Software Shootout: WordPerfect Office 2002 vs. Microsoft Office XP

Software Shootout: WordPerfect Office 2002 vs. Microsoft Office XP
Office suites face off.
By Charles E. Whisonant
Aug/Sep '01 Issue

A couple of years ago I wrote an article on my trials and tribulations of migrating, at least in part, to Microsoft Word. Most of the expletives were thoughtfully edited out.

With all the buzz currently surrounding the new and improved MS Office XP, I was more than a little anxious to try it out.

Perhaps now I can eliminate the premium I charge clients who insist I work in Word.

I was told both suites were pre-release copies of the final products. There were a few strange errors that would seem to indicate both products were in late beta when the evaluation occurred in late April and May. Regardless, both products performed well and were stable on a system running Windows 2000 on a self-built machine with 128MB RAM and an AMD K6-2 500.

Program Information

WordPerfect Office 2002
Corel Corp.
(800) 772-6735
www.corel.com

Microsoft Office XP Ť
Microsoft Inc.
(800) 366-5550
www.microsoft.com

Ť Shootout Winner

For this evaluation I compared the relative ease of generating documents and performing tasks common to law practices. I didn’t judge the products on bugs or glitches other than to observe that both products appeared stable.

For testing purposes I designed several documents and tasks to determine the ease of creating pleadings, contracts, simple spreadsheets, databases for contacts and a document log, a presentation for a recent seminar and e-mail and personal information management.

Before evaluating the major applications, I should probably make a few comments about the suites in general.

Both provide the essential applications: word processor, spreadsheet, database, presentation program and Personal Information Manager (PIM). The version of WordPerfect Office 2002 Professional Edition included a copy of Dragon NaturallySpeaking 5.0 and MS Office XP included MS FrontPage 2002.

Installation of both suites was painless with Office XP loading more quickly than WordPerfect Office. WordPerfect Office loaded in a separate directory, so I was able to have both WordPerfect Office 9 and WordPerfect Office 2002 available. MS Office XP searched my hard drive for a prior installation of Office and uninstalled the prior version before loading Office XP in spite of my requesting a new installation of MS Office instead of an upgrade.

As I write this review, both companies still have issues to work out. And Corel has already released Service Pack 1 for WordPerfect Office.

Word 2002 vs. WordPerfect 10
For most common tasks there are not many new features in WordPerfect 10 that will benefit lawyers. That isn’t necessarily a criticism since WordPerfect 8 and 9 have a more than ample feature set. The features that have made WordPerfect the word processor of choice for lawyers for years are still present — strong outlining functions, table capabilities that provide spreadsheet functions, seamless file imports for all versions of WordPerfect back to Version 4.2, strong formatting and styles and, of course, reveal codes. WordPerfect 9 introduced an Adobe Acrobat utility that converts files to Adobe Acrobat PDF (Portable Document Format) files.

The reveal codes function makes editing the format relatively simple. If you have a formatting problem, turn on reveal codes and either delete or double-click the offending code and make your correction in an editing pane.

There was one notable, but probably not that significant, omission in WordPerfect 10 from Version 9 — legal-specific templates. WordPerfect 9 had templates for timesheets and legal faxes, both of which I use often. Only the pleading macro remains.

What about Word 2002? There are lots of new enhancements and features, including Word’s version of reveal codes called “Reveal Formatting.”

Other significant improvements and additions to the program are better document recovery in the event of a system failure, Smart Tags and speech and handwriting recognition.

The “Reveal Formatting” function appears as a pane that by default appears on the right side of the screen. You can place the cursor at any place in the document, or select an area of text and the formatting for the area is shown. The formatting for fonts, paragraphs and sections are shown.

You can change formatting for a word, paragraph or section by selecting the text and pointing to the particular feature you want to change in the reveal formatting pane.

Document recovery is another major improvement in Word 2002. This is beneficial given California’s current epidemic of rolling power outages if you have not already invested in UPS (uninterruptible power supply, not the delivery guys in brown uniforms).

