Software Review of:
WordPerfect Office 2002 
Beta release 

First of all, unlike Microsoft who routinely adds unwanted features to its software programs (such as the obnoxious paperclip help icon with the irritating habit of popping up to offer help at all the wrong times) Corel has responded to its loyal user base by adding user-requested features.

As a side note, the Corel representative who presented WordPerfect 9 at our February General Meeting told me of his company’s frustration that with a base of almost 22 million WordPerfect registered users, few of them upgrade when new versions are introduced. This was confirmed in a recent conversation with an Alamo PC member and frequent product reviewer who admitted that he is still using WordPerfect 5.1. He says it works fine for his needs.

Recognizing these hard facts, Corel appears to be focusing on the legal and government sectors with this new release — although in what I observed in the beta version, the home and small business user will benefit as well.

First things first, does your PC have the horsepower to handle this suite of programs? Corel recommends a CPU of 166Mhz or faster. They recommend 32MB RAM although you may get by with 16MB. The suite will take up a lot of real estate on your hard drive: about 250 MB and if you get the Professional version (Paradox database), you’ll use 280 MB. The program will run on Win98, Win 2000, Win NT 4.0 with SP6 or later and Win Me.

Since I was using a late release beta version of WPO2002, several known “issues” were spelled out in the reviewers instructions. I was asked not to perform a “merge” which is one of my favorite tools in WordPerfect 9. The one problem that I encountered was “inserting” an address from one of my CorelCENTRAL address books onto an envelope (I don’t know if this is considered a “merge” in Corel’s nomenclature) but when the name and address was inserted, a “soft return” code was entered after about four letters of the name, resulting in a “stacked” series of four letter groups that I’m sure would have thrown the Post Office for a loop.

I had uninstalled WordPerfect 9 in order to install WPO2002 and I was nearing the time to invoice advertisers for the April issue. I use an invoice template from which I merge the current advertisers names and addresses. I also merge these same addresses onto envelopes to mail the invoices — soooo I uninstalled WPO2002 and reinstalled WP9 to get the invoices produced and mailed.

What’s new in WordPerfect?
Users favorite features are still in WPO2002: Reveal Codes, a feature that sets WP apart from all other word processors, RealTime Preview (lets you preview formatting changes before applying them to a document), PerfectExpert now combines the best features of QuickTask, templates and Coaches from earlier versions of WordPerfect for first-time tasks in the suite.

New installation technology comes with WPO2002. Windows Installer, licensed from Microsoft, allows IT managers to take advantage of the technology to customize installation processes; track installed files, and Windows Registry entries and manage shared resources.

Corel has added a new Application Recovery Manager which helps users recover from most application failures without losing your work. A Location Manager makes sure the suite applications can start without errors — even when key program files are damaged or missing. WPO2002 can also record information about any application failure and users can send Corel a report of these failures over the Internet. 

It you’re a template user as I am, WPO2002 comes with a number of new templates — and new templates can be downloaded from Corel’s Website to meet a wider variety of user needs.

Those thick printed manuals that you never got around to reading  may be a thing of the past. The CD that comes with the package contains the complete text of the manuals in PDF to help you find information you need. If you feel more comfortable with a printed page, you can print from the Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Speaking of PDF, WordPerfect 10 and Corel Presentation users can now save documents as PDF files that incorporate  new features such as support for hyperlinks (do you see where all this is going?).

TrueDoc lets users view or print WordPerfect 10 (and Corel Presentations 10) documents from any computer or printer, even if the devices do not have the fonts used to create the document installed. TrueDoc records the shape of the characters and embeds these representations in the document. TrueDoc provides true WYSIWYG technology which allows you to distribute electronic documents that look the same to them as it does to you.

Font Navigator is a font manager developed by Bitstream and comes packaged in the suite. Font Navigator lets users search for, install, organize, view and print fonts.

Enhanced scripting languages
WPO2002 includes three scripting languages: Perfect Script, ObjectPAL and now Microsoft’s Visual Basic for Applications. When using any of these three languages to create new macros and scripts, existing scripts and macros remain fully functional. Although I have never created a WordPerfect macro, I’ve used numerous macros created by others and they really simplify certain tasks. 

Document security
In addition to previously available tools such as assigning “read-only” or a password to open a document, WPO2002 now interacts with a security system from Entrust Technologies to encrypt and digitally sign documents directly into WordPerfect 10. This will allow users to share files with others in a secure fashion. This feature requires that users have Entrust/Entelligence 4.0 or later installed on their PCs.

