04 Aug 2019

WordPerfect Office Suite Still Delivers

For the past 23 years, Corel has been improving the the WordPerfect Office suite and the current version is X9, the 19th release. WordPerfect, Quattro Pro, and Paradox were once all standalone applications. The WordPerfect Office Suite was assembled by Borland and acquired by Corel in 1996.

When WordPerfect first came to market in 1982, I had been using a word processor called Word-11 via a terminal on a DEC PDP-11 computer running RSTS/E. I had convinced the owner of the business that we should take a look at desktop computers. "Fine," he said. "You do it." So we had some Zenith (IBM compatible) computers and a man stopped at the office one day with an application he wanted to show me: WordPerfect 2.2, a word processor that he said was better than WordStar.

I had looked at WordStar and other word processors for DOS and found them all to be horrid when compared to Word-11, so I didn't expect much from WordPerfect. Minutes later he had made me a believer. WordPerfect was far superior to anything on the market back then and remained so until the mid 1990s. Misdirection (a polite word for "lies") by Microsoft led WordPerfect developers in the wrong direction. The advent of Windows 3 in 1990 ended Microsof's participation with IBM in developing OS/2 and WordPerfect had only DOS and OS/2 versions.

By the time the company fielded a workable Windows version, Microsoft had largely captured the word processor market with Word. That's all ancient history now, but it's worth considering how we got to where we are.

Wikipedia describes it this way: "While WordPerfect dominated the DOS market, Microsoft shifted its attention toward a Windows version of Word; after Windows 3.0 was introduced, Word's market share began to grow at an extraordinary rate. A Windows version of WordPerfect was not introduced until nearly two years after Windows 3.0, and was met with poor reviews. Word also benefited from being included in an integrated office suite package much sooner than WordPerfect. While WordPerfect had more than 50% of the worldwide word-processing market in 1995, by 2000 Word had up to 95%; it was so dominant that WordPerfect executives admitted that their software needed to be compatible with Word documents to survive."

The suite is available in five editions: Standard, Professional, Legal, Home & Student, and Academic. The primary applications are WordPerfect, Quattro Pro, and Presentations. Most of the collections omit the Paradox database manager. WordPerfect Lightning, eBook Publisher, and AfterShot are also included in all versions. WordPerfect is clearly the primary application for most users and I'll spend most of my time there.

Nostalgia aside, WordPerfect still has a loyal following in the legal market and the application has features that Microsoft has never been able to replicate. One example in two words: Reveal Codes.

I see plaintive cries from Word users who have done "something" to their document and can't figure out how to fix what they inadvertently did. One of the most common problems is a ruling line below a line of text, a line that the user can't figure out how to get rid of. The ruling line is a paragraph attribute and eliminating it is easy if you know where to look, but many users don't.

WordPerfect makes it easy.

The user who accidentally creates (1) an underscore will be able to see it immediately (2) in the Reveal Codes view. To remove the underscore, there's no need to search through a variety of menus. Instead, just locate "Graph Line" in the code view and delete it. (3) Problem solved.

Along the way, WordPerfect was acquired by Corel and that had further implications for how the word processor approaches its tasks.

Styles and style libraries add paragraph-level formatting while still allowing users to view in-line codes. Styles combine a variety of settings for typefaces, spacing, tab stops, and margins. They can be created by the user to reduce the time required to start a new document and they can be saved in the program's style library.

When Corel acquired the desktop publishing program Ventura, Corel's developers migrated some of Ventura's formatting capabilities to WordPerfect. WordPerfect now also includes some features from the CorelDraw Graphics suite. The sharing works both ways: The CorelDraw Graphics Suite now has text editing capabilities that look suspiciously like WordPrefect.

WordPerfect X9 has retained the traditional menu from more than a decade ago — no ribbon menu interface that most applications have adopted.

If you depend on collaboration tools found in Word, you won't find them here and there's no option for tracking changes. Document Review provides some capabilities to add comments or make revisions. Users can't import revisions that were created in a Microsoft Word document. This isn't a problem for those who use an exclusive WordPerfect workflow, but it is a showstopper for those who depend on interaction with Word users.

