Customer Reviews

Wordperfect Office X4 Standard

5 star:		(48)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Many marvel at the longevity of WordPerfect but the truth is, it was always ahead of its time. Having begun my word processing life with the classic "blue screen" of WordPerfect 5.1, it quickly outpaced the competition.

When Microsoft Word came on the scene however, WordPerfect began to suffer. It was true that Word 97 was actually easier to use than its WordPerfect counterpart. Many concluded that WordPerfect was on its way out.

So how did it manage to hang on? Lawyers. While it may seem that the entire world was using Microsoft Word, the vast majority of law firms used WordPerfect - all the legal secretaries were trained using WordPerfect and the legal profession is allergic to change.

WordPerfect began to cater to the legal user - with the feature which automatically generates a table of contents, table of cases and table of authorities. WordPerfect was also there when the United States District Courts began mandating electronic filing in pdf format. It was WordPerfect (and not Word) which first implemented the feature which allowed the user to publish documents to pdf format (without the need of a scanner or Adobe Acrobat).

Still, there was resistance to WordPerfect because, for many, Word was easier to use. WordPerfect X3 changed all that. X3 went so far as to allow the user to configure X3 to behave EXACTLY like Word.

Which brings us to X4. While the folks at Microsoft have taken the regrettable step in Office 2007 to switch to the .docx document format, WordPerfect X4 still fosters interoperability - again behaving like Word and even converting .docx documents.

Why is .docx so regrettable? Most people do not pay much attention to how they save a document. In Office 2007, Microsoft has now changed its standard from .doc to docx. The positive (I guess) is that a .docx file takes up less space on the hard drive. The negative (the big negative) is that .docx is not backwards compatible - meaning, someone using Office 2003 cannot open a .docx file - only users to Office 2007 or other consciously interoperable programs (Like WordPerfect X4).

And unlike the obtuse approach Microsoft has taken to .docx a WordPerfect document created in X4 can be opened in X4, in X3, and in WordPerfect versions dating all the way back to WordPerfect 6.

One of the most incredible features X4 adds is built-in advanced pdf capabilities. Now, you can actually open pdf documents right in WordPerfect. In addition, it has OCR feature which will actually convert to text pdf documents which were scanned. Again, for the legal community, this is an invaluable tool.

Why should X4 cross over intothe mainstream? Frankly, because it is better than Word. It is easier to use. It is exceedingly interoperable. In short, it does everything Microsoft Office does - only better.

I've been using WordPerfect Office X4 Standard for a month now, and I've been very pleased.

Background: I received a new laptop computer for Christmas and hadn't installed a feature rich suite like this, and was using Microsoft Works in the meantime. I've used Microsoft Office 2007 at home and at work, as well as tried Open Office at home. The last time I used a WordPerfect product was back in the mid-90's.

I was pleasantly surprised, but yet skeptical that WordPerfect could put out a product to compete with Microsoft Office. Not only do they compete, but they compete well.

One thing that sets this product apart from Microsoft Office is the ability to create, edit, and even password protect PDF files. The only exception to this would be if the PDF that you are attempting to open was already password protected. In that case, you would need a different product if you intended to edit it.

This suite also includes WordPerfect Lightning. I have to be honest, I didn't have a clue what this was when I installed it. It's like a lite version of Microsoft OneNote. I didn't know how powerful it would be until I started putting it to use. Lightning is a digital notebook that runs swiftly and easily on your desktop (when it's opened). You can screen capture any portion of your screen at any time and save it to a neat, organized folder for later use. For example, if I wanted to copy a paragraph or an image from a web site I just click "snapshot" and then clip out the part I want and it immediately stores to a folder. I can then easily organize the folder of snapshots, type up notes, and then send the entire folder over to Word or WordPerfect and it instantly creates a document in those programs. This is nice for putting together random thoughts, reports, and organizing research. Students will love this when researching on the Internet for school. The only downside is that I could not figure out how to capture the url easily. I suspect it does capture the url for reference, but I didn't figure that out.

