My dos machines at both home and at work are being upgraded to Windows.
Currently, I use WordPerfect 5.1 in both locations.  I have been using
WordPerfect 5.1 in dos for the past 10 years.  I use it so much that
navigating in it is easy and simple, like riding a bike, swimming, or
tying a shoe.  the word processors in Windows offer many new features and
opportunities, but there is still the learning curve.  My home machine
will have Microsoft Office 2000.  I learned last week that my employer is
setting a standard of WordPerfect for windows for the office.  I work in a
law office and many private firms are in WordPerfect, as the article
mentions.  It looks like I will have split loyalties and will eventually
be able to use both and objectively say which is better.  The only
downside is that there is so much to learn.

kelly






The New York Times


September 21, 2000

STATE OF THE ART

It's a Word World, Or Is It?

By JOEL BRINKLEY

     HOW do you compete in a business where the next-largest company
     holds a market share hovering just under 100 percent? That's the
     quandary WordPerfect faces.

     t owns WordPerfect, said, "We are pursuing a strong niche
     strategy," he may seem overly optimistic at first glance.

     Five years ago WordPerfect was the world's leading word processor,
     with more than 50 percent of the market. The program lost its place
     largely as a result of blunders by the program's former owner,
     Novell, and astute marketing by Microsoft, which figured out before
     anyone else that programs packaged in office suites were popular.

     Today many people are surprised to learn that WordPerfect still
     exists, so complete is Microsoft Word's dominance. But WordPerfect,
     the oldest word processing program still in wide production for
     PC's, is thrumming along.

     Version 1.0, called P-Edit, came out in 1979. It was renamed
     WordPerfect in 1980. Version 9.0 is now in use, and it is utterly
     competitive with Word.

     WordPerfect partisans, and there are still millions of them,
     primarily in government and the legal profession, argue that it's
     better.

     But Corel understands one thing perfectly: to survive, WordPerfect
     must be fully compatible with Word. If a WordPerfect user cannot
     open a Word attachment that arrives by e-mail, the program will not
     survive.

     "WordPerfect can't place its users on a technological island," Mr.
     Ludwick acknowledged. Or, as Don Sylvester, a former Corel
     official, put it in an interview while he was still with the
     company in 1998: "It's clear to us that Microsoft isn't the
     competition anymore. They are our environment."

     Historically, word processors have engendered stronger customer
     loyalty than many other sorts of programs, largely because learning
     to use one takes a lot of time. That's less true today, with the
     great similarities among Windows programs. But that phenomenon has
     left WordPerfect with a large base of 22 million users in the
     United States and Canada, according to one marketing survey. I am
     one of them.

     I've used WordPerfect off and on since Version 2.24 in 1983, when
     the program was produced by the Satellite Software International of
     Provo, Utah. My first serial number was 5,250. In recent years I've
     also used Word. In many ways now, the programs are largely
     interchangeable.

     I wrote this article to this point in WordPerfect. But now, after
     saving it in WordPerfect format, I've opened the file in Word
     without a hiccup. After writing another sentence, I saved the file
     in Word format and moved back to WordPerfect. I picked up where I
     left off without a fault.

     Over time I've encountered Word users who cannot open my
     WordPerfect file attachments, for reasons that are not easily
     explained. And I occasionally receive a Windows file of one form or
     another that Word will open but WordPerfect will not. Here again,
     the reasons remain obscure. So even the dedicated WordPerfect user
     can find that it's best to have a copy of Word, too, to be
     completely safe when exchanging files via e-mail.

     While WordPerfect looks and feels a lot like Word, WordPerfect's
     interface is cleaner than Word's. Icons don't pop up unbidden.
     Almost any significant feature you might find on Word you'll also
     find on WordPerfect, and vice versa.

     But Corel officials point to a couple of conveniences, including
     one that has stayed with the program since the earliest versions:
     the Reveal Codes option.

     Inevitably, in a complex document, you will become muddled in
     conflicting commands. A font change or an indent command will find
     its way into your document even though you swear you didn't put it
     there.

     Hit the Reveal Codes button, and a gray shaded panel pops up at the
     bottom of the screen displaying several lines of text around the
     cursor. In that box, every hidden embedded command is shown. You
     can edit or delete them, then exit to find your document repaired.
     That one feature is a tremendous convenience and has no direct
     counterpart in Word (the comparable feature in Word is more
     limited).

     The drop-down menus for typeface and font size in the upper-left
     margin of the lower tool bar, just as in Word display true-to-life
     examples of the various typefaces or font sizes your cursor passes
     as you scroll through the options. Another nice feature.

     And the program is infinitely customizable. Every toolbar can be
     changed to show whatever commands you want. Even the bar at the
     bottom of the screen can be edited to show more than file name and
     cursor position. But in truth, a Word partisan could stroll through
     that program and point out an equal number of much-appreciated
     features that are available in Word but not in WordPerfect.

     The point is that even with Word's dominance, there is an
     attractive alternative. And WordPerfect wins hands down by one
     measure: price. The WordPerfect Office Suite, which includes
     WordPerfect, spreadsheet, presentations and a couple of other
     programs, typically sells in stores for about $90.

     Microsoft Office sells for about five times that price.

     You can buy WordPerfect only as a part of the office suite, though
     you can choose to install only the word processor. Microsoft offers
     a stand- alone version of Word, which sells for about $275.

     Corel released WordPerfect Version 9.0 in May 1999 and plans to
     issue Version 10.0 in the first half of next year. Right now, Corel
     officials say, WordPerfect is in use in most law firms in the
     United States and Canada, and in many government offices.

     The Justice Department, where the federal antitrust suit against
     Microsoft was written, uses WordPerfect. The New York attorney
     general's office, where the companion state antitrust suit was
     written, uses Word.

     And on the Web site of the United States District Court for the
     District of Columbia, the court where Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson
     found Microsoft in wide violation of the nation's antitrust laws
     and ordered the company broken in two, his rulings are published in
     three formats: Adobe Acrobat, HTML . . . and WordPerfect.


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