By COLIN LUCK
Well I finally bit the bullet and installed Word Perfect 11 on all my computers after running Word Perfect 8 for quite a few years and even putting up with the non-working parts of it under Windows XP Pro. I as yet have not installed all the available updates but I'm currently in the process of downloading them and will install them as I get time to which will be pretty fast with the only time consuming item being the actual downloads but I'll get there.
My first impression is that it isn't much different from the previous version 8 which is now 3 versions old. The obvious things are the opening screens which are less colourful, but the layout and functions are very similar if not actually the same so I'm not finding any problems in this as yet. Now I've bought the Professional Version to replace the existing Professional Version that I had and there are a few differences between these but they are minor, like there being no Netscape in the newer version and a few other things like that which were not all that important anyway.
So over all I'm not missing anything and as I installed this program on 15 computers none of my staff have as yet complained about any differences although they have noticed the different opening window; but they haven't said too much as yet so I think they have accepted it without any problems either. It works exactly the same as the previous versions and even the default tool bars are the same with admittedly a few more icons on them, but everything is similar and the best part is that it works properly under the XP environment so life goes on the same without any problems.
As for what exactly I have noticed from my as yet very limited use of this product it has tighter integration between different applications so it is easier to transfer data from one application to another and it transfers across in a better way without losing any previous formatting like the previous version did in a very small way. It just works better than it's older sister.
My favourite tool is still there which is "Make It Fit." This allows you to resize the fonts if you write something that goes a few lines over a page so instead of altering margins and the font size you just have to click on a text icon and choose how many pages you want your document to actually fit onto.
It is all very easy and only requires 4 mouse clicks, unlike Microsoft Word where you have to mess around with borders and font sizes.
Like its predecessor, transferring Word Documents is perfect with no loss of formatting and still retaining the Font type which is more than can be said for Microsoft's offering as you need to install the Word Perfect converter into Word as this is not a default install. And then because Word Perfect has far more fonts than Microsoft Word you may not get any specialised fonts transferred across when you open the document in Word. This is one of the advantages of Corel sharing their fonts across all Windows Applications where Microsoft Office fonts are only available to the Office Suite. The other item that I particularly like is that Word Perfect always inserts a Capitol Letter after a full stop, question mark and the like. This is something that MS Word has yet to do.
Like all Corel products it ships with more fonts than Windows can handle, and a full install of all fonts is just not possible because of Windows limitations. But the default fonts will perform most of your required needs and you can install specialised fonts for special applications like Scientific, Medical or Legal applications. At the moment all I can say is that the almost Perfect Office Suite has got even Better.
Word Perfect Office Professional 11 comes with Word Perfect the word processor, Paradox which is Corel's Data Base Program, Quattro Pro which is Corel's Spread Sheet and Presentations which is Corel's version of Power Point. There are numerous other sub applications included but these are the main applications which come with the Suite.
Also there is a update link supplied with the program so it will automatically look for updates whenever the computer is connected to the internet instead of manually having to go look for the correct page and then download the updates like you have to do in Microsoft's Office. This is also programmable on how often it looks for updates or it can be closed down if you want to. This whole package is fully customizable and everything works flawlessly. There are no problems in importing in any Microsoft Data to the correct programs and they can be created in the Word Perfect Applications and saved in the Microsoft formats if you need to send these projects off to another place that doesn't have Word Perfect and only uses Microsoft Office.
All in all it is a better mousetrap than previous versions of Corel WordPerfect Office Suites.
