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What do you think of the new Corel Office? Is your organization looking to move away from Microsoft Office?
You comment on the ability of Corel WordPerfect to read Microsoft documents, but conversely, how does Word read documents created in WordPerfect? And does it read odf documents created by Libreoffice? And what about comparisons of the Excel equivalents cross operation? And the presentation stuff?
Lets have a decent review if we are going to have one.
Peter M
Lets have a decent review if we are going to have one.
Peter M
Office from Microsoft has a very poor ability to open any other suites Data, even when it does on the very rare occasions it displays them all wrong and at best it makes them readable sometimes.
Word Perfect Documents in their native Format generally speaking do not open in Word though if you save them as a PDF from X4 Word Perfect I think on they should be readable in anything.
However having said that I personally would never trust Word to read or render any other Output and that includes output from different Versions of Word reliably or correctly.
Col
Word Perfect Documents in their native Format generally speaking do not open in Word though if you save them as a PDF from X4 Word Perfect I think on they should be readable in anything.
However having said that I personally would never trust Word to read or render any other Output and that includes output from different Versions of Word reliably or correctly.
Col
You summed it up almost exactly what my experience has been over the years.
Hi Peter:
The goal of my review was to view Corel Office from a MS Office point of view. Most businesses rely on excellent compatibility with Word docs in particular, and that is why I focused mostly on Writer. The other applications in the Corel suite work as expected. However, since I am not acutely familiar with the intricacies of Excel and PowerPoint in terms of how compatible documents from those programs are with Corel, I stuck with what I knew best in terms of a comparison. If the DOC and DOCX conversion engine in Writer is not all that its cracked up to be, I expect no less from the other applications. Given the limited scope of what I was looking at, I felt the strong look at the word processor was the best bet.
Incidentally, your criticism is perfectly valid and I should have pointed out the fact that my review was meant to have a more limited focus. I will do better to ensure that my audience understands my intentions more fully next time.
The goal of my review was to view Corel Office from a MS Office point of view. Most businesses rely on excellent compatibility with Word docs in particular, and that is why I focused mostly on Writer. The other applications in the Corel suite work as expected. However, since I am not acutely familiar with the intricacies of Excel and PowerPoint in terms of how compatible documents from those programs are with Corel, I stuck with what I knew best in terms of a comparison. If the DOC and DOCX conversion engine in Writer is not all that its cracked up to be, I expect no less from the other applications. Given the limited scope of what I was looking at, I felt the strong look at the word processor was the best bet.
Incidentally, your criticism is perfectly valid and I should have pointed out the fact that my review was meant to have a more limited focus. I will do better to ensure that my audience understands my intentions more fully next time.
Hi, I'm one of the few who still uses the full Word Perfect Office suite. I do so because of its vastly superior word processing program. It has one feature that makes it so much better than Word -- reveal codes. I personally hate ribbons with buttons, I set up my own toolbars with buttons for the 15-20 most important functions and the rest are easy to find, by and large, in the sub-menus. Back in the day when the USgov was suing Microsoft to break it up, the gov used Word and the attorneys defending Microsoft used Word Perfect.
steve
steve
To add to bigsteve666's comments, WP is vastly superior to Word not only because of Reveal Codes (an excellent feature), but some others as well.
My experience is based on WP 2000 (!) and Word 2000 and 2010... WP does not try to nanny you in a number of formatting/layout features like headers and footers, and list numbers and bullet points. A number of things are just easier to do in WP...
Of course Word does not try to be compatible with anything. Why bother, when it dominates the word-processor market?
Somehow I am reminded of Betamax v VHS in videotapes...
The good thing about Word and, indeed, the other MS products is, that they have created what is, in effect, a world standard, so that I can be pretty sure any of my correspondents anywhere in the world can open my documents and (at least to a large extent) see what I see.
Just a pity that it isn't WP for word-processing...
My experience is based on WP 2000 (!) and Word 2000 and 2010... WP does not try to nanny you in a number of formatting/layout features like headers and footers, and list numbers and bullet points. A number of things are just easier to do in WP...
Of course Word does not try to be compatible with anything. Why bother, when it dominates the word-processor market?
Somehow I am reminded of Betamax v VHS in videotapes...
The good thing about Word and, indeed, the other MS products is, that they have created what is, in effect, a world standard, so that I can be pretty sure any of my correspondents anywhere in the world can open my documents and (at least to a large extent) see what I see.
Just a pity that it isn't WP for word-processing...
