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Program Date: 08 Jun 2014

WordPerfect is not Word and Word is not Perfect

That much should be immediately obvious. If you’re old enough, you remember a time before Microsoft Word existed when WordPerfect was king. Dozens of other word processors existed. They had names such as Electric Pencil, WordStar, WordMarc, XyWrite, MultiMate, Lotus Manuscript, and more. The primary battle was between WordStar and WordPerfect. And then Microsoft got involved. Today, most people use some variant of Microsoft Word. But not everybody.

There are, in fact, some good reasons why WordPerfect might be a better choice for you than Word. Microsoft Word can read files written by a few other word processors and write files only in Word, HTML, XML, and PDF formats. WordPerfect can both read and write files in dozens of formats. This doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea to use WordPerfect as part of a workflow where files must be shared with Microsoft Word users on a back-and-forth basis. But if you deal with historical documents, WordPerfect is probably the only application that will be able to open most of them.

According to Corel, “WordPerfect Office X7 offers support for Microsoft Office file formats.... You can open, edit, and save the latest Microsoft Office file formats in each WordPerfect Office X7 application. Whether it’s a Word document (DOCX), spreadsheet (XLSX), or presentation (PPTX), WordPerfect Office X7 ensures hassle-free collaboration and file exchange.” But I stand by my caution: Things can go wrong in translation. Even though the translation of documents that use the basic functions of either program will probably be uneventful, this doesn’t mean that there will never be a problem. And note that when WordPerfect saves for Word, the file format is DOC instead of DOCX.

Most word processors today can save files in Adobe’s portable document file (PDF) format, but WordPerfect X7 takes the process a step further by making it possible to create PDF forms that can be used for gathering information. Creating PDF forms usually requires the purchase of Adobe Acrobat. The forms can include text fields, check boxes, drop-down lists, list boxes, and radio buttons. This feature alone could be worth the cost of the upgrade if you’re currently using an older version of WordPerfect.

WordPerfect still has a substantial user base in education and legal markets. One feature that Microsoft was never able to replicate and that continues to be considered valuable by users is the reveal codes function.

And familiarity in this case breeds content instead of contempt. While Microsoft has made major changes to its user interface, anyone who used the first true Windows version of WordPerfect in the late 1990s will find more similarities than differences in the X7 version that has just been released.

WordPerfect in 2014

Although WordPerfect is a fine general-purpose word processor, Corel plays to the niche market in law offices by maintaining a separate version called WordPerfect Legal Office X7.

Click for a larger view.The interface, as I mentioned, will be familiar. (1) The main menu and tool bar have changed very little in the past decade. Features have been added, but Corel has avoided making wholesale modifications. (2) PerfectExpert has been around for a while and it is intended to provide guidance when and if the user wants it. (3) The status bar provides the ability to add a defined signature to the document, to enable or disable the Shadow Cursor, to display or change the status of Caps Lock, to count the number of words in the document, to switch between insert and overtype, and to navigate within the document by line number, page number, or any of many other markers within the document.

Shadow Cursor deserves its own mention. Although it’s not a new feature, it’s handy. When the feature is enabled, the user can click anywhere on the page and start typing. If you find this capability distracting, you can turn it off.

Click for a larger view.WordPerfect has always made good use of the function keys and that continues in this version. To display the Reveal Codes section, the user can press Alt-V, C to use the menu, Alt-F3 to toggle the feature directly, or (1) use the mouse to click the View menu and then select Reveal Codes. The display (2) has been one of the most helpful features of WordPerfect from the very beginning because allows the user to see exactly which codes affect any bit of text.

Click for a larger view.WordPerfect has also been known for its macros (saved keystrokes that can perform repetitive tasks.) Several dozen macros are included with the program and users can create their own, save them, and share them.

PDF Forms from WordPerfect

Click for a larger view.The process of creating editable PDF forms is surprisingly easy. Just place the cursor at a location where you want a form element (radio button, check box, drop-down list, text field, multi-line text field, and such) and then select Insert, PDF Form Controls, and the control type from the menu.

For some control types, such as a drop-down list, you’ll need to define the values to be displayed.

Once you’ve defined all of the fields, choose File, Publish to PDF, and you’re done.

Click here to view the form.
The link above will open my sample PDF. Feel free to download it, fill it in, save it, and then e-mail it to me.

Click for a larger view.

You don’t need Adobe Acrobat to edit the file, just the free Adobe Reader program and that’s already installed on most computers. Anyone who needs to create PDF forms, even occasionally will be wowed by this feature.