Next, the spreadsheet program, Quattro Pro, can run in Microsoft Excel mode which is great if you are comfortable working in Excel and know the menu layout and shortcuts. It also runs in Quattro Pro mode, or Lotus 1-2-3 mode. You can also publish your spreadsheet as a PDF right from the file menu. This a fully featured spreadsheet program that does not lack anything.

WordPerfect X4 also runs in four different modes, so you can work in the environment you are accustomed to. Those modes are WordPerfect X4, Microsoft Word, WordPerfect Classic 3.1, and WordPerfect Legal mode. This program is actually more compatible with older Microsoft files than the newest version of Microsoft Office. In fact, this can open more than 60 file types, even new ones like OOXML and ODF. If you are trying to learn a richly featured word processor like this one for the first time Corel makes it easy with several types of support. First, there are two hours of DVD instruction to get you started. Next, there is a hand-holding program called Perfect Expert that basically guides you throughout the entire document creation process. In addition, there is CorelTutor, which is a standard index/search for specific help items. For example, you can quickly and easily look up how to create footnotes by just clicking on CorelTutor, typing footnote into the search box, and then step by step instructions are displayed. Anything created in this program can also be saved as a PDF file. As for PDF handling, since it's converting it, the format will not be 100%. You may still need to go in and fix the document up, but regardless, you are now editing a PDF document without spending $279 on Adobe Acrobat Standard 9. In my opinion, this is a HUGE benefit to this software.

I did not try Presentations X4, but if you are familiar with PowerPoint, this is the Corel version. My son makes a lot of PowerPoint projects throughout the year at school, so this should come in handy. It says that you can publish your slideshow to HTML or Adobe Flash.

WordPerfect Mail is also included in this suite. I found it difficult to set up the outgoing mail server, but my incoming mail server worked. I emailed customer service to ask about specific settings to find out why my outgoing mail server is not working. I'm sure it's user error. The program is set up to automatically convert your existing Outlook or Outlook Express account, but does not have automated account set up for Gmail or Windows Mail. I hope to see this in an update in the future. We just have to set up the account the old fashioned way until then by putting in your outgoing and incoming mail servers, ports, passwords, and authentication/ssl settings.

Finally, this suite includes (free) a 200 Mb online storage account with a mailbox. You can receive/send mail, store pictures, documents, and mail, as well as share documents with one other user. Accounts needing more than 200 Mb of storage or more than 2 collaborating users will find the service gets pricey. The online storage account is especially useful for sharing lightning files.

Two final thoughts, since this handles more file types than MS Office and includes PDF publishing and editing, I would say to give this program some serious consideration. In one months time I have not had the program crash on me even once. It's very, very stable, and very rich in features, support, and training.

The final thought is to recommend that you install everything the first time. I left out Lightning and Mail during my first installation (thinking I wouldn't use/need them) but I became so impressed with the other programs that I went back and tried to install Mail and Lightning. For some reason on my Windows Vista computer it wiped out the rest of the programs and only left me with Mail and Lightning. Perhaps I did it wrong. It's easier to remove a program than to try to reinstall/install separate portions later.

WordPerfect was my gold standard, way before Microsoft Word, which I ended up using because it was the standard at work.

This word processor does not hang up my computer like Word does, and it will process PDF files, which is pretty awesome. All in all, I prefer it to Word, and since you can go between formats, no need to use Word if you don't want to.

There are some intriguing online services that come with WordPerfect:

WordPerfect Lightning - Web-connected digital notebook
where you can compile information from the Web, email and other documents

Open and view PDFs, WordPerfect and Microsoft® Word files (viewer)

200 MB online storage account is included.

Supports older file formats, including out-of-date Word that Word won't support (cool if you have some very antique files.) You can configure the program to emulate Word keystrokes you are familiar with.

All in all, affordably priced and full of great features. Big thumbs up.