WordPerfect’s document recovery system invites you to open, delete or rename a recovered document without providing information on the contents, if any, of the recovered document.

Word’s recovery system is superior in that it opens a pane on the left side of the screen and gives the document name, time and date of the last save before the system crashed. You need to tell Word what to do with recovered documents or the next time you start Word you will be prompted again with the same information.

I used a test machine to evaluate the software for this article. The “Document Recovery” feature was helpful since this machine is more prone to lock-up and system failures than my trusty Toshiba notebook.

Smart Tags are another interesting feature. Word recognizes certain word patterns such as a hyperlink, person’s name, dates and citations. When Word recognizes one of these patterns, a tag appears next to the text. Clicking the tag gives you task options depending on the type of text.

For example, if you type in a person’s name you can add the person’s name to Outlook 2002. Similarly, if you type in a date Word will display a Smart Tag, and if you click the tag, you will be prompted to check your calendar or create an event. Third parties are expected to create other Smart Tags and one for citations is expected.

The speech recognition engine is integrated into all of the Office components, except PowerPoint, and works reasonably well. After a moderate amount of training speech recognition was about 95 percent accurate; which is decent but not on par with Dragon NaturallySpeaking, which is included with the WordPerfect Office 2002 Professional Edition.

Probably a more interesting and useful feature is the hand writing recognition component. If you have a Pocket PC like a Hewlett-Packard Journada and you take handwritten notes, these notes can be synced into a Word document and converted to text.

My Journada-wielding friends tell me this capability already existed in the Journada. The Journada doesn’t rely on Graffiti as the Palm PC does. The only thing new is the conversion occurs using Word. In addition, this feature works with tablets.

Word 2002’s reveal formatting function is different than WordPerfect’s and in some aspects superior, but is still not as good in some ways.

So how does all of this translate to preparing legal documents? Both products work excellently. I was able to draft a complaint with either program and with relative ease. I was also able to recreate a commercial lease a little easier with Word. I did have one major problem editing a particular pleading. I drafted a motion and needed to include a proof of service. I used the Word pleading wizard to set up the pleading paper, caption and style. I knew I had a proof of service for the same case in a WordPerfect document. I opened the WordPerfect document in a separate session, made the changes I needed and then tried to cut and paste the proof of service to the end of the motion in the Word document. All of the line numbers and vertical lines on the left and right margins disappeared.

Instead of fighting with Word, I opened a session of WordPerfect, ran the pleading macro and attempted to cut and paste the Word document into WordPerfect. Just as I was about to make a blistering note about Word 2002 in my review log, more problems occurred. When I tried to paste the text of the proof of service into WordPerfect, it gave an error message that the text was in an unsupported file format. Not to be daunted, I went back to Word, saved the file and then tried to open the document in WordPerfect. Same error. Back to Word. I tried to save the Word file as a Word 2000, 98, as a rich text format (.rtf) file and finally as a WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS file.

Only saving the Word 2002 file as a WP 5.1 file worked.

This is the only file conversion problem I had. I was able to open documents created in earlier versions of Word in WordPerfect and vice versa.

If you are thinking of upgrading, there are a couple of considerations I need to mention. I was not able to get either product to work with HotDocs Version 5.1 (I didn’t try it with Version 5.2). Nor would either version work with Time Matters 3. I don’t know about other case managers. DataTXT sent a patch that would allow both products to work with Time Matters 4.0, but I didn’t have time to test the patch before this article went to press.

Which product gets the nod? Well, this is clearly the best version of Word I have used, and if push came to shove I would use it without griping too loudly. I am already using it for correspondence, and one client has requested that documents, primarily commercial leases and contracts, be prepared using Word.

But, I still prefer WordPerfect for creating pleadings and documents that require a lot of numbered lists and outlines. I can still fix formatting errors in WordPerfect easier than I can with Word. That, plus the file compatibility with thousands of documents and exemplars created in WordPerfect, gives the nod to WordPerfect, but only just a slight nod.

