Entered CNET Catalog: 02/27/2004
SKU: CNETCORELWORDPERFECTOFFICE12
Manufacturer: Corel Corp.
Manufacturer description
WordPerfect Office 12 offers a unique combination of powerful features, suite-wide enhancements to compatibility, and new functionality to increase users' productivity. WordPerfect Office 12 is a globally recognized name in office productivity - an office suite that's feature-rich, compatible with Microsoft and that offers an outstanding value in terms of price and licensing flexibility. These key benefits, together with Corel's enhanced support options and worldwide availability, make WordPerfect Office 12 the leading alternative to Microsoft Office. WordPerfect Office 12 boosts productivity with the trusted power of WordPerfect for word processing, Quattro Pro for spreadsheets and Presentations for multimedia slide shows. The suite also includes an address book for managing contacts, the new WordPerfect Wireless Office Suite, powered by ZIM, to keep users connected with WordPerfect Office via their mobile phone, and the new WordPerfect OfficeReady template browser, a powerful platform for managing WordPerfect Office templates including the 40 new templates bundled with WordPerfect Office 12. WordPerfect Office 12 has been developed to meet the needs of small-to-medium sized businesses (SMBs) and consumers, as well as the specific compatibility needs of government and legal customers. Value and compatibility together make WordPerfect Office 12 the clear office suite of choice for consumers and small-to-medium sized businesses seeking low-cost alternatives to Microsoft Office.CNET editors' review
- Editors' Choice: No
- Reviewed on: 06/11/2004
All isn't perfect, however. WordPerfect Office 12.0 is still dreadful at importing Microsoft Office documents, particularly Excel and PowerPoint files. In our tests, Excel charts were dramatically altered, and PowerPoint presentations' text and graphics were routinely scrambled during the import process. We're not saying that WordPerfect Office 12.0 is a poor product--far from it. In many ways, it's easier to use than Microsoft Office, particularly for users who frequently upload PDF, HTML, and XML documents to the Web. But we strongly advise corporations and educators debating a cost-saving switch to WordPerfect Office 12.0 to test the program's importing skills before making the leap.
| Education Edition |
Standard Edition |
Professional Edition |
|
| Includes | WordPerfect Quattro Pro Presentations Paradox Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications 6.3 |
WordPerfect Quattro Pro Presentations |
WordPerfect Quattro Pro Presentations Paradox Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications 6.3 |
| Full price | $99.99 | $299.99 | $349.99 |
| Upgrade price | N/A | $149.99 | $199.99 |
| # of licenses | 3 | 1 | Contact Corel for more information. |
Installation
Corel WordPerfect Office 12.0 comes on two CDs and is simple to install. The first CD includes the core apps: WordPerfect 12.0, Quattro Pro 12.0, Presentations 12.0, and Zim's SMS.com, a utility for transmitting e-mail and instant messages to and from mobile devices. You'll quickly notice the absence of a standard e-mail application. The Professional and Education editions also include Corel's Paradox database app, which installs separately. The second CD includes a variety of third-party utilities, including Acrobat Reader and Internet Explorer, and Corel's OfficeReady Browser, a handy template viewer (see Features).
In our tests, setup was fast and painless, taking about 10 minutes. A full install of the three core programs--WordPerfect, Quattro Pro, and Presentations--required just 373MB of disk space. More good news: users upgrading from WordPerfect Office 11.0 and earlier editions can install version 12.0 without first uninstalling their old copies, which wasn't the case with previous upgrades.

Interface
Corel WordPerfect Office 12.0's best enhancements are interface related. Topping the list is the clever Workspace Manager, a pick-your-interface menu that pops up when you open WordPerfect, Quattro, or Presentations. Designed to ease the transition from Microsoft Office, Workspace Manager mimics the keystrokes, menus, and toolbars of Microsoft's suite. Microsoft Word users, for instance, can work in Word Mode without struggling with WordPerfect's different look and feel. Upgraders benefit as well. Workspace Manager also allows you to work in WordPerfect Legal Mode--a boon for the legal profession, where WordPerfect remains popular--or Classic Mode, a DOS-era throwback to the blue-screen, version 5.1 interface that's sure to please Neanderthals and fans of keystroke commands.
