterhead) created in WP 12 as it should look. Click here to see what it looks like in Word XP after it has been exported with WP 12. Click here to see what the exported file looks like when reopened with WP 12. As you can see, the font sizes and positions were changed slightly and the horizontal line completely disappeared during the export process -- and since it displays this way in both Word and WordPerfect, it's reasonable to assume that it's not a display error causing these problems. This isn't bad by any means, but it is not as it should be. Hopefully this can be addressed in a future service pack.

All of the programs in the suite can export to XML or HTML, although the HTML produced is not pretty. It's not as bad as some programs, but it's functional even if it's enormously bloated; autogenerated HTML is never a thing of beauty.

WordPerfect and Quattro Pro 12 now support scripting in Microsoft Visual Basic as well as PerfectScript and ObjectPAL (the latter being designed for better integration with Paradox). This means that it's easier to port macros from Microsoft applications to WordPerfect 12 while retaining backwards compatibility with previous editions of the software.

Exporting to PDF is excellent in WordPerfect 12; the only things that Adobe Acrobat 6.0 can do that WordPerfect 12 can't are add encrypted password protection, insert comments and edit text-only metadata. This far exceeds the ability of StarOffice 7.0 and other word processors that I'm aware of, which basically just send the formatted document to a PDF printer with few options to choose from. Microsoft Word 2003 can't even export to PDF at all, let alone add hyperlinks, thumbnails and a table of contents.

I was quite disappointed to see that the Oxford dictionary module was not complete. Furthermore the option to buy the expanded dictionary was not available to me because of an error with my product serial number (possibly due to this being a media review copy of the software). As I recall from WP 10, the dictionary add-on is in the vicinity of $25 and is only available through special download from an otherwise inaccessible area of the Corel e-store.

Also included with WordPerfect Office 12 are a set of special legal tools: the Pleading Wizard, the Clipbook, and the Concordance Tool. I am not a legal professional (neither am I an illegal professional) so I don't know how to use these or if they're useful to the right people. WordPerfect itself also has built-in functions specific to law, and as mentioned above it has a special mode just for legal professionals to help them be more productive in their work. Also of note is support for EDGAR electronic document filing.

Lastly, the Reveal Codes feature is of course still there and fully functional. This allows you to edit the formatting codes directly rather than use the usual WYSIWYG interface. Aside from helping you to fix otherwise seemingly unfixable formatting errors, it also allows people to more specifically format their documents if they know how. The reason why this function is specific to WordPerfect is because it's the only commercial word processor that needs it; the .WPD file format stores formatting data in the same space as the document text. In other words the formatting codes are interspersed with the actual text content, just like you see it when you turn on Reveal Codes. Microsoft Word and most other word processors store the text separately from the formatting codes, so there is no way to add a Reveal Codes function if there are no codes in the document to reveal.

Quattro Pro 12

Like WordPerfect, Quattro Pro also has a Workspace Manager to put the program's interface into different compatibility modes. This time the modes include Quattro Pro standard, Microsoft Excel, and Lotus 123. I couldn't find anything that Excel could do that Quattro Pro couldn't, except of course for the digital restriction management capabilities of Excel 2003 when combined with Windows Server 2003. Inevitably readers will have specific questions regarding capabilities and functionalities; if these questions are not answered on Corel's website you can direct them to me and I'll do my best to see if Quattro Pro can do what you want it to.

One significant addition to Quattro Pro 12 is the CrossTab Reports function, which is Corel's alternative to Microsoft's PivotTables in Excel. CrossTab Reports lets you analyze, summarize, and organize table data. All of the dynamic data functions of PivotTables are available in CrossTab Reports, so you can constantly update your spreadsheet with changing data from the web or other worksheets or databases.

Presentations

Presentation software has quietly become an essential tool for validating otherwise totally useless company meetings; it makes a lot of nothing look like something important by using visual effects and bulleted lists with fancy backgrounds. Corel Presentations is just as astonishingly easy to use as Microsoft PowerPoint and OpenOffice.org Impress, and includes all of the same tools. The three programs are essentially the same with the primary difference being their interfaces. But that's where Presentations has the advantage: by using the Workspace Manager it can make itself look and feel like Microsoft PowerPoint or default to its standard interface. The PerfectExpert in Presentations works just like the wizards in Impress and PowerPoint, guiding you in building your presentation with easy-to-follow steps.

Presentations also allows you to publish your slide show as quick and dirty HTML, a Macromedia Flash .SWF movie, or as a self-contained executable that can run and show your presentation on any Windows computer regardless of whether or not it has Presentations 12 installed on it. The latter is a handy feature considering Microsoft PowerPoint 2003 requires a separate proprietary viewer program to play PowerPoint files on machines that don't have MS Office installed on them.

The Paradox Relational Database

Paradox 11 is included with the Professional edition of WordPerfect Office 12 only. In other words it hasn't been updated from the previous edition of WordPerfect Office and it's not included with WP Office 12 Standard edition. The Professional edition is not available through normal licensing procedures; if you want this edition you'll have to go through the transactional licensing program at Corel. Fortunately you don't have to be a corporation to buy the software, and you can buy only one license if you want. Pricing for the Professional edition was not readily available through the Corel website as of this writing, but I'm guessing its significantly more expensive than the standard edition.