Most of the new or improved features in version X9 are minor but useful. For example, it's possible to send a copy of a file to a portable drive without changing where the application thinks the default save location is. Instead of using "save as", selecting "send to" will save a copy of the file to a Bluetooth device, a zip file, an email client, and several other locations. If a USB thumb drive is attached, it will appear in the list of locations.

Other minor tweaks include support for Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications 7.1, which is now included in the WordPerfect Office X9 installer; enhancements to the Make it Fit function; and adjusting the scrolling speed when using the mouse to select text.

Those who use a word processor to create files for use in a publishing application such as InDesign will find that the publishing application might not accept WordPerfect files. That's an easy problem to resolve: Just save your WordPerfect file in Word format. The first time you do this, you'll see a warning that a new component must be installed. The installation is automatic and then WordPerfect can save a file in standard Word format.

Microsoft Word can become unstable with extremely long documents but WordPerfect remains stable even with documents that are long and complex. In many ways text formatting exceeds what can be accomplished with Word, probably as a result of Corel's acquisition of Ventura Publisher. Those who need spreadsheet and presentation functions will find the WordPerfect suite to lag behind Microsoft's applications, but they're still more than adequate for most users..

WordPerfect gives users far more control over formatting because it takes a fundamentally different approach. Word, trying to be helpful, often makes decisions for the user but WordPerfect presumes that the user wants to be in control. Still, features like Make it Fit allow the application to take over some formatting tasks when asked to do so by the user. WordPerfect also does things Word doesn't. Word can export a PDF document; WordPerfect can create a PDF document with fillable form fields. Word can send a document to InDesign to create an ebook; WordPerfect can export an ebook directly. WordPerfect can create alternate redacted versions of documents; Word doesn't even try. Word can import files from a few older applications and export in a few alternate formats; WordPerfect can read and write all Word formats and those of dozens of other word processors, many of which no longer exist.

You might wonder about the value of that last feature. Why would anyone want to read files from word processors that no longer exist? I'll answer that question with a question: Do you have any WordStar or XyWrite or Ami Pro documents on your computer or does anyone in your family or company ever want to recover text from old documents? Yes, admittedly this is an uncommon situation but it's a most welcome feature when you need it.

For those who need to work with people who use Word, it's comforting to know that WordPerfect can read and write all Microsoft Word file formats.

WordPerfect's primary selling point must be its text formatting capabilities. Starting with a baisc text document, a user can apply standard formatting for the entire document and optionally make the formatting the starting point for all future documents. The format includes typeface, font size and weight, text color, spacing between paragraphs, indents, tab stops and much more.

New documents have a few built-in styles, such as several levels of headings. When changes are made to the style, all paragraphs that have had the style applied also change. This is normal for Word, but building this capability into WordPerfect was challenging because of the character-level markers required for Reveal Codes.

Word has a limited style viewer, but WordPerfect has the best combination of character-level formatting and document-wide styles.

Corel WordPerfect Office can be installed on two devices used by the same person (a desktop computer and a notebook, for example) and the applilcations may be used on only one computer at a time. This puts WordPerfect at a pricing disadvantage compared to Microsoft Office Live, which costs less, can be installed on more computers, and used by multiple people simultaneously.

 WordPerfect Office: Superior, but not for everyone.

Microsoft will continue to be the major player in the word processor and office suite market, but WordPerfect has some unique features that make it a favorite in law offices and for those who need formatting capabilities not present in Word.
Additional details are available on the Corel website.

Short Circuits

Dealing with Installation Oddities

Sometimes installing an application leads to pereplexing situations. One of these situations occurred when I installed WordPerfect Office and the solution involved enabling the Administrator account.

WordPerfect Office is avaialable on disc or via download. If you download the file, the file doesn't actually install the software but starts by extracting the files that will install the software. (1) The default location for these files is the C drive, but I wanted to place them on the G drive, where I keep downloads. That was easy enough.

(2) When the installer runs, it will ask for the serial number (activation code) that will have been provided via your Corel account if you purchased the license on-line or on the disc holder if you purchased the software in a box.