Word Mode doesn't exactly replicate Microsoft Word's interface, however, and new users may find themselves stumbling a bit at first. For instance, the Word toolbar lacks a Print Preview icon, although you'll find one (with a slightly different look) on the WordPerfect toolbar directly above it.

Another handy new tool is the Compatibility Toolbar, which allows one-click conversion to HTML, PDF, XML, Excel, PowerPoint, or Word. To convert a Presentation 12.0 slide to Adobe Acrobat's ubiquitous PDF, for instance, simply click the Publish to PDF icon on the Compatibility Toolbar. It's that simple. Microsoft Office, by comparison, doesn't offer any PDF-conversion tools.
Just be aware that while WordPerfect 12.0 and Presentations 12.0 support PDF publishing, Quattro Pro 12.0 doesn't, and the suite supports Adobe's Acrobat 5.0 format rather than the newer 6.0 version, which creates smaller PDF files in less time. Productivity | Packages
Productivity
The individual apps in Corel WordPerfect Office 12.0 are pretty much unchanged from those of version 11.0, but that doesn't mean version 12.0 is a tired retread. In addition to the Workspace Manager's interface enhancements, including the ability to mimic Microsoft Office toolbars and icons, the new OfficeReady Browser makes it a breeze to view and select a WordPerfect, Quattro Pro, or Presentations template. OfficeReady, a standalone application, features an Explorer-like tree that organizes template folders by task: Academic, Company Finance, Family & Home, and so on. Click a template, and it appears in thumbnail form in a viewer window.

We particularly liked the OfficeReady Browser, which vastly simplifies the task of tracking down templates--a sometimes challenging task in other suites. One gripe: The preview pane could use a magnification feature to view template details. Currently, you need to launch the template in its host program (for example, Quattro Pro) to view it in its full glory.
Alas, not all is perfect with WordPerfect Office 12.0. Our biggest complaint is the suite's inability to accurately import Microsoft Office documents, particularly Excel and PowerPoint files. In our tests, version 12.0's import filters routinely made a mess of PowerPoint presentations, stripping text from slides, eliminating transitions, altering formatting, and distorting images. They scrambled Excel charts, lost formulas, and in one instance, converted the symbol for the British pound to the American dollar sign--talk about a sudden drop in the exchange rate! Another problem: Excel macros wouldn't work in Quattro Pro.
![]() |
![]() |
| The import filters in WordPerfect Office 12.0 need work. Here is an original chart in Microsoft Excel. | Notice the dramatic differences between the original and the version imported into Corel Quattro Pro. |
Granted, home users and small businesses converting maybe a dozen or so Microsoft Office files probably won't mind the inconvenience of redoing a few presentations and spreadsheets, but it's still a time-consuming process. For medium- to large-scale educational institutions and corporations considering a cost-saving switch to WordPerfect Office, the inconvenience might be too expensive, and they should thoroughly test version 12.0's importing tools before making the change. Fortunately, Corel offers a free 30-day trial download of the suite.
Packages
Corel WordPerfect Office 12.0 comes in a variety of bundles. Academia gets the best bargain with the $99.99 Education Edition, which includes WordPerfect, Quattro Pro, Presentations, and Paradox--the same core apps found in the Professional edition but for $250 less. The Pro version also includes Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications 6.3 (a programming app that lets you customize software to your business needs) and a 398-page printed manual. Standard Edition, which includes Visual Basic 6.3 but lacks Paradox, is rather pricey at $299.99.
How does WordPerfect Office 12.0 stack up against Microsoft Office 2003? At the low end, Corel has the edge; its Education Edition costs about $50 less than Microsoft Office's Student and Teacher Edition. Then again, the Microsoft bundle includes the Outlook e-mail program, while Corel's suite doesn't have an equivalent app. But since many educators and students already have an e-mail system, Outlook may be redundant.
