Talk:WordPerfect

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[edit] Reveal codes

a note for any wordperfect fan that might happen to see it: what are "reveal codes"? -- Tarquin 13:08 Sep 26, 2002 (UTC)

It's like, say, if you used a web page editor, being able to flip between the page as displayed on a browser, and the page as HTML code, so you can see where that pesky & persistent italics tag is hiding in the text. It's the main feature that a WP user misses on being forced to use Word -- Malcolm Farmer 13:31 Sep 26, 2002 (UTC)


Thank you :) (wow! wikipedia is fast!) -- Tarquin

I took out the WYSIWYG link in the description of the Reveal Codes edit mode, because WP had Reveal codes right back when it was just a DOS program and didn't do anything like what we now call WYSIWYG -- Malcolm Farmer 14:07 Sep 26, 2002 (UTC)

Well I would have called its normal editing mode "WYSIWYG" even in the DOS days--which is the last I used it (4.2, if I remember correctly), in that in normal editing mode it showed the page as it would be laid out, showed bold characters and underlined italics, etc. Yes, it was just a text screen, but it was "WYSIWYG" in the sense that it didn't show anything that wasn't actually printed, and it showed stuff as close as it could to what would be printed. True, it didn't have fonts and colors and such, and maybe you have to have that these days to be considered "WYSIWYG". --LDC


Perhaps call it "formatted display"? "WYSIWYG" really means that what is on-screen is an exact rendering of the printed version, typeface, size, effect, line width and all -- Tarquin

I removed "(At least one law firm had problems from submitting a Word-edited document that exceeded the maximum allowed word count because Word did not count the footnotes)"...it is hearsay, and incidental. One law firm out of 100,000s had problems. This is anecdotal at best. The sentence needs a great deal of re-work if it is going to be of use. Kingturtle 20:39 Apr 13, 2003 (UTC) Also, I removed "External link: (problems with Word's word count) http://www.kentlaw.edu/7circuit/1999/jul/99-1754A.html " because the link is broken. Kingturtle 20:41 Apr 13, 2003 (UTC)

I also removed "The market seems to have disagreed with the WordPerfect faithful" because it is vague and not neutral. "The market seems" and "WordPerfect faithful" need to be re-worded. The entire sentence needs to be re-thought. Kingturtle 20:47 Apr 13, 2003 (UTC)

Actually the word count problem is not hearsay: there was an actual court case where the judge scolded lawyers using MS Word who got the wrong count. A quick google search turned up the original link: http://laws.lp.findlaw.com/7th/991754a.html

Perhaps WP Corporation can get its own entry? Maybe after I read "Almost Perfect" I'll know enough to write up something decent... :) --Krupo 06:49, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

I've been using WordPerfect since 1985 and have written 17 books on it and millions of words and love it. And I hate Word. Nevertheless, I feel that there were many POV or semi-POV phrases in the article that had to be edited.Hayford Peirce 02:42, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Unlike Word, all editions of WordPerfect since version 6 also use the same file format, making it easy for users to share documents between newer and older copies.

You can't say "Unlike Word" because that implies that Word and WordPerfect share the same file format, or have the same version 6. Indeed, Word files are compatible from Word 97 to Word 2003. The phrasing as-is implies a non-NPOV, so I recommend removing the comparison to Word in that sentence. --Ilya 17:55, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

There might be a way to clarify the wording on that, but the phrase is correct in asserting that WP's file formats have been the same since version 6. Word changed formats between version 6 and 97 (aka "7"). Word users also report myriad problems between file formats, but that's another story. :) Krupo 03:45, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] WordPerfect and Borland

WordPerfect was never sold to Borland. On the contrary, WordPerfect bought the Quattro spreadsheet from Borland and tried to bundle it into the WordPerfect Office suite.Hayford Peirce 01:18, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Actually, reverse the names of the players. Borland marketed its programs plus WP Corp's WordPerfect as a suite, before eventually Borland sold its products (to whom, I'm not sure... I don't know if this was before or after Novell bought the package). SterlingNorth

That's correct; "Borland Office" was a package sold by Borland, including WP (licensed from WPCorp) as its word processor, as Borland's word processor (Sprint) had no market share to speak of. At the time Borland was gearing up to compete product-for-product with MS and Lotus, and probably hoped to buy WP eventually. Then Novell stepped in with the same hopeless goal (after all, they already had DR-DOS and Netware to compete with MS-DOS and NT), and bought out both companies' officeware. Tverbeek 02:30, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Comparison to other word processors

I think the "other word processors" should be explicitly named in order for the section to sound plausible. Currently the "more stable", "easier", "greater use" phrases sound like taken live from an ad. At the same time, the points such as "a wide variety of import and export filters" aren't really comparative.

