A Week in the Life of WordPerfect 11

A Week in the Life of WordPerfect 11
By Brett Burney

Dear Diary,
Is it possible that one day we all will live in a digital nirvana where everyone uses the same word processing application? I just want to be able to send a document to others without having to worry about whether they use Microsoft Word or Corel WordPerfect. And even if I know what program they are using, I still have to consider what version they all have.

But alas, I know it’s just a dream. We are cursed to continue living in a world where we have to juggle multiple versions of multiple applications. On the other hand, I guess a little competition never hurt anyone and the world would not be the same without the colorful rivalry between Word and WordPerfect users.

At work, I have to use Word because higher powers made that decision for me. I suspect many other people out there are in the same boat. However, WordPerfect has relished fanatical support through its many years. It’s not going away anytime soon, so I felt it would be prudent to take a good hard look at the newest offering from Corel, WordPerfect Office 11.

Many people would say Word is “simplified” for the masses, while WordPerfect is for those who truly have a stake in accurate, precise and efficient electronic word processing. The legal industry certainly falls into the latter category and Corel always has provided some extra functionality for legal professionals. I have heard a number of people complain that Microsoft continues to offer mediocre products with “Teletubby” style, with the cute and happy look and feel of Windows XP and 2003. It’s as if Microsoft tried a little too hard to make people feel good as they were using Windows. On the other hand, Corel concentrates on productive word processing with a clean and customizable interface.

This important trend continues with the release of WordPerfect Office 11. Corel focused on improving the features that already are popular, so much so there really isn’t much that would convince a Word user to switch over. That said, if someone is already a WordPerfect user, I think upgrading to Office 11 is a smart move.

A quick scan of the new features in Version 11:

1. The “Publish to PDF” feature has been improved. This tool has been around for a version or two and allows users to convert a WordPerfect document to Portable Document Format without having Adobe Acrobat installed on their system.

2. Corel added a “Document Map” feature that lets you easily jump to a specific section of a document. I have enjoyed this feature in Word for a while and am glad to see it in WordPerfect 11.

3. In the name of collaboration, Corel has provided a “routing” feature that allows you to send a document for review via Microsoft Outlook. I discovered both the author and reviewer of the document must have at least Outlook 2000 on their systems for this feature to work properly.

This week I am going to use WordPerfect 11 as my primary word processor and record some of my experiences. It will be a great way to see how well it suits my needs and stacks up to Word. The reality is I am just anxious to get my hands back onto “Reveal Codes.”

Monday
My first order of business was to install WordPerfect Office 11. I am happy to report everything went just fine. I had several options to choose from during installation, which showed me the focus on customization Corel puts into its application. I definitely made sure to install the “Legal Tools.”

Once WordPerfect was comfortably installed, I wanted to customize the look and feel of the program to my liking. The first place I went was “Settings” under the “Tools” menu where I found the “Customize” dialog. From there, I was able to add or delete specific toolbars. I checked the “Legal Toolbar” and it popped up under the “File” menu. I also could select these toolbars by going to “View” and then “Toolbars.”

The “Customize Settings” dialog let me customize my keyboard shortcuts. I always like to use “Ctrl+H” to highlight a selection of text, so I went into the “Keyboards” section, found the appropriate entry, and told WordPerfect what I wanted. It worked like a charm.

Next, I had to create a letter. Instead of creating it from scratch, I decided to try the “PerfectExpert” Wizard. On my toolbar, I clicked the “PerfectExpert” icon (the blue asterisk). A separate pane on the left appeared with several small boxes. The first box was labeled “Start,” and I opted to begin a new document. A “PerfectExpert” dialog box appeared and I selected “Business Letter.” After the program created a shell of a letter, I was able to fill in various pieces of information such as the heading, body and closing. I even could change the look of the document by selecting a style from a drop-down menu.

As I was finishing my letter, I anxiously turned on the beloved and revered “Reveal Codes.” It’s truly a beautiful site to see the “guts” of a document. I almost get the feeling I am looking at HTML code. I didn’t see much difference in the feature from previous versions except now I actually can print out the “Reveal Codes” by selecting the option in the print dialog.

Another feature I wanted to check out was the quirky decision of Corel to incorporate a “classic” mode that mimics the look and feel of WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS. Many people still consider this version of WordPerfect to be the standard-bearer for word processing. I went under “Tools,” “Settings,” then “Display” and checked the box to show the document in WordPerfect 5.1 mode. I clicked “Apply” and immediately got a blue background with white (gray) text. That definitely took me back a few years. While this might be a nostalgic blast from the past for some people, I think I will just stay in the present.

While I was finishing up my letter, I needed to open an old document I created in WordPerfect 8. I figured this would be a good chance to see if legacy documents would cause any issues when opened in WordPerfect 11. To my delight, the file format for WordPerfect documents has not changed since WordPerfect 6.1. This means my old WordPerfect 8 document opened flawlessly and looked great.