WordPerfect Office has always been a viable office suite but is often overlooked and eclipsed by MS Office when considering office suites. I personally have been using Lotus SmartSuite for years (an even more obscure packages these days), so I likely will have a different perspective than most people who try WordPerfect Office. I have used WordPerfect in the past, and though some of the features are familiar and comfortable, there are some appreciable differences between this version and the versions I used in the past.

Rather than address the whole suite in one paragraph, I will discuss the different applications individually. Obviously the applications integrate and communicate with one another so I will not spend too much time discussing that.

Obviously, the crown jewel of WordPerfect Office X4 is WordPerfect. WP has always been a very capable and reliable word processor, designed to be clean, clear and easy to use. Even sitting at a blank document after starting the application, the interface is clean and relatively intuitive. I especially like the visible margins that can be dragged and dropped right on the page, as well as the slidable tab stops and indent markers. The basic word processing functions are all readily available in the default toolbar and there are more toolbars that can be turned on and off. Complex functions and advanced features are available through the menu system. Adjusting setting is pleasure through the semi-graphic settings dialog, and everything I sought was well organized and straightforward.

I have imported some Word documents into WP, and the import is accurate in the majority of cases. Sometimes there is a slight reformatting that makes things look a little funny but it requires only a minimum of adjustment to correct. The only disappointment for me is that I could not import Lotus WordPro documents as well, but such is the price one pays for using older, obscure packages such as SmartSuite.

I have also imported PDFs - this office suite touts the fact that it can import PDFs so I have been putting that claim to the test. The imports are largely successful, save the occasional formatting glitch. For exporting, though, I have yet to see it mess up, though I have not tried to export anything complex to PDF. There seems to be little need for Acrobat with this suite, though the reader is still handy.

Quattro Pro is the spreadsheet application that comes with this suite, and it performs remarkably well. It is a fully capable program that can put together complex spreadsheets that are on par with that of Excel. And, it does an admirable job with importing and exporting too. It can import Lotus 123 spreadsheets as well, which is helpful to me.

Both WP and Quattro Pro have XML import/export capabilities too, which adds to their value if you need to work with XML.

A really interesting feature to me is WordPerfect Lightning, a virtual file cabinet for storing sticky notes, pictures, documents and other bits and pieces of information. It is similar in concept to Microsoft OneNote, though not as visually stimulating (or overwhelming). Corel kept it simple and as such the main window is more or less a tree view of documents that have been saved therein. Built in is a screen capture tool as well as a miniature editor for writing quick notes, and there's an interface to WordPress. This is absolutely one of the features of WordPerfect Office that I appreciate - I have always liked this kind of tool and I will be using it a lot to keep my stuff organized.

Presentations is the Corel equivalent of PowerPoint. I will confess to having not used this much, though I have tried importing PowerPoint slide shows. The import worked for the most part but some of the special effects are lost when the import took place. Otherwise, it appears to offer the same base feature set as PowerPoint.

WordPerfect Mail is the equivalent of Outlook. I am no fan out Outlook, so this application was worth a try. I found it to be functional and capable, though it does not have the same volume of features of Outlook. Then again, it does not have the same bloat problem Outlook has either. It bears a striking resemblance to Outlook Express, though the interface is slightly more cluttered and busy. It has built-in Bayesian spam filtering and a built-in calendar. It does NOT have a newsreader though, which is unfortunate but not unexpected. While it's a nice application and it is suitable for what I need, I do not feel compelled to adopt this application.

An extra application in the box is Corel Visual Intelligence, a strange beast that can be used to analyze data and prepare data relationships. While I have looked at it and it is an attractive application, this is not something I need and really did not give it a close look.

Included with the suite is a plethora of document templates, fonts, graphics and other goodies, as well as a training CD.