The Corel-vs.-Microsoft comparison is somewhat murky at the high end. The $349 WordPerfect Office Professional costs $150 less than the high-end Microsoft Office System. However, WordPerfect Office 12.0 lacks the sophistication of Microsoft Office System, which includes Information Rights Management technology for determining which users get permission to edit files or forward e-mail and attachments. Both suites support XML (Extensible Markup Language), which large-scale enterprises use to transfer information from networks and Web sites into massive databases. XML support is probably less important to Corel's core audience of small businesses, students, teachers, and home users, however. Corel's support could be better. With previous versions of WordPerfect Office, you got 30 days of free phone support, but that is no longer the case. Phone support now costs $25 per incident (via a toll-free number), or you can purchase a one-year plan that provides you with 15 calls for $299. Phone-support hours are Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. ET. In our tests, a Corel phone rep did politely answer our query as to why our PowerPoint files looked so god-awful in Presentations 12.0: "We've tried to make improvements, and actually, we've gotten a lot better in the last few versions. But it's still nowhere near perfect, and it's going to take a lot more work to get it perfect." That call was free, by the way.

There's good news, though. Corel has added free unlimited e-mail support, meaning you can fire off tech queries via Corel's support site for as long as you own WordPerfect Office. Response times could be better. In our tests, Corel took longer than the industry-standard 24 hours to respond to our e-mail questions. Do-it-yourselfers will like the online knowledge base, a content-rich repository of troubleshooting advice.
User opinions
Select a User Opinion to view: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
User Rating:
2/10
More Lemons from Corel
Pros: Its an alternative to MS Office
Cons: It only works with itself
WordPerfect and its associated programs are a terrible alternative to MS Office, which by far is built like a rock. You can't share files from them with associates or other groups without a huge hassle. Importing isn't much better.
This is just a typical offering from a company that takes even less care of its products and customers than Microsoft.
User Rating:
10/10
The best office product
Pros: reveal codes, toolbar customization, spreadsheet import to documents
Cons: medium learning curve
Reveal codes allows me to access, delete and redo any code. I can set every aspect of a document before I open it, and set the same for every document I open from now on. Nothing is beyond WordPerfect.
Quattro Pro is easy to use and accessible.
At a quarter of the price of Word alone, Corel's Office Suite with WordPerfect has 4 times the functionality.
User Rating:
7/10
Very good word processing package, with at least one flaw.
Pros: More intuitive and user-friendly than MS Word
Cons: Large files may reveal flaws.
User Rating:
9/10
I enjoy using Corel at home but have to use Word at work.
Pros: WordPerfect is hands dowm best word processor. WordPerfect is truely "What You See is What You Get(meaning no need to do a print preview)". More useful features than what is included in MS Word.
Cons: Excel is probably the better spreadsheet. But don't rule out Quattro.
User Rating:
8/10
Home Computer Has Always Had Corel
Pros: Ease of use, Tech support, Cost,
Cons: I have thought this over while I wrote my opinion, and I plain can't think of any cons worth mentioning.
User Rating:
2/10
A nightmare in all respects
Pros: It's better than notepad.
Cons: Corrupts documents and self destructs.
The list of defiencies goes on.
Bottom line: Avoid this product at all costs.
User Rating:
9/10
Different values on great product
Pros: Wordperfect power & Quattro power
Cons: More power than I can use
User Rating:
9/10
The Better Word Processor!
Pros: You can get to the formatting codes, full featured
Cons: Does not use M/S pre-search disk software
When WordPerfect came out, it took over the market. When MicroSoft came out with Word, I had the feeling they did everything they could to make it different from WordPerfect just to use its power in the industry to take over the wordprocessing market, just like MicroSoft did with every other good software idea to come along. (e.g., Mozilla/Netscape, Norton Utilities.) I hate Microsoft's stupid animated paperclip -- it makes me feel like a 7 year old. "It looks like your writing a letter ..." Go away! It was amusing to watch it roll itself up and spit itself through some imaginary pinch rollers when you print a document, but only once. By the fourth time that stupid paperclip reared its animated eyeballs and interfered with my workflow, I wanted to tell MicroSoft to wrap that annoying the paperclip around their cable modems!! I'm an adult!