"WP is vastly superior to Word not only because of Reveal Codes (an excellent feature), but some others as well" - MSWord also has a reveal codes feature which I use regularly (in 2003 and 2007 - haven't tried 2010 yet), any chance you could clarify why the feature is that much superior in WP?
What Word has is nothing like WP Reveal Codes, where all formatting codes become visible. This is extremely handy for finding and dealing with formatting problems.
In WP there is much more control over layouts etc, such as paragraph numbering and bullet points.
Then there are the simple things like being able to justify different chunks of a row in the same row. For example, in a header you might like to have the heading left-justified and the page number right-justified. I have not worked out a way to do it in Word, so my workaround is to left-justify and insert tabs. Not as elegant.
If you have never used WP you are not missing anything...
Luckily my need to use advanced formatting features has dropped, so Word is not such a hassle, I have even started originating documents in Google Docs, and its word-processor is still pretty basic cf Word and WP.
In WP there is much more control over layouts etc, such as paragraph numbering and bullet points.
Then there are the simple things like being able to justify different chunks of a row in the same row. For example, in a header you might like to have the heading left-justified and the page number right-justified. I have not worked out a way to do it in Word, so my workaround is to left-justify and insert tabs. Not as elegant.
If you have never used WP you are not missing anything...
Luckily my need to use advanced formatting features has dropped, so Word is not such a hassle, I have even started originating documents in Google Docs, and its word-processor is still pretty basic cf Word and WP.
That's a great point. The capability is there in Excel, why not in Word?
Having been working with Word since Office 97, I was not fond of the "Ribbon", though I have been somewhat successful at retraining my "recall" of the Ribbon layout.
I figured out how to set your header requirement in under a minute; Insert Ribbon, Header - Blank 3 column, set right column text by selecting the 3 vertical dot icon then from the Page Number dropdown choose Current Position. You can also use the Insert Alignment Tab option while editing the header.
I figured out how to set your header requirement in under a minute; Insert Ribbon, Header - Blank 3 column, set right column text by selecting the 3 vertical dot icon then from the Page Number dropdown choose Current Position. You can also use the Insert Alignment Tab option while editing the header.
shows all codes in the document: bold, underscore, hard breaks, hard spaces, table codes, everything. Then you can go through the codes you see and delete those you no longer need. I (and most other Word Perfect users, too) have fixed formatting issues more than once by doing this.
Caveat: My experience with WP ended in 2005, but I can't imagine the WP developers removing or modifying such a useful and popular feature, particularly since that feature is the primary difference between Word Perfect and MSWord
Caveat: My experience with WP ended in 2005, but I can't imagine the WP developers removing or modifying such a useful and popular feature, particularly since that feature is the primary difference between Word Perfect and MSWord
As I mentioned elsewhere, there are other important differences. In a number of areas the approach (like Excel v Lotus-1-2-3) is different. In spreadsheets I don't think it matters as much, but in word-processing it does, to me anyway.
Make It Fit in 2003?
No you haven't because it doesn't exist that only came latter after M$ copied it from Word Perfect.
The strange thing here is that I to consider WP far superior to Office and I was derided by staff when I first started this business because I used WP. They all suggested I get with the program and switch to Word to which I just replied I'm more comfortable with WP and you can use what you like except for the places where we are legally required to use WP instead of Word.
Now more than a few years after I started this business they all use WP and moan like hell when they are forced to use Word for anything. While I can not point to any specific Feature it's all of them that are in WP that are not in Office and the ease of use with everything in WP over Word.
The Revel Codes is just a small example of where WP far exceeds Word capabilities. The Make It Fit was 4 Mouse Clicks to make a document fit to a Page Count which was latter adopted by the Office Team at Microsoft and because I use it a lot it's one of the things I'm much more familiar with.
But to be perfectly honest it's always just plain and simple Painful when I have to use Office for anything. The little problems with Formatting in one version of Office not being correctly recognized in another and the need to change the Default Output from DocX in the latter versions is a major Stumbling Block to it's wide spread adoption in places that have to submit documents in DOC format occasionally.
If you use Office all day every day it may not be an issue but for my customers/clients who are not Power Users and do other things that may not even involve a computer for their daily work it's something that they have to either remember or not move onto newer Office Suites so that they can get their work done in a fashion that is acceptable to that business.
When Microsoft finally prevents Office 2003 from working on their newer OS's that's going to eventually lead to those customers who are required to use it to move away from all Microsoft Products. Not going to happen tomorrow but if things stay the same it will eventually happen.
Col
No you haven't because it doesn't exist that only came latter after M$ copied it from Word Perfect.