The only way to properly test a relational database program is to put a ton of data into it and see how it handles various kinds of requests and queries. Unfortunately I had neither the time nor the data to perform this test. All I can give you is this screenshot of the opening screen.

Conclusions

WordPerfect for Linux and WordPerfect Office 12 are two outstanding products that were released two years too late. While they are still excellent in their own right and compete well with other products in their class, they don't present very many compelling reasons to switch.

WordPerfect Office 12 is missing some key elements that I envision for the perfect office suite: a good PIM/email client, operability across several platforms, compatibility with competing products, and a user-friendly minimally restrictive license. I'm not so concerned with the Word conversion blunder that I came across so much as I am bothered by the fact that WordPerfect can't recognize or convert .SXW (OpenOffice/StarOffice) files, especially considering this file format is an open standard based on XML. In other words it should be exceptionally easy to implement .SXW conversion capabilities yet Corel has refused to do it. I don't think this is ignorance of the format so much as it is an attempt to discredit the competition by pretending that OpenOffice.org and StarOffice don't exist. Corel claims that .SXW conversion isn't in the product because no one has requested it. I say if you wait for good (and obvious, and easy) features to be requested, you've already missed your initial window of opportunity to make some sales.

But that's the trouble -- that's the problem that Corel didn't consider. They have incorrectly targeted Microsoft as the primary competition when it is OpenOffice.org that is the true threat. Microsoft is the target because they dominate the market, but Corel will never be able to take them down because the other competition with Microsoft in its sights has a cheaper, freer, functional and fully featured product. Now and in the future, proprietary companies are going to have to face Free (as in rights, not price) Software head on and find good reasons why people should spend so much more money on a product that restricts their rights and offers little in return. There is no doubt -- as I mentioned above -- that WP Office 12 is a better product than MS Office System 2003 Standard in a home or small/medium-sized business environment, but I don't think that matters anymore with the market moving rapidly toward substantially cheaper and easier-to-license Free and Open-Source solutions. Corel's selling points won't sway anyone who already knows about StarOffice and/or OpenOffice.

Fortunately for Corel, they seem to be slowly moving in the right direction. WordPerfect for Linux may not be as nice as WordPerfect 12 is, but it's priced right and it offers a few of good features that other GNU/Linux word processors don't have and it will allow WP users to think more seriously about migrating to GNU/Linux. But this should not be the end of the line for Corel's Linux efforts if they want a shot at the kind of market strength that WordPerfect once had.

Developer Recommendations

WordPerfect is one of my favorite word processors, but there is still room for improvement:

• More customization. First of all, every single function in each program should be able to be buttonized and placed in the toolbar or in a menu. If I want to add a running word count to the document bar, I should be able to. Also, the Workspace Manager is an outstanding innovation but it needs more modes to accommodate professional writers (specifically journalists, novelists and technical and academic writers) and other professionals.
• .SXW conversion capabilities. If you want more people to switch to WordPerfect, you have to make it easy for them to convert their documents. There are a ton of StarOffice and OpenOffice users who can't open their documents in WordPerfect because there is no conversion function for .SXW documents. It's an open standard and it is very easily implemented. Don't pull a Microsoft and pretend the competition isn't there -- face it head on and implement .SXW import/export functionality.
• Offer WordPerfect standalone. While the WP Family Pack is a great idea in its own right, there really ought to be a standalone WordPerfect 12 program for purchase -- not the lite edition. There are many people -- especially those who write for a living -- who don't need a spreadsheet or anything else other than a really good word processor. Smaller companies like SoftMaker understand this need, and even Microsoft quietly offers Word and all of its other Office System 2003 products as standalone programs (for a ton of money). Corel should also explore the possibility of offering WP standalone for a greatly reduced price or for free download. This would substantially improve market share with little effect on office suite sales. WordPerfect, if it were standalone and free (as in rights and/or price), could easily dominate the word processor market and become a must-have for everyone who uses word processors. This is the only way I can see for Corel to succeed in gaining market share at this point.
• More liberated licensing. While Corel's licensing is somewhat less restrictive than Microsoft's, it still isn't on par with other proprietary office programs from SoftMaker and Sun and certainly nowhere near the licensing freedom of Free Software programs like OpenOffice.org, KWord, and AbiWord. There is no evidence to suggest that opening up the licensing restrictions will cause a reduction in sales, but an open-source licensing model will allow Corel to more cheaply streamline the program while increasing their user base.
• We need a PIM. Corel Central was not really all that great as an email and personal information manager. That doesn't mean it should have been abandoned -- it should have been improved instead. As an alternative, there are several Free Software projects like Aethera and Evolution that Corel could easily modify or adapt for inclusion with WP Office.
• Don't doom the Linux product to failure. Making a product for GNU/Linux does not always yield an immediate profit or market response. But what it will do is create options for customers considering large-scale migration projects. These days the trend in business is to save money and increase reliability and security by moving some or all workstation and server systems from Microsoft Windows to the GNU/Linux operating system. If some of these entities are already using WordPerfect, having a Linux product already on the market can be the deciding factor for them -- and that leads to sales. Not having a product will not always stop the migration, and is more likely to lead to other cross-platform solutions like StarOffice or OpenOffice. Corel has already learned through its modified licensing programs that options == profits. Now it's time to apply that principle to more than just licensing.

Copyright 2004 Jem Matzan. Verbatim copying and redistribution of this entire article are permitted without royalty in any medium provided this notice is preserved.