When I needed to switch back to the letter I was working on, I just clicked on the appropriate tab down at the bottom of the screen. The tabbed interface is really nice and clean and allows me to easily jump back and forth among my opened documents.

Tuesday
Well, I knew I could not stay in the wonderful WordPerfect world forever. This morning I received a Word document by e-mail, so it was a good opportunity to see how WordPerfect handles files from its arch-nemesis.

If I was Corel, I would devote a good amount of my resources to make sure Word documents converted to WordPerfect seamlessly, even if I didn’t like it very much. It would be nice if Corel could have a bigger share of the word processing pie, but it doesn’t look like that is going to happen. I would make sure people can continue to be happy working in WordPerfect, and never have an issue opening and converting Word documents.

When I clicked “File” and “Open,” the dialog box automatically showed me “All Files.” I navigated to where my Word document was saved and selected it. A small box popped up telling me WordPerfect was converting the document. It flashed a few times and was done. Just for kicks, I opened the same document in Word to compare the two, and I was impressed at how WordPerfect converted the document. I could not see any formatting was lost, so perhaps Corel has done as I suggested before.

When I tried to save my changes to that document, however, WordPerfect warned me the document had been converted and I would need to specify the format for saving the document. Obviously, the WordPerfect format was the default, but I could just as easily tell WordPerfect to save the document in Word format.

Corel also included a “Conversion Utility” that allowed me to convert several files at one time. I enjoyed selecting a handful of Word documents and converting them all at once, although it did take a while for the utility to convert them all. I assume it depends on the amount and level of formatting the documents contain.

Next, I needed to see the word count of my document as well as the number of pages. One thing I wished I could do in WordPerfect was put the total number of pages down at the bottom of the application so I could just glance down (similar to Word). To find this information, I had to click “File,” “Properties” and select the “Information” tab. Since I like to look at this information fairly often, and I could not get the information at the bottom of the program, I added a button to the toolbar that was basically a shortcut to the “Information” tab.

Another thing I wanted to do today was to change a law review article I downloaded to two columns instead of the one-column view. Frankly, I dreaded the process since I thought it was going to take a while to get everything formatted properly. I moved my mouse to the top toolbar and clicked the drop-down arrow on the “Column” button. As I moved my cursor down and hovered over “2 Columns,” the document immediately switched to two columns. I almost panicked until I realized WordPerfect 11 comes with a “RealTime Preview,” which allows you to see what a formatting style will look like before you commit to it. It also works for font styles. This is fantastic.

Wednesday
Today I had to create a pleading so I wanted to try out the “Pleading Expert” that came bundled with WordPerfect 11. It was one of the easiest things I ever created in a word processor. I simply clicked “Next” through several steps where I was able to specify my margins, font settings, and so on. All the while, another box gave me a preview of what the finished product would look like. At the end, I was able to check the box that launched the “Pleading Expert Filler.” This additional wizard walked me through inputting the actual case information, judge, attorney names and so forth. When I clicked “Finish,” I was looking at a perfectly formatted pleading document.

Next I needed to convert the document to PDF. In Word, I had to “print” the document to PDF and I had to have the full version of Adobe Acrobat installed. WordPerfect, however, provides a “Publish to PDF” feature that doesn’t require an Acrobat installation. This is almost worth the price of WordPerfect Office by itself. When I finished my pleading document, I clicked “File,” then “Publish To” and selected “PDF.” A dialog box opened that allowed me to specify several attributes of the PDF document to be created. Once I named the document and told WordPerfect where to save it, the conversion only took a few seconds. It was that easy.

Next, I wanted to try the “Document Map” feature since my document had become a little long, making it hard to navigate by just scrolling up and down.

After I made sure to include the proper markers for my Table of Contents throughout the document, I clicked “View,” then “Document Map” and a window appeared on the left side that gave me a basic outline of the document. All I had to do was click on the section I wanted to visit and it jumped right to that point in my document. I don’t think the Document Map feature in WordPerfect is quite as robust as the one in Word, but it does make it easier to move around in a document.

Thursday
Today I had a good time with some random settings in WordPerfect. First, I wanted to stretch my words and letters just a bit to make a paragraph fit into a small crawl-space I had in my document. I clicked on “Format,” “Typesetting” and selected “Word/Letter Spacing.” I was amazed I had this much control over my text, options and settings — control normally reserved for professional printers.

Next, I wanted to customize some of my “QuickCorrect” and “QuickWord” entries. QuickCorrect saves me when I misspell words such as “adn” for “and.” Once I hit the space button after a mistyped word, QuickCorrect automatically corrects it.

I also enjoy creating my own personal “QuickWord” entries. Instead of having to type out “U.S. Supreme Court” every time, I added a “QuickWord.” Now, when I type “supct” it automatically changes to “U.S. Supreme Court.” I know it’s not much, but the seconds “QuickWords” saves me add up quickly.