The strange thing here is that I to consider WP far superior to Office and I was derided by staff when I first started this business because I used WP. They all suggested I get with the program and switch to Word to which I just replied I'm more comfortable with WP and you can use what you like except for the places where we are legally required to use WP instead of Word.
Now more than a few years after I started this business they all use WP and moan like hell when they are forced to use Word for anything. While I can not point to any specific Feature it's all of them that are in WP that are not in Office and the ease of use with everything in WP over Word.
The Revel Codes is just a small example of where WP far exceeds Word capabilities. The Make It Fit was 4 Mouse Clicks to make a document fit to a Page Count which was latter adopted by the Office Team at Microsoft and because I use it a lot it's one of the things I'm much more familiar with.
But to be perfectly honest it's always just plain and simple Painful when I have to use Office for anything. The little problems with Formatting in one version of Office not being correctly recognized in another and the need to change the Default Output from DocX in the latter versions is a major Stumbling Block to it's wide spread adoption in places that have to submit documents in DOC format occasionally.
If you use Office all day every day it may not be an issue but for my customers/clients who are not Power Users and do other things that may not even involve a computer for their daily work it's something that they have to either remember or not move onto newer Office Suites so that they can get their work done in a fashion that is acceptable to that business.
When Microsoft finally prevents Office 2003 from working on their newer OS's that's going to eventually lead to those customers who are required to use it to move away from all Microsoft Products. Not going to happen tomorrow but if things stay the same it will eventually happen.
Col
If people move away from Word, or Office in general, I suspect it will be towards free suites like OpenOffice or Libre Office.
Unfortunately Google Docs only supports .odt of the non-MS suites.
Unfortunately Google Docs only supports .odt of the non-MS suites.
---I can be pretty sure any of my correspondents anywhere in the world can open my documents ---
This computer (my wife's) is still on Word 2000 as my wife likes it, knows it, and cannot see any reason to change. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. I have added the utility to read docx format, but I know it mucks up fancy formatting.
I created a spreadsheet to track and convert litres and miles traveled to miles per gallon in Openoffice, but had to change it to work in M$ Excel. The modified version works Ok back in OO. ( I still think in gallons).
Cheers all.
This computer (my wife's) is still on Word 2000 as my wife likes it, knows it, and cannot see any reason to change. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. I have added the utility to read docx format, but I know it mucks up fancy formatting.
I created a spreadsheet to track and convert litres and miles traveled to miles per gallon in Openoffice, but had to change it to work in M$ Excel. The modified version works Ok back in OO. ( I still think in gallons).
Cheers all.
Currently, I have the Corel WordPerfect Suite X3 on my machine. I just upgraded from Vista to Windows 7, and the compatibility wizard had said it did not know whether or not this would work with Windows 7. Well it does work. The only reason why I would want to upgrade to the new Corel Suite is for integration with Windows 7 and 8. I want to be able to run two programs: WordPerfect, and Quattro Pro. If the new Corel Suite is running after Microsoft Office but leaving WordPerfect folks behind, it is just ridiculous! I have been with Quattro Pro since version 1.0, and with Word Perfect since 4.2 (but version 7.0 was really good.)
I did really like WP 7.x too myself. I believe that was made back during the Novell era.
Incidentally, I should clarify the last paragraph of my review, when I make mention of documents created under the older WordPerfect Office X6. I didn't mean actual .wpd and .qpw filetypes, which is what most readers were hoping for, but rather their MS Office format-saved equivalents. I believe I might have caused some confusion there. If you need to work with .wpd and .gpw files, you are going to need to shoot for the WordPerfect Office X6 edition. Thanks for pointing that out.
Incidentally, if you know where to look, Corel sells OEM versions of WordPerfect Office X6 that are significantly cheaper than their retail counterparts.
Incidentally, I should clarify the last paragraph of my review, when I make mention of documents created under the older WordPerfect Office X6. I didn't mean actual .wpd and .qpw filetypes, which is what most readers were hoping for, but rather their MS Office format-saved equivalents. I believe I might have caused some confusion there. If you need to work with .wpd and .gpw files, you are going to need to shoot for the WordPerfect Office X6 edition. Thanks for pointing that out.
Incidentally, if you know where to look, Corel sells OEM versions of WordPerfect Office X6 that are significantly cheaper than their retail counterparts.
For the past 20 years or so WP has maintained file compatibility with WP6. Users who adopt a newer WP release do not lose access to their previous files, (which I believe would be true of MS Office users as well), and users who do not adopt a newer WP release don't lose the ability to open files written with newer versions of the software. WP also maintains familiar features; users would need to learn any new features that are introduced in new releases, but they don't need to learn a whole new word processor just because of a version upgrade. That is in sharp contrast to the MS Office Suite.