Excel 2002 vs. Quattro Pro 10
For testing purposes I created a spreadsheet to calculate a payment schedule for a settlement that was to be paid over 24 months at an interest rate of 8.5 percent. Both products handled the task with ease. I also created a profit and loss statement for a client to be used as part of a loan application package. Again, both programs handled the task with ease. However, both tests were simple. The real challenge came with trying to import a complex economic model from one of the investment banking firms with whom I am working. The original model was written in Excel using numerous worksheets, integrated formula, macros and any number of extras.

However, I could not get the spreadsheet to work well in Quattro Pro. In all fairness, the model could have as easily been written in Quattro Pro. The only problem was, I knew of no one at the time who used a spreadsheet program other than Excel. And I still don’t.

Conclusion: If you are working internally and don’t need to share spreadsheets with the outside world, either program will work fine. However, if you need to share spreadsheets with the outside world, as between these two products, the answer is clearly Excel.

MS Access 2002 vs. Paradox 10
I don’t know many attorneys that create databases. Over the years I have used Paradox on a few projects and usually keep a database table of my address book in either a Paradox table or Access table. It’s easier to manipulate data in a database table than either Outlook or my case management software. For evaluation purposes I created a document log for a pending case.

Both products performed as expected. While I tend to find Paradox a little easier to use for most tasks, it’s purely a subjective assessment having used Paradox longer than I have Access. There are certain tasks such as creating filters and customizing forms that I found a little easier with Access, but nothing significant. Both products are powerful. Entire case management, time and billing and accounting programs have been developed using both Paradox and Access. However, this is capability far beyond the needs of most attorneys or even law firms. My conclusion: No clear winner.

PowerPoint 2002 vs. Corel Presentations 10
For test purposes I created two presentations: 1) A training program I presented to a client’s employees, and 2) A marketing piece for a large matter I was asked to propose. The latter contained information on my law firm, relevant experience, generalized approach and fee structure.

For these purposes it was a tie. Corel Presentations 10 and PowerPoint 2002 handled both tasks with ease. I ended up using the Corel Presentations version of the project proposal and the prospective client is a MS Office shop. When they requested a copy of the presentation, I converted the presentation to a HTML document so the underlying program was not an issue. I could do this with either program. My conclusion: No clear winner.

Outlook 2002 vs. CorelCentral 10
I didn’t try anything too fancy to test Outlook 2002 or Corel Central 10. Both contain calendars with alarms, task lists, address books and note takers. Outlook has long been a strong contender in the e-mail department. Corel, having dropped e-mail in Version 9, has reintroduced it with CorelCentral 10.

Both products perform well with their core functions such as entering appointments and tasks, tracking names and addresses, and sending and receiving e-mail even from multiple accounts. In my opinion, CorelCentral integrates with WordPerfect a little better than Word does with Outlook for retrieving names and addresses. Outlook integrates with everyone else with many third-party applications written to complement it. For example, I use a Dymo labeler to print mailing and shipping labels for contacts stored in Outlook.

Conclusion: CorelCentral 10 is a significant improvement over prior versions with the addition of e-mail. However, I can’t help feeling that Corel doesn’t really expect anyone to use it, and it’s included purely as a program so Corel can say its suite has a PIM, too. Outlook 2002 gets the nod.

Ultimately If I Have to Choose ...
This one is close, but MS Office XP gets my vote, even though I still prefer WordPerfect for most word processing chores. Word 2002 has made substantial gains with its “Reveal Formatting” function, document recovery and usability enhancements. Word users may view this as mere preference not based on a feature-by-feature comparison and they may be right. Excel is a clear winner and I find Outlook superior to CorelCentral. The remaining apps are basically a draw, but MS Office XP is still a winner.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Charles E. Whisonant is an attorney at the Law Offices of Charles E. Whisonant in Newport Beach, Calif.