WordPerfect

WordPerfect is a word processing program; at the height of its popularity in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it served as the de facto standard word processor, but has since been eclipsed by Microsoft Word. WordPerfect was originally produced by WordPerfect Corporation. They produced the most successful version ever: WordPerfect 5.1 DOS. Still many people know the arcane key combinations that are used in WordPerfect 5.1 DOS and that date back from the time that function keys were still on the left of the keyboard, where, for instance, Tab and F4 (Indent) were adjacent. WordPerfect was sold twice, first to Novell, who then sold it to Corel. At some point it was bundled with Quattro Pro and other programs into an office applications suite first called Perfect Office, then WordPerfect Office. WordPerfect was late in coming to market with a Windows version, however, and the program suffered a decline in popularity from which it has never recovered. Amongst its remaining avid users are many law firms and a few universities. Nor did Corel's attempt to promote it as the standard word processor on Linux systems prove successful. In 2003 Corel was bought by Vector Capital, a venture capital investor. There has been a recent technology preview of WordPerfect 8 for Linux and in April of 2004, the company released an updated version of WordPerfect 8, for Linux, as a "Proof-of-Concept", to test the Linux marketplace. WordPerfect 5.1 and later versions through 7.0 were known for using just about every possible combination of function keys. (In earlier versions it didn't use Shift, Ctrl, and Alt in conjunction with F11 and F12, because these keys didn't exist on early personal computer keyboards.) The fact that nearly every possible function key combination was used made it necessary for many users to use a keyboard template showing each function. This was in contrast to WordStar, which it had supplanted as the major word processor -- WordStar used only Ctrl in conjuction with keys on the regular keyboard. WordPerfect aficionados remain convinced of the superiority of their word processor, pointing out how the Reveal Codes function (which allows the user to toggle between normal editing mode and a mode in which embedded formatting commands are visible and editable) gives the power user very precise control over the text. They also argue that WordPerfect has powerful features for creating tables of authorities in legal documents and correctly counts the number of words in the document, including footnotes. Those preferring the Microsoft Office suite cite MS Office's better integration between the different programs (such as e-mail programs), and WordPerfect's poor implementation of Windows conventions (in the early Windows versions of WordPerfect) and what they perceived as its lack of user-friendliness. For many users these arguments lost some validity after 1996, when newer versions of WordPerfect eliminated those perceived weaknesses. Corel's marketing department, however, has failed to capitalize on what dedicated users still consider WordPerfect's superiority. In WordPerfect 11 Corel added the Classic Mode. This was an attempt to win back users that switched to MS Word because the Windows versions of WordPerfect were so different from the famous WordPerfect 5.1 DOS version. See WordPerfect 12, which was released in 2004, for an extended description of the Classic Mode.\n Older features that are still unique to WordPerfect, compared to Word, include a one-click PDF creation feature, which lets users convert their documents to PDF without buying Adobe Acrobat. It also features a built-in dictionary and a thesaurus which suggests new words from a drop-down box while users type. Unlike Word, all editions of WordPerfect since version 6 also use the same file format, making it easy for users to share documents between newer and older copies.

External links

\n* Corel's Website\n* Wordperfect vs. Word - A user webpage that compares the features of the two programs using a point system\n* Almost Perfect, a history of WordPerfect Corporation (and the word processor) Category:Word processors\n