A home and student version is priced at $100 while the legal version sells for $350 (upgrades are $225). The legal version includes WordPerfect , Quattro Pro, Presentations, Perfect Authority (a table of authorities creator), Lightning (a notebook application), an e-book publisher, and Roxio Secure Burn to create CDs. The version most people will purchase (standard) omits PerfectAuthority and sells for $250 (upgrades are $160), while a professional version adds the Paradox database manager at $400 (upgrades are $260).

Corel developed its office suite by acquiring some applications (Quattro Pro and Paradox, for example) and continuing to develop the word processor and other components on its own.

One of the primary differences between Word and WordPerfect is the methods that the applications use to apply formatting codes. The method Microsoft selected apparently makes it impossible to create an option to show the underlying code, not that users haven’t asked for that feature. WordPerfect, on the other hand, has been able to display formatting codes since the earliest days of the application. When something doesn’t look right, being able to review the actual formatting codes makes fixing the problem a lot easier.

5 CatsIt's not Word, but it could be the perfect choice.

The latest version of WordPerfect brings a new ability to the table: Creating editable PDF forms is a valuable addition to a word processor that, although it is no longer the standard in most offices, still has a lot to offer.
Additional details are available on the Corel WordPerfect website.

Adding Some Magic to Photoshop

Adobe's Creative Cloud developers have added a new feature to the current version of Photoshop and it's the kind of feature that's easy to overlook. Overlooking this new feature would be unfortunate, though, because it can make your life a lot easier. Those who use Adobe InDesign will already be familiar with the concept of linked objects. Photoshop users might notice a new option in the file menu and I'd like to take a few minutes to explain how it works and why it's important.

Click for a larger view.Let's assume that we're developing a website dedicated to orange cats and the client has approved a logo with the words "Orange Cats" and a line drawing of an orange cat.

Next, let's assume that we're using Photoshop to mock up the design for a dozen pages or so and that we've added the logo to each page.

The key point is how we added the logo. Photoshop offers two options: Place Embedded and Place Linked.

Click for a larger view.Here's my page mock-up in Photoshop. The logo is linked.

This is important if you have used the image on more than a few pages. Perhaps you've mocked up a dozen pages, or 20, or 100. And then the client says "I really don't like that typeface after all."

Click for a larger view.So you work with the client to determine which typeface should be used for the logo and, in the old way of doing things, you would then have to place the revised image on the dozen, or 20, or 100 pages you've already created.

Not fun.

Let's say that the main page that I showed above is still open in Photoshop. After making the change in Illustrator and saving the file, I open the Photoshop file ...

Click for a larger view.... and the new image is already in place!

If it's just one page, this isn't a big deal; but if you have dozens of pages to update, this could be a real time saver.

And clients have been known (occasionally) to make other last minute changes. "I'd really like the orange cat's eyes to be yellow," the client says.

Click for a larger view.No problem! You change the color of the cat's eyes in Illustrator, save the file, open Photoshop, and then open the page mock up ...

Click for a larger view.... and nothing has changed! What's going on here?

Photoshop is good, but it's not magic (despite my headline). If the file isn't open, it can't be updated automatically.

Notice, though, that the icon in the Layers panel shows that a linked file has been updated and that the status bar at the bottom of the page shows that one linked item has been updated.

Click for a larger view.Right-click the linked smart object layer and choose one of the following:

Click for a larger view.After updating the linked smart object, the display will be correct, the linked object in the Layers menu will no longer have a warning icon, and the status bar will show that everything is up to date.

 

And here's my final mock-up.


Text used on this demo is from the Veterinary Answers website.

This is a cool new feature and it's a good example of the advantages of a cloud-based system that can deliver updates the moment they're available. There's been push-back from users who don't like the subscription model and I understand that, but the subscription model does have advantages: If you're a Creative Cloud subscriber, you already have this feature.

Short Circuits

Have You Told the FCC to Preserve Net Neutrality?

Once again, the comedians are showing that they have more common sense than politicians. John Oliver recently spent 13 minutes explaining the concept and illustrating why now is the time to speak up. Waiting will be hazardous to your Internet.


Tell the Federal Communications Commission what you think: http://www.fcc.gov/comments/.

Smaller and Smaller

How much data can you carry around in your pocket? The first time I saw a thumb drive in New York City, 16MB in a pocket was amazing. That would be at least a dozen floppy disks. The Israeli company that introduced the thumb drive suggested that a 1GB drive would be available eventually. Now you can put 16GB of data in your pocket. Or 64GB.

Click for a larger view.The device at the right side of the image is a 16MB thumb drive as introduced at PC Expo around the turn of the century.

The white Patriot device is 1000 times larger, 16GB. The red Verbatim device and the blue MicroCenter device are both 64GB drives, but both of these are relatively slow. The 64GB Lexar device is a USB3 thumb drive that's faster than anything I've used before.

