A Step up from Notepad
Written: Nov 20 '02 (Updated Nov 20 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Images stay where you put them, styles are easy
Cons: Buggy, flaky, quirky, slow
The Bottom Line: Good image and text box handling is traded off with instability, terrible clipart and graphics insertion, and general bizarrity.
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| CreamChief's Full Review: Corel WordPerfect Office 2002 Professional Edition... |
First of all, I am surprised that there are no reviews of Wordperfect Office here yet. Perhaps everyone has moved to the dark side and uses Microsoft products now. Nonetheless, I know of at least a few people who use Wordperfect, and if you were considering it, then here are a few tidbits to know.
Much of this review will end up comparing Wordperfect to MS Word - that is somewhat unfortunate but necessary. I use both products and have come to understand the strengths and weakness of both.
Wordperfect Office 2002 includes Wordperfect 10, Quattro Pro 10, Corel Presentation 10, and Paradox 10. I will be focusing on Wordperfect primarily, but here is a brief bit about the other programs.
Quattro Pro is a spreadsheet application, much like Excel. I have used it off and on, but find that most data I need to exchange with others is in Excel format. The strength of Quattro Pro are in some search and replace features, and it tends to be much easier to export to other formats than Excel.
Corel Presentations would like to compete with PowerPoint. Perhaps a few versions ago it could, but it does not have the same ease of use and functionality of PowerPoint. I am no fan of PowerPoint XP, mind you (see my review on that if you want proof), but at least the drawing tools and animations are more functional in PowerPoint. Really, for presenations, PowerPoint 2000 was about as good as it gets.
CoreCENTRAL is a PIM/calendaring program. I have not used it myself. It is hard enough to get Groupwise and Outlook to coexist, much less add a third program to the mix.
Paradox 10 is a database program ala MS Access. I have worked on numerous projects to get data from Paradox into Access formats so I would consider Paradox a dead end format. As far as a stand alone database app, though, there is nothing wrong with it. If you want to move your data into and SQL database at some point, though, stick with Access.
This leads me to WordPerfect. So many people weep for the days of the good ol' WP5.1 DOS days, and I can understand why. Ever since the move to a Windows based Wordperfect something has just not worked out quite right.
Some pros:
Tons of fonts: the selection and organization of the fonts, particularly during installation is top notch. They are grouped in sensible categories, and there are literally hundreds to choose from. These are professional, well-made fonts.
Image placement: pictures and text boxes stay where you put them! This has been and continues to be the single most frustrating aspect of MSWord - the moving image that reformats everything else in the document. In Wordperfect and image stick to where you place it. Text boxes don't jump around when you reformat a paragraph. When text and images are lined up, changing a font won't move it all around and jump things to another page.
Typing on the page: I really don't know how to word this, but you can put the cursor where you want to on a page and just start typing. There is no need to fidget around with carriage returns, line breaks, and tabs just to try to get the cursor where you want it.
Reveal codes: anyone moving from Wordperfect to Word understands the importance of this. You can see exactly what formatting codes are affecting the text. Most of us know the frustration in Word when changing the font on a word how the rest of unrelated paragraphs seem to change also. In Wordperfect you can see exactly where the formatting codes are placed and what text they are affecting.
Paragraph styles: perhaps only the devil knows why Microsoft decide to have Word create a new style in the document everytime you choose a new formatting option. Even a short document can end up with several dozen bizarre styles this way. Wordperfect has an easy way to create paragraph styles that don't change willy-nilly or create bizarre effects throughout the document.
Cons, cons, cons
For the life of me, I cannot get clipart to work no matter what I do. It's there on the second CD. There is some convoluted way, according to the knowledge base, to copy it to the hard drive, make some registry changes, etc. But, no, that doesn't work really. The program won't even use the clipart from the CD. Really, now, this is just beyond ridiculous. Does Corel expect the average user, much less a supposedly technical person like me, to figure this out?
File opening and such: file open dialog boxes are slow, dialog boxes in settings windows are the same. Occasionally, one does not actually open, and Wordperfect will just sit there, beep when you click, and do nothing else.
Templates: oh, boy, a template (or project in their terminology) for hangman! Yippeee! Really, now, how about a template for a book or manual or something useful. Granted the templates for APA and MLA docs are nice. Also, depending upon your version of WP, these templates might not even install. Then, there is the convoluted process of unzipping some download files and figuring out how to install those.
General instability: large documents just choke the thing. It does not seem to matter how much memory or processing power you have, but a 50 page document will slow Wordperfect to a pathetic crawl. The lucky people will not have Wordperfect crash at this point. At least the autobackup works fairly well. You'll need it!
Overall
When I need to use a word process that can handle image placement and layout properly, I use Wordperfect. When I need to write a long document without much fancy, I use Wordpad, Atlantis, or notepad. At least those won't crash my computer.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
CreamChief
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Location: Maryland
Reviews written: 57
Trusted by: 13 members
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