The default is to install WordPerfect, Quattro Pro, Presentations, and WordPerfect Lightning. (3) You'll probably want to retain those settings. The default location (4) is the Program Files (x86) directory on the boot drive. You'll also want to leave (5) the option for the WordPerfect IFilter and desktop shortcuts enabled. If you're planning to remove Microsoft Office and want WordPerfect Office to open Microsoft-based files, select all of the file associations.

When I pressed the Install Now button, something strange happened. Soon after the installation process started, (6) an error message appeared stating that the installer didn't have sufficient permissions to proceed and suggested that I log on as an administrator. My account is an administrator.

When I tried running the installer (autorun.exe) as an administrator, the same thing happened. The failure may have occurred because autorun.exe probably calls another application (setup.exe), which is in another folder. Running that file as an administrator might have worked, but I chose to long on as The Administrator. There's a difference between "an" administrator account and "The Administrator" account, primarily that the Administrator account runs with the highest privileges and bypasses user access warnings. The account is disabled by default. If you choose to enable it, be sure to set a strong password or to disable the account when you're finished with it.

If the Administrator account isn't active, you'll need to set it up. Several methods exist to do this, but my preference is to use either CMD or Powershell. (7) Press the Windows key and X, then choose Command (Admin) or Powershell (Admin). When the command line is available, (8) type net user administrator /active:yes and press Enter. You should see a success message. Optionally, you can open the User Manager by (9) typing lusrmgr.msc and pressing Enter. Expand the Users section and (10) double-click Administrator. (11) Provide a name for the account, make sure Password never expires is selected and that Account is disabled is deselected.

Then you can log in to the Administrator account, set a password, and wait a bit for the system to set up the defaults for the account. When that's complete, navigate to the installer files and start start the process again.

When the process is complete, you'll have new icons on the desktop for WordPerfect, Quattro Pro, Presentations, and WordPerfect Lightning. Now would be a good time to disable the Administrator account by returning to Command (Admin) or Powershell (Admin), typing net user administrator /active:no, and pressing Enter.

Using Google Local Guides During a Crisis

Google's Local Guides feature is used often for mundane things — when is a store open, where to find a good Cuban sandwitch, where's the closest movie theater — but it can also be used during an emergency and Google has been sending messages to participants about how they can be helpful when things go wrong.

Approximately 33 million people participate in the Local Guides program. When there's a problem, opening Google Maps will display a crisis card near the bottom of the screen. Google's example uses Hurricaine Michael in Florida. Articles posted on Connect explain how users can contribute during a crisis. It's also possible to report and confirm road closures on the map, whether during a crisis or not.

If a crisis card appears on the screen, tapping it allows the user to report road closures and other useful information but the process is less obvious if you simply want to report a road that's closed for scheduled maintenance. Currently reporting the closure isn't possible on Google Maps but this seems to be something that Google is working on. Instead, use Waze, which is owned by Google. Reporting a closure there will eventually cause the information to be routed to Google Maps.

Local Guides can use Google Maps to confirm road closures or report that the road is now open. Some roads around the Ohio State Fairgrounds (or "Ohio Expo Center" as they prefer to be called) are closed during the Ohio State Fair. To do that:

• Open Google Maps and make sure that the traffic layer is visible.
• The road closure will be indicated by red no-entry icons.
• Tap one of the icons and you can respond with Yes, No, or Not Sure to the question Is this road closed now?

If a new road has opened and it's not yet on Google Maps, you can report it. Start by navigating to the location where the missing road should be and tap the menu icon. Scroll all the way to the bottom of the menu and click Send Feedback. Select Missing Road. The display will show a circle. Scroll the map so that the circle is where the new road starts and click the plus sign. Scroll the map and drop additional markers as needed until the blue line accurately shows the location of the new road. Click Next and add the name of the missing road, then click Send.

You can also use the feedback function to report a missing place, a missing address, or wrong information.

Considering that natural disasters kill tens of thousands every year and affect some 160 million people annually, Google Local Guides could provide useful information in time of crisis. This would be a good time to learn how.