I have two versions of Word and WordPerfect 5, 7, 8, 10 and 12. (I just threw out 5.2 for Windows and 7 when I moved.) I use the MicroSoft product only when absolutely necessary -- usually because someone else needs the document in that format.
In my experience, Word does one thing better than WordPerfect -- and it is a biggie -- it works with HTML documents better than the Corel WordPerfect. With Word, you can copy an entire page from the Web and paste it directly into Word and it will pull most of the pictures from the Web. WordPerfect does not go and get the pictures. HEAR THAT COREL!?! However, I don't often copy entire web pages into my documents.
The reason I like WordPerfect so much is that it types more like a typewriter. You can set up and use styles if you want, but you can also just hit the tab button to indent the first line of a paragraph. If you want to change the margins for the entire document, you simply change the margins. The rest of the document follows the change. You don't have to change each paragraph.
In addition, you can get to the formatting codes. Hit Alt-F3 and the screen splits in half and displays all of the formatting codes -- bold, underline, tabs, indent codes, line spacing, column on and off, etc. Then you know exactly what you have done and fix and format it easily. This ability has proven useful on several occasions when clients, who insist on using Word for legal documents, cannot cajole Word to put their unruly documents into the format they want. (This is particularly true when using OCR with scanned or faxed documents.) By opening the Word document in WordPerfect, I have been able to use "Alt-F3" to identify the errant codes and quickly repair them. The ability to easily replace formatting codes becomes extremely powerful when combined with global search and replace commands. WordPerfect can then save the document in Word/RTF format with the problems fixed.
Working with columns is also easier. You turn on columns and tell it how many colums you want, set the width of each, and the space between them, and away you go. You have four types of columns to work with -- newspaper, balanced newspaper, parallel and parallel with block protect. It handles columns much better. I've tried the other software, and if you change text or printers, you can never get the columns to line up the way you want it. With Word, each colum change or page change seems to introduce new control codes, and a complete set of formatting, and you can never get it back the way you want it. I once tried to scan in a list of names and addresses which were in two or three columns into Word. Each name and address was placed in its own text box. I could never work with it.
The most prominent change between WP 10 and 12 is the workspace manager which allows you to switch between legal mode, original (classic) WordPerfect 5.1 mode (with the blue screen), legal mode, standard WordPerfect for Windows mode and Word mode. They have also included the ability to publish to Adobe PDF, HTML, and RTF/Word formats.
This is full featured software, and does everything I need. It handles tables, tables of content, tables of authorities, column sorts -- everything I need in a law office. Graphics can be dropped in with a click of the mouse. I'm considered to be almost an expert, and there is a lot I don't know!
Take time to get to know the software and you'll be glad you purchased it.
User Rating:
8/10
WordPerfect is far better than Word
Pros: Easier to use, better formating. Reveal codes will solve all your problems!
Cons: Sometimes freezes when importing large Word files.
User Rating:
8/10
Solid offering, meets the needs of 99% of users
Pros: Solid in every area.
Cons: Need better cross compatibility
User Rating:
9/10
The best word processor - bar none
Pros: Powerful, intuitive, accurate, feature rich, always works -isn't MS Word
Cons: Not used enough - have to send email attachments in pdf or doc
WP is like a really good computer or my Lexus - in a way you don't notice it until you try something else. It is always there, reliable, elegant,easy to use, providing all the information you need (like whether or not you have saved a document and to where right at the top - one of the many lacks of MSW.) The spell-checker is better and more accurate than that in MSW - for example, I once accused a student of not having used a spellcheck because there was a nonword in his paper, but he was able to show me that MSW did not catch it as an error - though WP does. He now uses WP.