Macro virus protection
If you are an e-mail junkie, you will love this new feature. The WPO2002 includes security features to protect users against unwanted and possibly viral macros created using PerfectScript. If a template or document contains macros that will be triggered without direct user action (such as a macro that will automatically play when the document opens). The user will be alerted to the presence of the macro and allowed to disable it.

For protection against documents or templates containing Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications macros (these are the harmful ones I frequently encounter), WPO2002 provides three levels of security on your PC: Low, Medium and High — to control the security setting that best suits your needs.

Pocket Oxford Dictionary
WPO2002 comes with this authoritative dictionary to provide the meaning, history and pronunciation of more that 30,000 words. If you are a professional writer, you can upgrade to a larger version of the dictionary and purchase other services offered by Oxford University Press.

Corel Connector
For users with an Internet connection, you can get product-specific information, post questions and find answers from newsgroups (including Corel newsgroups monitored by Corel staff and C_Tech volunteers), updates, and technical support using the new Corel Connector, a thin Web client integrated in the suite. Users can use the Corel Connector without leaving WPO2002.

Corel Clipbook
Goodby one-clip-at-a-time Windows Clipboard, hello Corel functionality. Users can show Corel Clipbook as a floating dialog box or hide it in the system tray until they need it. Each clipboard can hold up to 36 entries — furthermore you can created unlimited clipboards, then work with a single clipboard or with multiple docked clipboards. WordPerfect power users should love this new feature.

Merge feature
For those who mass-produce letters, labels, etc., the Merge feature has been enhanced to significantly increase the number of fields per merge in order to perform larger-scale merges.

Formatting
Along with Corel RealTime Preview which allows the user to preview formatting changes before applying to a document, a new drop-down menu for Underline lets users select from various underline styles. RealTime Preview now includes Drop Caps, Quickfonts, Outline, Bullets and Numbering.

Enhanced Tables
WordPerfect 10 has borrowed Cell Formula Markers from Quattro Pro for use in tables created in WordPerfect. When users pause their pointer on a Cell Formula Marker, the cell’s formula displays in a tool tip. Drag and drop lets users copy formulas from one table cell to another. Clicking a Cell Formula Marker displays the Formula toolbar.

Complex tables
New advanced table features allow the WordPerfect 10 user to create tables with slanted header rows and unmatched numbers of cells in each row or column. Users can join two tables with the same number of columns into one large table — or split a table horizontally into two tables. QuickJoin and QuickSplit and Skew are new WordPerfect 10 table  features that will be interesting to experiment with.

Format conversion
WordPerfect users often need to incorporate data from a database or mailing list. Often that data is not formatted in a presentable fashion. WordPerfect 10 now gives you the ability to convert text to tables and to convert tables to text or to a merge file.

Browse command
Located on the vertical scroll bar, the Browse command has been expanded giving WordPerfect 10 users a number of new elements including hyperlinks, bookmarks, redline, strikeouts, textboxes.

Back and Forward
Designed to be similar to the way users can move backwards and forwards within a Web browser, the Back and Forward commands, located on the horizontal toolbar, allows users to quickly  move the insertion point to a previous position or back again.

Variables feature
This should be a very popular addition to WordPerfect. The new Variables feature automatically changes all instances of a particular word or paragraph throughout a long document. Users can create a variable (or placeholder) in the document and then specify the content for that variable. Users can change the variable content at any time and WordPerfect 10 will update all instances of that variable with the new content. This feature is sort of a “search and replace” on steroids.

Quickwords
This new feature should really help speed up typing. QuickWords stores an abbreviation for a word or section of text. When users type the abbreviation, QuickWords automatically expands the abbreviation to the entire word — or sentence making text entry much faster than if the user had to type the entire word.

Compatibility
WordPerfect 10 file format is backward compatible. Users can open and use documents created with earlier versions such as WP6.1, 7, 8 and 9 and exchange WP10 documents with those using earlier versions. Furthermore, WordPerfect 10 allows users to open other word-processing documents such as Lotus Ami Pro and Microsoft Word and save documents as Lotus and Microsoft files in their native file formats. Take a lesson here Microsoft.

A suggested retail upgrade price is $159 for the Standard Edition and $259 for the Professional Edition (includes Paradox 10 and Dragon NaturallySpeaking 5.0). Owners of CorelDRAW 5.0 or higher, Corel WordPerfect 5.0 or higher, Microsoft Office 95 or higher and Lotus SmartSuite 97 can buy WordPerfect Office 2002 at the upgrade price.