I also played around with views today. While “Page” (under the “View” menu) is the default, I really liked the “Two Pages” view that made me feel like I was looking at a book.

I also whipped up a quick document of things I needed at the store. I like bullet lists so I fiddled with the “Bulleted Lists” options. I clicked “Insert” and then “Outline/Bullets & Numbering” to bring up the main dialog box for creating and customizing the bullet options. But then I discovered I preferred clicking the down arrow on the bullet button on the toolbar and picking the bullet style I wanted. After typing the text for my first bullet, I hit “Enter” and continued my list.

Later in the day, I had a bit of real work to do. I needed to send the letter I composed the other day to a co-worker for review before it was snail-mailed. I wanted to try out the new “Routing” feature and discovered I needed to create a “Routing Slip” before I could send it. I did that by going to “File” and “Document.” Creating the slip was easy enough. When I returned to “Document,” this time I selected “Send to Reviewer.” An e-mail with the document was immediately mailed to my co-worker. When she opened the document, she went to “File,” then “Document” and told WordPerfect she was a “Reviewer” of the document. Once she finished her changes, she saved them and then e-mailed the document back to me. When I opened it, I told WordPerfect I was the “Author” of the document, so I had the power to accept or reject changes.

The collaboration worked like a charm, and I believe this is a huge plus for WordPerfect. I certainly will start using this “Routing” feature, except there is a slight learning curve for first-time reviewers.

Friday
Today I created a sign to announce we had doughnuts in the break room. I wanted a little graphic included on my announcement so I went to “Insert,” “Graphics” and selected “Clip Art.” I found an appropriate graphic and inserted it where I wanted it. I also could move it around without screwing up the rest of the document.

Next, I put in my text and added a big drop cap on the “D” in doughnuts. Drop caps are very simple to produce and format in WordPerfect by selecting “Format,” “Paragraph” and “Drop Cap.”

Before I hit print, I wanted to look up a few words in the Thesaurus. Since WordPerfect now ships with the Pocket Oxford Dictionary, it was easy to find definitions and suggestions for alternate words.

The only other thing I did today was work a little in Corel Presentations. I am using the “Standard” bundle of WordPerfect Office which includes Presentations and Quattro Pro. The Professional bundle adds Paradox. I just had enough time to fiddle with a new presentation I was putting together and was very impressed with the functionality in Presentations. Everything else I have done has been in Microsoft PowerPoint, but I was impressed with the usability of Presentations.

Final Thoughts
One of my favorite WordPerfect 11 features this week has been the “RealTime Preview.” When I want to change a font or see what my document looks like with three columns instead of two, I simply hover my mouse over the selection. The “RealTime Preview” saves me precious seconds.

Another feature Corel got right is the “PerfectExpert” templates. I have worked with Word templates before, but I really like the way WordPerfect 11 walks you through each step of creating a document. The “Pleading” Wizard was especially easy to use and presented me with a perfectly formatted document.

All of the “Legal Tools” are wonderful, and I didn’t even get a chance to let WordPerfect create a Table of Contents or Table of Authorities for me. Corel has done a great job of making the legal industry happy again. Microsoft has tried to provide legal-specific tools in its word processor, but they never have provided the full functionality that Corel has.

And how could I not mention “Reveal Codes?” It’s the ultimate tool in electronic document creation.

When it comes to document conversion, WordPerfect 11 hits a high mark, although I think Corel still could improve in this area. WordPerfect users have to work with and provide Word documents, so why not make it as easy as possible to convert documents between the two formats? If conversion was simple, accurate and reliable, there would be no reason legal professionals could not use WordPerfect for all of their word processing needs (and they would not have to keep a version of Word around for those “just in case” scenarios).

The routing feature in WordPerfect is an excellent idea. I predict easy “electronic document collaboration” will be the next big demand. We all need a simple and smooth way to share and annotate documents without having to print them out and mark them up with pens and highlighters. While the routing feature in WordPerfect is a step in the right direction, there are too many demands (i.e., everyone must have at least Outlook 2000) and too much confusion (i.e., who is the reviewer and who is the author?) right now for it really to be effective. It might work OK in a closed environment, such as if or when everyone in the law firm has the same applications, but problems arise when you want to collaborate with clients, outside counsel and the like.

I am disappointed I didn’t have a chance to try my hand at macro creation, a hallmark feature of WordPerfect this week. And I didn’t get to work more with tables (supposedly much easier to work with than in Word) or the “Publish to XML” feature. Corel did a great job with the WordPerfect Help Files — anytime I needed to find something, the help files were excellent.

This week has been a fantastic journey of discovery in WordPerfect Office 11. I plan to use WordPerfect 11 whenever I have a need for some serious word processing, which is fairly often.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Brett Burney is a legal practice support coordinator at Thompson Hine (www.thompsonhine.com) in Cleveland. You can e-mail him at Brett.Burney@ThompsonHine.com.