Derek
Burney, CEO and president of Corel, said of Corel WordPerfect
Office 2002, "We're not going to go into a head-to-head
battle with Microsoft Office." Smart move Derek! It's
hard to find much in WordPerfect Office 2002 that exceeds
the key features and functions in Microsoft Office XP.
That's not to say that WordPerfect Office 2002 is bad—far
from it. What we're saying at the outset here is just that
WordPerfect Office 2002 is a viable choice for someone
on a budget, someone running a brand new legal office and
someone who just doesn't like either Microsoft or the Microsoft
Office design paradigm (a lot of people struggle with Microsoft's
user interface).
With
this new version, the WordPerfect word processor continues
its well-known ability to create, handle and manage lengthy
and complex documents. You can move instantly to specific
text boxes, hyperlinks and related document objects quite
easily. Considering the importance of long document navigation,
the current enhancements are very welcome. The inclusion
of a 30,000 word version of the Oxford University Press
Dictionary is also delightful and useful. Combined with
superb spell checking that is always present in WordPerfect,
you've got a very powerful tool for writers of all kinds.
CorelCentral
is a competent communication and personal information
manager that is meant to rival Microsoft Outlook. CorelCentral
used to be nothing more than an address book and appointment
scheduler. It has evolved into a full-featured personal
information manager however, with integrated modules
for contacts, personal scheduling and group scheduling.
Unfortunately, the e-mail component (while being perfectly
decent) is not integrated with the rest of the modules.
The whole thing has a standardized 'Outlook Lite" kind
of feel to it, lacks several important functions such
as incoming e-mail filters and also has a peculiar access
method for multiple e-mail account setups.
The
Quattro Pro spreadsheet program gets a new charting engine
in this version. It's really quite nice, providing a
solid set of detail tools with which you can design shaded
3D graphs. This spreadsheet program is not as powerful
as Microsoft Excel once you get into things like massive
actuarial tables and complex scientific research layouts,
but for the vast majority of small office, medium business
and enterprise use, Quattro Pro remains an excellent
tool.
Presentations,
the suite's rival to Microsoft PowerPoint, now handles
Flash (SWF) embedded files well enough to display everything
properly in all of the competing web browsers. Creation
of presentations is well-guided and the selection of
templates is very good. Corel has added content in this
part of the suite, so while you can look forward to quite
a few similarities to the template content found in PowerPoint,
there's also a large selection of unique and interesting
layouts designed by Corel's content team. It's all very
nice, very effective and easy to use. Presentation layouts
export perfectly to viewer files which can then be loaded
onto any Windows PC or laptop for display using the viewer
program integrated within the presentation file. PowerPoint
does not offer anything better so Presentations remains
a great alternative.
Corel
WordPerfect Office 2002 includes a full, integrated version
of the Dragon NaturallySpeaking 5 voice recognition software.
We've been fans of Dragon NaturallySpeaking since 1998
and this inclusion in WP Office is head and shoulders
about Office XP's weak voice recognition functionality.
To make the best use of voice recognition in any guise,
you must be using a computer with a fast processor and
lots of RAM. Anything less can be frustrating and will
produce less accurate responses and results, but with
the right amount of available system resources, Dragon's
voice recognition makes for a viable data input tool.
We used voice recognition in WordPerfect and Quattro
Pro, getting good results once Dragon had been fully
trained by two different staff members. One of them has
continued to use voice recognition input and is quite
expert at it. Her carpal tunnel aggravations have since
disappeared.
We
did not have an opportunity to make use of the Paradox
database. A brief look however, shows that the current
version is almost identical to the solidly functional
previous version. We're not fans of Paradox or Microsoft
Access in any case, but for typical office database applications
such as customer and user lists, mailing lists, subscriber
lists, etc., etc., Paradox remains a workable choice.
It integrates well with WordPerfect to produce mail merges
that are relatively pain free.
Cons: Corel
WordPerfect Office 2002 is not a huge improvement over
the previous version. Document collaboration tools are
present but nowhere near as robust as the massive collaboration
componentry in Microsoft Office XP which allows powerful
workgroup document sharing, editing, revisioning and
version control. PDF export is present but in our experience
did not product consistently reliable results—too
many text formatting alterations, incorrect line widths
and text attribute differences for our taste. The CorelCentral
e-mail program is not integrated with the rest of the
component—wierd. Generally good Microsoft document
import capabilities, but there are still some frustrating
import problems, especially with Office XP Word and Excel
files, some of which were either not recognized as valid
files by WP Office or imported with ruined formatting,
missing graphics and so on. The integrated text proofing
and grammar tools in WordPerfect are about as useful
as similar tools in Microsoft Word—that is to say,
useful only for novice writers and editors. Manually
check every sentence in your document after using the
proofing tools!
Pros: The
act of forcibly converting a busy office from one office
software suite to another can be both enlightening and
frustrating. The process was greatly eased by WordPerfect
Office 2002 Professional's import capabilities with standard
Microsoft Office documents—by no means perfect,
but fast and accurate for most documents. Less expensive
than Microsoft Office for both upgrades and new licenses.
Considering the vast document creation and handling power
in both office suites, the question you might ask right
now is, "Why make a change in the first place?" The
fact is that the WordPerfect design paradigm (user interface
style, program layouts and component integration) makes
much more sense than Microsoft Office to a lot of people.
Another very important view is that WordPerfect still
does a number of things beautifully that Word just can't
do as well, legal documents being among the most prominent.
Corel includes a 430 page product manual containing guidance
and instructions which are significantly more useful
than anything supplied by Microsoft for its office products.
The range of office documentation tools and options is
impressive, and presented within an interface and working
environment that is eminently usable by both beginners
and experienced users. From simple correspondence to
complex reports, from full size novels to single sheet
brochures and marketing materials, WordPerfect is a powerful
tool. Converting raw text into tables is greatly improved
and a welcome change from the often hit 'n miss efforts
of the previous version. The rest of the components of
the suite rival the power of every other product on the
market and provide any office—from the smallest,
single person home-office to the largest enterprise—with
all of the tools needed to work in a competitive business
world in which powerful business information has to be
exchanged. Corel was first to the line with good integration
of voice recognition and you'll have to move up to WordPerfect
Office 12 to beat the implementation in WordPerfect Office
2002. Excellent value. Highly recommended.