So, what I'm proposing is: either change the section to "features" and remove the comparative points; or change it to "comparison to MS Word" and remove the non-comparative points; or specify all word processor names that all the points apply to and remove the non-comparative points. -Unavowed

[edit] Wordperfect for UNIX not mentioned in version history

Wordperfect for UNIX also existed, but I'm not sure what versions were out there. On Corel's FTP site you can find demo versions for HP, IBM, SGI, SCO and Sun systems. However, I don't know what versions these are, and what versions have been released on this. - 207.161.59.161 22:35, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Yep, I noticed that too. I used WP 5.1 on an AIX mainframe regularly about 10 years ago--it was almost exactly like the DOS version, but there was also an e-mail client, a plaintext editor, and a curses shell, similar to pine/pico's "pilot". —Chowbok 20:51, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
There is also no Wordperfect for OS/2 listed.
I seem to recall a version for JavaOS too. Anyone remember WP on the JavaStation.

[edit] Wordperfect & OOo

Quoting the article: Advocates of open-source software scoffed at its proprietary, closed-source nature, and questioned the viability of a commercial application in a market dominated by free software, such as OpenOffice.org and numerous others.

OOo was not released until June 2000 --- a full three years after the release of WordPerfect Office for Linux. Were any office suites available for Linux before WordPerfect Office for Linux was released? jonathon 21:03, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Future Versions

The "Future Versions" section really needs to be cleaned up. I'm afraid of doing it myself, because I'm afraid of upsettin people who have invested their time in this article, but really, it's a collection of past speculation, POV, and disorganization. I think this section should be discussed (with regards to what we should do with it).--142.161.175.169 02:42, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Suggested Reorganization

I've corrected some nits and added some new material, but was frustrated by an article organization that impedes discussion. I intend to return and work on it, but here are my initial thoughts:

Add the topic "WordPerfect Ownership so there is a section near the top that sketches the history of WordPerfect ownership. As it is, there is no coherent discussion of WordPerfect Corp.'s merger into Novell and no discussion at all of Novell's sale of less than the full product line to Corel. So the reader gets no clue about Corel's role or its strategic blunder in allowing Novell to retain "Groupwise," or the other Library/Office tools. Should also summarize the history of Corel being taken private after Michael Cowpland and Derek Burney were ousted from Corel leadership.

Add the topic "Marketing" to discuss the history of WordPerfect's marketing, i.e., the concentration of features for law offices in the early days, WordPerfect's development and marketing as a development platform for system integrators, VARs, and add-on developers. Novell's plan to go head-to-head with Microsoft from a Netware-DR DOS platform with market-leading office software to counter MS Office. Corel's blunder in not recognizing that WordPerfect was a development platform, its abandonment of the platform developers, its focus on the retail channel that had worked for Draw, and its blunder of playing into the "let's make a deal" games of the big software retailers, creating the market pressure that drove retail prices below the price Corel charged VARs and system integrators, the entirely predictable resulting exodus of the developers, VARs, and system integrators to Microsoft's office development platform.

Add the topic "Current Market Conditions" for a discussion of trends in WordPerfect's market. Provides a logical space to discuss long-term trends, WordPerfect's loss of market share, its only niche market where it retains the lead being the law office market, the same market that fueled WordPerfect's growth, Microsoft's dominance of the market, Sun's acquisition of StarOffice and open sourcing of that platform as OpenOffice.org, OOo's growing market share (estimated 10% now), the adoption by OASIS and then ISO of the OpenDocument file format standard for office documents, Microsoft's countermove with its XML formats, Corel's refusal to reveal its plans for OpenDocument and Unicode support.

Part of the organizational problem also stems, I think, from trying to separate discussion of WP DOS and WP Windows. As demonstrated in the text, it is very difficult to talk about one without talking about the other. The divison by operating systems supported also gives short shrift to WordPerfect support for many other platforms. It might allow better organization by dropping those two topics and incorporating their elements and those of the Ownership topic discussed above under a "History" topic. Subtopics might go something like: Initial Development, Satellite Computing Era, WordPerfect Corp. Era, Novell Corp. Era, Corel Eras, then go to a "WordPerfect Today" topic that provides an overview of important features.

I'll think about it some more, but I'm pretty sure it's the organization that is messing things up.