WP has something called "Reveal Codes" which allows you to see exactly how and why unexpected formatting occurs - especially when you cut and paste - which I do a lot - and you can fix almost anything quickly and easily. In MSW you have to guess.
As I said in the summary, the best thing about WP is that it is not MSW. It is not (yet) part of the Gates empire, for one thing, but MSW is kludgy, unintuitive (why would you look for line spacing under page rather than line ?), and buggy. It is forever demanding that you close other programs, find missing installation files (if the program has been installed in full, and mine has been, where did they go ?) and telling it cannot open because another file is open (neither of which turns out to be true.) MSW (all MS products actually) have a tendency to know what you want when you don't want it and to try and try to do it even when you have repeatedly cancelled the action. MSW has update after update, and, honestly, I have never seen any improvement, just a lot of hassle and often problems afterward. Finally, MS and MSW and Office are so security concious that the often because literally unfunctional even though you have done all the right things.
Good ole WordPerfect - once the world's standard. It still should be.
User Rating:
9/10
I started with WordPerfect for DOS and still prefer it to Office
Pros: Fast, easy to use and customize
Cons: Some PDF publications are very strange
User Rating:
4/10
Still using Version 8 -- newer versions all bad
Pros: Good buy if you aren't demanding
Cons: Many for old customers
User Rating:
5/10
Long time Excel users will be disappointed
Pros: Cheaper than MS Office
Cons: Not as compatible with MS as expected
I should note that on a brand new Dell 700M with hardly any other programs, Quattro crashes just about every time I use it, and has since day 1. Luckily, a recovery manger pops up and you can save the sheet before it exits. I can only guess that having such a good utility means I?m not the only one with this problem.
I used a couple generations of WordPerfect, then Quattro before MS was such a big force. MS had a long way to go to compete back then, but years down the road, I find that Corel has not kept up. WordPerfect is fine enough for my purposes. My main problems are with Quattro. Many of the features I use every day in Excel are missing or much harder to do in Quattro.
For example, instead of being able to use ctrl plus an arrow key to navigate around, there are no equivalent navigation commands in Quattro. You get something different with ctrl and left or right arrow. You also can?t copy a sheet into a new workbook by right clicking the name. I can?t find any way to do this in Quattro. There are only the normal copy commands, which take much longer. Plus, extra sheets can?t be deleted so there are just the ones with data on them. In navigating, you can?t right click the arrow keys on the bottom scroll bar and pick the name of the sheet you want to go to. You have to use either F5 or the pull-down menu. I could go on and on, but the gist is, lots of things take longer to do in Quattro.
These few annoyances alone significantly slow me down in working with spreadsheets and negate the lower price of the package. I can't even begin to list out other things like charting and tables. It?s such a difference that I?m seriously considering adding MS Office on this 3rd computer even though I don?t use this computer that much for spreadsheets or word processing.
User Rating:
4/10
Buy a previous version instead
Pros: Still has the reveal codes feature
Cons: Buggy, no more Quick View
User Rating:
1/10
Worse program every made by man kind
Pros: It does not blow up your pc
Cons: You cant save files half the time
User Rating:
1/10
ITS A PIECE OF JUNK
Pros: I can't tell. Every time I use it, it freezes
Cons: It constantly freezes
User Rating:
5/10
Good product, but not worth the switch from MS Office.
Pros: WordPerfect remains an easier-to-use and more reliable word processing program than Word --- vastly superior to Word! Quattro Pro is an excellent spreadsheet application, and probably more versatile than Excel. Presentations lags so far behind PowerPo
Cons: The world is still waiting for a better e-mail client and PIM package than Outlook. I had really hoped that Corel WordPerfect 12.0 would be the one. Corel lost a golden opportunity by not developing and including one in Office 12.0. Don't be dazzled by
User Rating:
9/10
I've used this suite for 15 years.
Pros: Easy to learn and use intuitively.
Cons: In latter versions it has separated Paradox database from the standard suite and made it much harder to upgrade. I also use Paradox.



