Entered CNET Catalog: 01/18/2006
SKU: #NAME?
Manufacturer: Corel Corp.
Content [Hide]
User opinions
Select a User Opinion to view: 1
User Rating: 
9/10
Long history of upgrades, not all good; this one is a strong upgrade
Pros: Superior document control; key elements competitive; with Corel Draw X3 and Photo X2, superior control over graphics
Cons: For long-time WordPerfect users, as usual the default setup is all wrong
Review:
Before the IBM-Microsoft-Lotus gods endowed the "PC" with omnipresence, there were microcomputers (in contrast to minicomputers and mainframes). And there were word processors (i.e. Wordstar), spreadsheets (i.e. Visicalc), and databases (i.e. dBase). Those computers worked and the software actually did things. In fact the software did about 85% of the things we do now with "productivity suites."
A few years later, after Microsoft's MS-DOS devil conquered the world of PC's, we had WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3, and Paradox that did about 93% of the things we do now with "productivity suites." But ominously, at that time there was feature-poor Word.
Since that time, Microsoft Office rose to ascendancy and things became....
We learned to use Office a long time ago, but we don't use it exclusively or even routinely. When we saw our first PowerPoint presentation, we knew the Microsoft dominated business world was going to be full of people who don't read long paragraphs and therefore would be uninformed. Statistics and charts had already gained preeminance as the truth (for instance, 98% of people who die - with a margin of error of 4% - were breathing air immediately before death, so you as a now knowledgable person must know that breathing air is dangerous to human health and will stop breathing immediately).
As noted by the Cnet Editors, many attorneys and writers know that, from the MS-DOS version to now, WordPerfect has given almost absolute control over the appearance of a document, in ways not readily available in other word processors. Because of that, we use WordPerfect to create word processing documents.
The other elements of the suite, not so much. Quattro-Pro is fundamentally comparable to Excel - one is no better than the other. But, we have to work with accountants and engineers who use Excel and are fearful of anything not Microsoft, so it's more convenient to work with numbers in Excel. One can work adequately with Presentations as well as PowerPoint to bore and dumb down your target audience. And Paradox and Access each have their advantages.
We don't give Microsoft and its legion of hackers control over our email, address book, or calendars, so Outlook is a waste of install disc space for us. The same comment applies to Corel Mail for other reasons.
What's not really mentioned by Cnet editors is that if you move back and forth between graphics like drawings and photos, the combination of WordPerfect Office X3 and the powerful Corel graphics and photo suites provide control over a printed document with graphics in ways not available in any other vendor's repertoire. Converting a document to web use is equally strong. Accurately converting a complex document to PDF requires tools not provided by Corel (or Microsoft for that matter). Using Adobe Acrobat is really the only choice. With Corel WordPerfect Office, you have enough money left over to buy Acrobat.
A few years later, after Microsoft's MS-DOS devil conquered the world of PC's, we had WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3, and Paradox that did about 93% of the things we do now with "productivity suites." But ominously, at that time there was feature-poor Word.
Since that time, Microsoft Office rose to ascendancy and things became....
We learned to use Office a long time ago, but we don't use it exclusively or even routinely. When we saw our first PowerPoint presentation, we knew the Microsoft dominated business world was going to be full of people who don't read long paragraphs and therefore would be uninformed. Statistics and charts had already gained preeminance as the truth (for instance, 98% of people who die - with a margin of error of 4% - were breathing air immediately before death, so you as a now knowledgable person must know that breathing air is dangerous to human health and will stop breathing immediately).
As noted by the Cnet Editors, many attorneys and writers know that, from the MS-DOS version to now, WordPerfect has given almost absolute control over the appearance of a document, in ways not readily available in other word processors. Because of that, we use WordPerfect to create word processing documents.
The other elements of the suite, not so much. Quattro-Pro is fundamentally comparable to Excel - one is no better than the other. But, we have to work with accountants and engineers who use Excel and are fearful of anything not Microsoft, so it's more convenient to work with numbers in Excel. One can work adequately with Presentations as well as PowerPoint to bore and dumb down your target audience. And Paradox and Access each have their advantages.
We don't give Microsoft and its legion of hackers control over our email, address book, or calendars, so Outlook is a waste of install disc space for us. The same comment applies to Corel Mail for other reasons.
What's not really mentioned by Cnet editors is that if you move back and forth between graphics like drawings and photos, the combination of WordPerfect Office X3 and the powerful Corel graphics and photo suites provide control over a printed document with graphics in ways not available in any other vendor's repertoire. Converting a document to web use is equally strong. Accurately converting a complex document to PDF requires tools not provided by Corel (or Microsoft for that matter). Using Adobe Acrobat is really the only choice. With Corel WordPerfect Office, you have enough money left over to buy Acrobat.