Very good points. The current page reads like product literature. 70.112.29.65 02:33, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WordPerfect Complaints

Could there be room for a section with gripes, in hopes that the programmers read it and improve the product, or at least provide workarounds? I hate, for example, the way the screen jumps around when you save in WP 12 for Windows, or the way the font toolbar says that "Selected Text" is some particular font when really it's got three different fonts. Or the nonstandard use of CTRL-W. Or the failure of the down arrow to take you from inside the last line to the end of the last line. Or the way WP reformats text when you paste it. Or the failure of the blockquote format to change text if it's highlighted over a page break. Or, worst of all, the inability to even use multiple document windows without seeing that gray background thing that blocks your other windows. Actually, the worst thing may be the nagging dialog box that asks you if you want to save the highlighted text as a separate document. Could anyone possibly do that often enough to justify presenting the question to all users rather than making it an obscure menu option? Maybe this section could be called "Reasons WP is a Discount Word Processor" or "What Makes Me Curse WP Every Day." Or maybe these things have been fixed in the current version.

I haven't noticed those problems with WP 5.1 for DOS. Maybe it's a Windows related bug?
I have a feeling WP for DOS also obscures the desktop even when no documents are open. Does DOS even use a desktop and windows? If not, why would anyone use DOS? (Does anyone use DOS?)

--Curiously strange 15:33, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

On wikipedia there is no place for this. In case you encounter bugs, just go to the newsgroups of corel (find the link on wordperfect.com; go to community and click on newsgroups and you will get a list of newsgroups on the different corel products). Annabelleke 08:47, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wordperfect thesaurus format

Can somebody comment on the way the Thesaurus file is structured in Wordperfect?

Is it interchangeable between different versions of Wordperfect?

Where can I get a German Thesaurus file that is compatible with what Wordperfect expects? (My best choice for Wordperfect would be WP 5.1 for DOS.) Would the WP 5.1 Thesaurus file (written for DOS) work with Wordperfect for the Atari ST?

How compatible is the Atari ST version of Wordperfect's Thesaurus with the Mac version? Can they be switched freely?

[edit] Advertorial tone

Is it just me or does this sound a bit like an advertisement for WordPerfect?

"No description of WordPerfect for DOS would be complete without mentioning its Alt-keystroke macro facility..."

88.110.95.20 22:52, 20 February 2007 (UTC)


[edit] WP for Java

Anyone has idea on where to download WP for Java from? I had it on a CD few years ago ,but I've lost it :( Maciek, 12 May 2007 1556 GMT

[edit] Grammatik

Grammatik should be mentioned!

[edit] Before WordPerfect

This section needs fact-checking, especially the claims involving Weidner and Wydner: see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bruce Wydner. Gordonofcartoon 22:32, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I think this section probably should be deleted, as the authors of it have had their accounts removed and all related material deleted as well, more than three months ago. Phuff

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:WordPerfectX3.png

Image:WordPerfectX3.png is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot 11:46, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] No mention of the obvious

Before 1992, WordPerfect was almost synonymous with word processing. It had massive market share and training in WordPerfect was almost job one for anyone using a personal computer in business. When Microsoft Windows began to become the platform of choice in the early 90s, WordPerfect was understandably slow to develop a Windows version of their product, and it left open a big void and opportunity for Microsoft Word for Windows (Microsoft's new word processor).

It may have been understandable for WordPerfect to ignore Windows at first, but certainly not wise in retrospect. As a grad student at that time, I can attest that Wordperfect for Windows was far behind Microsoft Word for Windows at that time. By the time WordPerfect corporation "woke up" to the need to develop a good Windows version, it was too late.

I started my master's thesis on Wordperfect for DOS in 1992, and moved it to WordPerfect for Windows. Endless problems were the result. Graphs and charts were messed up and it seemed that 12 pages was about the limit of its capability. I ended up nearly recreating my entire thesis on Microsoft Word for Windows.

It's hard to mention a better candidate for winner of the best "what were they thinking" award for the 1990s. To lose a near-monopoly market share in less than 2 years is surely some sort of record. Landroo 14:18, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Furthermore, as a Service bureau manager...in 1984~1992, the reason we kept the old version of WordPerfect? Not a clue here except for the mention of the DOJ. Lawyers got tears in their eyes because it could print legal briefs on legal sized paper. Show me Office 2007 doing that. ( It can, but to get it right, you have to mess with a whole host of settings ). Service bureaus made a lot of bread an butter money from law students and lawyers wanting to print their briefs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.193.2.115 (talk) 10:47, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] PDF edit is actually not unique feature of WordPerfect

The subsequent release of X3 (identified as "13" internally and in registry entries) has been met with generally positive reviews, due to new features including a unique PDF import capability

Not completely true. PDF import and editing support is featured in recent versions of KWord, part of KOffice - integrated office suite for KDE. For more information look at http://www.koffice.org/.

