Customer Reviews

Wordperfect Office 2002 Upgrade

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Being a Wordperfect user for over 20 years, this is definitely the best Corel has done yet. And no matter what rating you give it, it's by far MUCH better than any past version of Microsoft Office and Office XP 2002!

WP Office 2002 is definitely worth upgrading from 2000. From what I've used of it, it seems like a lot of the flaws in 2000 have been fixed in 2002.

Although that doesn't mean that 2002 is flaw-free. It can crash every now-and-then, but so far I've never experienced any need to restart the whole computer. And with the new Corel Application Recovery Manager, data recovery has been improved greatly from the days of Timed Backup in 2000.

The new features are just outstanding. The Compatibility abilites are exceptional. It can even read Microsoft Office and provide enhanced support for PDF publishing, which can come in VERY handy when trying to read files from someone else who uses Microsoft Office, giving you much greater stability and control, making another major improvement from 2000.

Since most of the enhancements were made from customer feedback, even some of the newer programs have still improved greatly. WP 10's PDF capabilites have expanded greatly and now support hyperlinks, watermarks and HTML with cascading style sheets. Presentations 10 now includes support for Macromedia Flash, MP3 and animated GIF files which gives a lot of spice to presentations. And is also compatible with Microsoft PowerPoint files.

The same compatibility improvements goes for WP 10 with Word and Quattro Pro 10 with Excel.

Being a Wordperfect user for more than 20 years now, Corel has come a very long way in their tradition, and I am astounded at how far they've come in 20 years. WP Office 2002 is an absolute must-buy, and leaves Microsoft Office all the way back in the dust.

I couldn't wait to try out the new release of my favorite software and I'm delighted. Corel's done a great job. The programs have been very stable and there's lots of nice enhancements that make them easier to use than ever without sacrificing any of the power. WordPerfect remains absolutely the best wordprocessor for serious document creation, and Quattro Pro is back to its old reliable self after the unfortunate detour through version 9. The new cross-tabs feature outdoes Excel's pivot tables and the new charting abilities are terrific. Presentations supports all sorts of new multi-media files and continues to be a very solid, underappreciated program. Corel Central now does e-mail and is much improved, but remains the weakest program in the package. All-in-all, though, this is a very worthy upgrade, well-worth the price.

The only reason to buy this package is to get WordPerfect. It is still far better than MS Word when it comes to creating fully-formatted and professional looking documents. (The rest of the package is sadly out-dated, poorly designed, and not worth the price.)

If you use a wordprocessor as an advanced version of Notepad that automatically does various simple wordprocessor tasks (formatting, spelling, capitalization, outlining, tables, etc.) for you, definitely buy MS Word. But, if you care at all how your document looks, buy WordPerfect.

The single most important feature that WordPerfect has (that MS Word does not have) is Reveal Codes. You can still go in, figure what is wrong with your formatting, and fix it in WordPerfect; the only way to handle bad formatting in MS Word is the old MS method of delete, try again, and hope the wordprocessor doesn't guess wrong yet another time about what I really wanted.

Unfortunately, Corel has not figured out that they should dump the rest of the package, lower the price..., and focus on getting the bugs out of WordPerfect that make it somewhat unstable.

First of all: this is a recommended upgrade for all users of version 8 and 9 IMHO. Especially the WordPerfect and Quattro Pro components are much improved in terms of stability and reliability even in the more advanced features like PDF-output. Corel has added only a limited number of new features, but these small changes are well designed and really useful. WordPerfect seems unchanged at first, but step by step one discovers more and more useful changes. Quattro Pro's interface has changed somewhat, mostly for the better IMHO. Presentations is more powerful than Powerpoint and significant new features have been added in this release (esp. for web-based presentations). It is still somewhat more difficult to use than Powerpoint, however. Corel Central has been re-written and extended too a much greater degree than any other application in the suite. While it realizes many good ideas (a really SECURE email client as opposed to Outlook) it is not yet mature and I have seen several crashes and other problems. Under some rare conditions the suite's applications may not launch under Win2000. But from what I hear this is very rare and a fix will be posted on Corel's website very soon. Overall this release proves that WordPerfect Office is still a serious competitior in the office suite market. While not as tightly integrated as MS Office, the individiual components of WPO 2002 often outperform their MS Office counterparts.

I have been a steadfast user of WordPerfect since Version 5.0. As a journal editor, I receive manuscripts written in Word 2000 or WordPerfect. WordPerfect is the superior work processor in my experience.

However, the current "upgrade" from WordPerfect 9 to version 10 isn't worth the expenditure. The bugs in WP9 are mostly still there. I have found very little improvement in WP10 with respect to manuscript preparation, graphics, and file management. As one who uses Windows XP, I don't find WP10 fully compatible. Accessing a WP10 file can turn into a frustrating experience when the system goes into some kind of unresolvable loop, forcing an exit from WP10. I am also frustrated that the Corel calendar keeps trying to insert itself at system startup, even though I had indicated to the contrary during WP10 installation.