Even the smallest drive in the picture could be made smaller because the chip that houses all of the memory is probably about the size of the nail on your smallest finger.

All of this makes me think of computers such as an antique Honeywell 200 system that was in operation until nearly the turn of the century at one company I'm familiar with. This was a computer with several tape drives but no disk drive.

And the Honeywell 200's core memory was just that: core memory. A single 64KB memory module was the size of a suitcase.

Times change.

No More TrueCrypt

With very little warning, TrueCrypt has ceased to be and that has the rumor mill in high gear. Did the application have security flaws? Was it too secure? Did the developers kill the product rather than cave to demands by the National Security Agency? Did the NSA force the developers to withdraw the product? Those questions may never be resolved, but one question needs no be: What now?

Click for a larger view.At the end of May, the TrueCrypt website's main page (www.truecrypt.org) was replaced by a page that said "The development of TrueCrypt was ended in 5/2014 after Microsoft terminated support of Windows XP. Windows 8/7/Vista and later offer integrated support for encrypted disks and virtual disk images. Such integrated support is also available on other platforms (click here for more information). You should migrate any data encrypted by TrueCrypt to encrypted disks or virtual disk images supported on your platform."

Current versions of Windows do offer their own encryption options, but TrueCrypt had the advantage of being an an open-source application that could encrypt files, folders, and entire drives.

Some security experts (and there are lots of people who know far more about encryption than I do) have expressed options that TrueCrypt had security flaws. The replacement page on the TrueCrypt site now states that fact: "WARNING: Using TrueCrypt is not secure as it may contain unfixed security issues."

TrueCrypt was released about a decade ago and provided encryption capabilities for Windows XP, which has no built-in encryption. Now that Microsoft has ended support for XP, the developers possibly no longer saw a need for their project.

Maybe there's something to some of the wilder rumors. Or maybe they just decided that the time had come to shutter the project. The recommended replacement on the TrueCrypt website is Bitlocker. Depending on how you use TrueCrypt, Bitlocker might or might not be a good replacement. Bitlocker has no portable version, a feature that made TrueCrypt ideal for thumb drives.

If you're using TrueCrypt to encrypt an entire drive (one that's installed in the computer or a USB drive), Microsoft's Bitlocker will do what's needed. Except if you really want security. Microsoft has included back-door access in some applications and Bitlocker is one of them. So your files will be secure until somebody else wants to see them and that somebody else goes to Microsoft for help.

Alternatives

Here is a list of some of the alternatives. I have not tested any of them. Where prices were readily available, I have provided them. If a price is not shown, the product may be available without charge.

Apple Seems to Have Run Out of Cats

Oh, look! It's another Apple operating system that's not named after a large cat. OS X (10.10) is called Yosemite. The new operating system and updates to Apple's mobile operating system (IOS) were revealed this week in San Francisco at the company's annual developers conference. IOS is now at version 8.

Apple CEO Tim Cook told developers that the operating system updates will allow the company's products, devices, and services to work together seamlessly. He called the updates "unparalleled in the industry." And he announced that the company is making available a new programming language called Swift that's designed to work with OSX and IOS. The programming language promises faster development by allowing developers to write better code because it will eliminate certain routine programming errors.

A health-monitoring app for mobile devices is among the new features announced. Healthkit can keep track of a user's steps, heart rate, and sleep. Another new feature would turn the mobile device into a control panel for smart home devices that are installed in the user's home.

The desktop and notebook operating system (OSX) seemed to take a back seat to IOS. Cook announced that Yosemite will have a streamlined toolbar, redesigned app icons, and a few new icons.

Well, more than that really.

The update to Yosemite will be free to users of OSX 10.9 (Mavericks).

National Security Agency Spurs New Development

Snooping by the National Security Agency (NSA) seems to have had some unintended consequences. Last week, I described a new service that will allow users to send and receive encrypted e-mail messages without having an understanding of the underlying technology. Now Google is getting into the act.

Google has released the initial draft of its source code for End-to-End. It's an encryption tool that's based on OpenPGP. Based on early descriptions, Google's encryption session doesn't allow users to send encrypted messages to people who don't have G-Mail accounts (as Proton Mail does), but it might possibly have the ability, eventually, to work in conjunction with Proton Mail.

Encryption such as that used by Google or Proton Mail doesn't make it impossible for the NSA to read messages you send or receive, but it does mean that they can't just use a connection to the Internet backbone to scoop up terabytes of plain-text messages. Using current technology, the NSA would need to have spyware planted on your computer. Not that doing this would be impossible.

You can't yet use End-to-End. Cryptographers, developers, and privacy experts will now have the opportunity to examine the code and to make recommendations. Google offers monetary rewards to those who file bug report that turn out to reveal legitimate security flaws.