--Bocke 04:27, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Peacock terms and uncited statements

I noticed the the following peacock terms and weasel words in the article:

  • WordPerfect Corporation released the program's most successful version ever...
  • ...its unusually user-friendly macro/scripting language, PerfectScript
  • ...have produced disappointing results
  • This capability provided an amazingly powerful way to rearrange data...
  • Unfortunately, this facility could not easily be ported...
  • A new and even more powerful interpreted token-based macro recording and scripting language...
  • Infamously, WordPerfect used F3...
  • WordPerfect for DOS shipped with an impressive array of printer drivers...
  • The Library/Office bundle also included a noteworthy task-switching program...
  • Microsoft Windows had no answer to such powerful features other than a glitz of windows...
  • ...an exceptionally powerful relational database - DataPerfect
  • The site also maintains an extensive clip library for use in PerfectScript programming...
  • The WordPerfect template and document file formats have remained remarkably stable since the WordPerfect 6.x DOS and Windows versions...
  • The DOS version's impressive arsenal of finely tuned printer drivers...

I think the following statements need a citation:

  • WordPerfect users forced to change word processors by employers frequently complain on WordPerfect online forums that they are lost without Reveal Codes...
  • PerfectScript was specifically designed to be user-friendly...
  • WordPerfect for DOS was notable for its Alt-keystroke macro facility...
  • Many people still know and use the function key combinations from the DOS version...
  • ...the developers' wish to keep the user interface free of "clutter" such as on-screen menus
  • ...retains a small but dedicated following...
  • ...Bruce Bastian's older brother - a brilliant programmer who had written some of IBM's earliest disk-caching patents
  • ...These solutions are often created by corporate developers or programmers
  • While Wordperfect retained a majority of the retail shelf sales of word processors...
  • Amongst the remaining avid users of WordPerfect are many law firms and academics who favor the Wordperfect features such as macros and reveal codes...
  • Despite pleas from longtime users...
  • This was an attempt to win back users who had switched to MS Word because WordPerfect for Windows was so different from the DOS version they knew and loved...
  • Although the Linux distribution was fairly well-received, the response to WordPerfect for Linux was varied...
  • Developers of other Linux-compatible word processors questioned the need for another application in the category
  • Advocates of open-source software scoffed at its proprietary, closed-source nature, and questioned the viability of a commercial application in a market dominated by free software...
  • ...has been met with generally positive reviews
    Michael2 (talk) 03:36, 17 November 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Classic mode

Worth putting in a few more words about it? I was unsure what it meant and did a quick external google... basically it brings it back to a sort of DOS-like appearance, but still inside of a normal window (not a windowed text terminal) and with all the WYSIWYG stuff. The odd thing is that this seems to be touted as something unique... whereas I was using this a few years ago in Word 6 (then 97 and 2000) on an old, old Win9x laptop, and still go back to it from time to time on my newer XP one with Word '03 - it has all the options, e.g. going to proper full-screen with no toolbars or scrollbars (unless you explicitly want them), white text on a blue background, etc, just not under any fancy name. It even allows you to set the keyboard shortcuts to be WP compatible and, though it's probably not as detailed as these reveal codes, can display various publishing and markup codes that are usually hidden. How quietly controvertial :D 82.46.180.56 (talk) 04:50, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Almost Perfect" link

I added back the "Almost Perfect" book link, because it well documents the history of WordPerfect and someone had it removed. -Mardus (talk) 12:43, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Terrible reorganization of article?

When I visited the article less than a year ago (see diff from 01.05.2007.), it was very interesting, but now it almost sounds more like another marketing page for Corel :( -Mardus (talk) 12:58, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] DEC Rainbow? OS and hardware versions need clarification

"Known versions for the DEC Rainbow 100 include version (?), released November 1983. In addition, versions of WordPerfect have also been available for Apricot, Atari ST, DEC Rainbow," The DEC Rainbow could run either CP/M or DOS (might have had some incompatibilities with IBM DOS). It had one Intel 8088 CPU and one Zilog Z80 CPU for the purpose of running either Operating System. If someone could find citations, please specify whether it is WordPerfect for Rainbow DOS, or CP/M (unlikely). In general, microcomputers of the early years only had one specific OS, but, as in the case with the Rainbow, the operating system should be specified. Cuvtixo (talk) 01:55, 3 May 2008 (UTC)