I think part of Word's problem was the need to find a more compact file format. Word .doc files are quite bloated, whereas .docx are much smaller. I am not sure the effect is as pronounced in other apps, and I have not checked.
Speaking personally, I did/do not mind so much the need to migrate to Excel (from Lotus 1-2-3, which I still use with some fairly sophisticated spreadsheets because conversion is very difficult or beyond my ability) or PowerPoint.
For me the big issue is the word processor. Besides WP I use Word because I have to, including the fact that Google Docs does not offer WP compatibility.
Speaking personally, I did/do not mind so much the need to migrate to Excel (from Lotus 1-2-3, which I still use with some fairly sophisticated spreadsheets because conversion is very difficult or beyond my ability) or PowerPoint.
For me the big issue is the word processor. Besides WP I use Word because I have to, including the fact that Google Docs does not offer WP compatibility.
As a computer technician, I can't tell you how irritated I become listening to customers whine about Microsoft Office tanking for no apparent reason. Unfortunately; a simple uninstall and reinstall OFTEN doesn't solve issues with Microsoft applications. If you enjoy continuous issues and the threat of "macro viruses", then MS Office is the way to go.
If you want a more problem free solution, then Corel is less of a headache and more economical.
Also; when trading documents via email, if the receiver is not editing what you send then you should be sending PDFs and NOT files specific to ANY application. That's the other most irritating call we get from customers. "I can't open this file" is the cry we hear day in and day out. Often times, these complaints are Word users receiving files from OTHER WORD USERS. Folks don't understand that .docx files can't be natively opened in older versions of Word.
If you want a more problem free solution, then Corel is less of a headache and more economical.
Also; when trading documents via email, if the receiver is not editing what you send then you should be sending PDFs and NOT files specific to ANY application. That's the other most irritating call we get from customers. "I can't open this file" is the cry we hear day in and day out. Often times, these complaints are Word users receiving files from OTHER WORD USERS. Folks don't understand that .docx files can't be natively opened in older versions of Word.
Only if there is 1 version difference between the different Office Suites. Allow more to creep in with Domestic Users or worse still some Business Users who are mandated what Format that they need to submit Documents in and they need to have their documents read by the receiver and it's firstly not possible to insist that the receiver installs anything on their systems and even if you force them to it doesn't render the document readable always.
For instance here a Government Department requires that Tenders be submitted electronically in .DOC Format the first company who had moved to Office 2007 sent in a Tender for a smallish job of about 24 Million and where promptly told that their Tender didn't open.
They resubmitted the Tender again which again didn't open and the person who received the unopenable file dumped it as the company placing the tender obviously wasn't interested enough to submit a readable Tender. Back then they where told to submit all Tenders as Word Documents not .DOC instead of .DOCX, the result not considered for that job and a listing against the company that they appeared not to care and to move them to the Bottom of the List out of the Acceptable Tenderes.
Doesn't matter what you have you need to work with the people who you communicate with and submit Electronic Documents in a format that is readable to them and it's insanity to believe that you can tell anyone what they need on their system to read your Documents. Microsoft ignored this and it was their Customers who suffered.
Col
For instance here a Government Department requires that Tenders be submitted electronically in .DOC Format the first company who had moved to Office 2007 sent in a Tender for a smallish job of about 24 Million and where promptly told that their Tender didn't open.
They resubmitted the Tender again which again didn't open and the person who received the unopenable file dumped it as the company placing the tender obviously wasn't interested enough to submit a readable Tender. Back then they where told to submit all Tenders as Word Documents not .DOC instead of .DOCX, the result not considered for that job and a listing against the company that they appeared not to care and to move them to the Bottom of the List out of the Acceptable Tenderes.
Doesn't matter what you have you need to work with the people who you communicate with and submit Electronic Documents in a format that is readable to them and it's insanity to believe that you can tell anyone what they need on their system to read your Documents. Microsoft ignored this and it was their Customers who suffered.
Col
Hal9000, the stories do not make fun reading, but sometimes there has to be a technology shift and you cannot always be backwards compatible. Maybe MS could have done it differently, maybe not; I am not a programmer, but something had to be done about the old file formats.
I have Office 2010 and I can save documents in the pre-2007 formats .doc, .xls etc. For one correspondent I convert my .docx to .doc on the rare occasion I send him a document.
I have Office 2010 and I can save documents in the pre-2007 formats .doc, .xls etc. For one correspondent I convert my .docx to .doc on the rare occasion I send him a document.
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