I will continue to use WordPerfect, but have decided to drop back to WP 9. The frustrations are fewer.

I hated WP10. I have used Word Perfect since the first Windows addition but this was worse than version 8 which was a disaster. But then I found out that my problem was that I needed to take WP9 out of my computer before installing the upgrade. Looks like the Word Perfect folk could and should have made that automatic. But once you do that it seems to run much better with very few problems. I also have Microsoft Windows 2000 in my computer. Wordperfect is superior, especially for desk top publishing.

As a steadfast user of Wordperfect for several years, I had hoped to continue this good relationship with the newest version. Instead, I have found frustration and feel that I am better acquainted with the "recovery wizard" that any of the "new and improved" features of this product. Frustrations abound as the program crashes once, twice, dozens of times as I attempt to go about my daily work. These crashes do not occur as I attempt to utilize the more sophisticated features; merely attempting to open a file seems to befuddle this flawed program. Is it just me or do others out there feel that the Corel company computers must be filled to bursting with their recovery wizard reports?

Good luck with the rebates. I'm still waiting for my Corel rebate that I mailed in June.

I've also used WordPerfect since DOS and like the reveal codes. I'm a writer and was mainly interested in WordPerfect itself and the PIM, Corel Central. I bought Office 2002 as an upgrade to Office 2000, which had been installed with my 2 1/2 year old computer, mainly as I was having crashes and thought it would be more stable.

Stupidly I installed it in the middle of a big, important project, thinking I would just spend half an hour customizing the incons on my tool bar. Instead, I have wasted invaluable time. When I go to create an envelope the address book takes over a minute to open! Not to mention how long and frustrating a process it was to access my info in the first place. Same with the calendar and now when I am printing I cannot do anything else with my computer at all! Before I multi-tasked with impunity.

I tried uninstalling the Corel Central following the directions in my manual and then couldn't access either address or dates on the eve of an important conference. I messed up my files so much doing that I had to use Go Back to restore my computer to 8 hours earlier. (Got Go Back with Norton. A great program but it's essential to back up data first OFF the hard drive as it literally wipes out everything in the time period you choose.) Unfortunately the longest the Go Back could go back was 8 hours, not the 2 days since I'd installed WP Office. I finally reinstated the PIM and still hate it. The conference is in 2 days and I'm afraid to try again.

Incidentally, while my computer is not new, it is a Pentium III 500 with 256 mg of RAM, supposedly well above the minimum requirements to run this program. A support tech told me you can't run anything else at the same time. Believe me, I never would have bought it if I'd known that!

It's a testimony to how far this once great produce has fallen that there are only 18 reviews posted as of my writing.

WP SUITE CONS
I'm a WP user from back when it and Lotus 1-2-3 were THE killer apps. Though I own WP 2000, I tend to use MS Office. Here's why:
* Excel is far more powerful and has a better interface than Quattro Pro
* PowerPoint is head-and-shoulders easier to use than Presentations
* CorelCentral PIM is virtually worthless compared to Outlook
* Presentations does not preserve formatting of PowerPoint files
* WordPerfect struggles to preserve formatting for Word docs if there are tables (particularly with merged cells) or outlines in the Word doc

WP SUITE PROS
* Paradox is an easy tool for learning about relational databases; it is far easier to use than Access, though not as powerful
* WordPerfect drawing tools are superior to MS Word drawing tools
* WordPerfect is still better for laying out complex documents; the 'reveal codes' feature alone is invaluable--why didn't MS copy that somewhere along the way?
* It costs less

PURCHASING RECOMMENDATION
If you do not have to exchange files with MS Office users and do not need advanced spreadsheet or advanced presentations features, get WP Suite. WordPerfect is as good as Word. And Quattro Pro and Presentations have great basic and good intermediate functionality.

If you regularly exchange files with MS Office users but do not need to put tables or other complex formatting in your Word document, get WordPerfect.

But if you really need file compatibility with Office and/or advanced spreadsheet and presentation capability, Office is a better choice than WordPerfect. But there is an alternative...

AN ALTERNATIVE
As much as I would like WordPerfect to survive as a viable alternative to Microsoft's empire, Corel is on its last leg and WP has steadily lost market share over the last 10 years to the point that I don't see how Corel can afford to produce and support it. Sun's StarOffice (available as an opensource application under the name OpenOffice) is a great alternative to MS Office. StarOffice does a far better job of exchanging docs with MS Office.

I have not used WP2002, but have been a WP/Corel user for years. WordPerfect is clearly a better program than MSWord and while Excel has some good features, I prefer QuattroPro which is better designed and easier to use.

I have had various stability problems when multitasking on my computer until I upgraded from Windows 98 to Windows 2000. Now I almost never crash. It would be useful to know from those who have used WP2002 what operating system they are using. I'll bet that using Windows 95 or Windows 98 with the new WP2002 may be their problem.