WordPerfect Office X4 is a very capable and admirable suite of office tools. It claims to be compatible with MS Office, and it is. It's Adobe-friendly too, which will present a cost savings. There are a lot of extras packed in to the package and a good help system to assist. Overall, this is an excellent package with outstanding value and I can recommend it heartily - I am making the switch.

Please see [...] for a comparison of the features in pre-ribbon versions of Word to WordPerfect. It is enlightening!

It is hard to believe it is two years since Corel released X3. When I found out that the new X4 version had been released, I downloaded the one month demo from Corel. Based on the $150 difference in price between this version and the student/home version, I would seriously consider the student version. It is my understanding that it is very similar, if not the same. The Student/Home version apparently lacks the PDF capabilities of the Standard and Pro versions, so if you need those capabilities, buy this version. (I would check with with Corel to be certain if all the features are present.)

I don't have much use for anything in the suite except WordPerfect. I've been using WordPerfect since before Windows, when it had a blue screen, displayed ASCII characters in Courier font (there were no fonts except Courier), and laser printers cost a small fortune. I work for a number of attorneys -- WordPerfect is the software of choice for word processing in most offices I've worked in because, in my opinion, it is the better product for the job. It may also be because WordPerfect has been around for so long that everyone just migrated without changing. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

Universal File Support

WordPerfect has very good compatibility with other file formats making it nearly universal. It includes PDF file support which Corel continues to improve in this version. It saves directly to PDF format Corel has now added optical character recognition so you can import PDF files directly into a text document. Although it is not perfect, it converts to and from numerous Word formats including RTF, and all versions through 7. It also supports other formats including WordStar, AMI, OfficeWriter, Lotus, Multimate and numerous others.

Skins

Corel also added two themes so that the skin looks more like XP/Vista, and for those who need it, the Word Count feature is on the application bar at the bottom of the WordPerfect window. This new version appears to be very stable.

Exceptional Word Processing Capabilities

When WordPerfect came out, it took over the market. (It was far superior to the software then available, and remains one of the best.) When MicroSoft came out with Word, I had the feeling they did everything they could to make it different from WordPerfect just to use their power in the industry to take over the word processing market, just like MicroSoft did with every other good software idea to come along. (e.g., Mozilla/Netscape, Norton Utilities.)

I have three versions of Word (2000, 2003 and 2007) and WordPerfect 5, 7, 8, 10, 12, X3 and now X4. I use the MicroSoft product only when absolutely necessary -- usually because someone else sends me a document in that format. The new version of Word is unfamiliar - the traditional pull down menus have been placed sideways on toolbars and rearranged so it is uncomfortable to use. If possible, I will use WordPerfect and save it as a Word document using the "SAVE AS" feature on the "file" pull down menu.

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 format 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. WordPerfect can then save the document in Word/RTF format with the problems fixed. This is particularly useful when combined with the global search and replace. For example, you can search and replace all [paragraph style] and end up with a manageable document.

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. 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 column change or page change seems to introduce a whole new set of 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.

Another very important feature is the ability to view a document from the "open document" screen without having to actually open up the document. This way, if you are searching for a specific document or a document containing certain specific information or "language" you need, you don't have to serially open a document, close it, open another document, and so on until you find the one you want. This is particularly powerful when combined with the "find document" feature on the "open document" screen. Using the find button opens a screen which is similar to the windows "search" screen. You can type in a series of words, and WordPerfect will search all files on the hard drive or in the folder/subfolders in which you are working for all documents containing your target search terms. You can then scroll through and look at each document to quickly determine their contents. From the "find" screen, you can access the "quickfinder" program which pre-scans folders on the computer so that searching for documents is nearly instantaneous. Just tonight I needed to find a "Declaration re Ex Parte Notice" to use as a template from among thousands of documents. The entire search took perhaps half a minute.

The most prominent change between WP 10 and 12/X3/X4 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 and upgraded 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!
One of the great advantages of WordPerfect is that the files are much smaller than Word documents. This means you can transport them on floppy drives.
As a final thought, Word is very powerful and works very well for short documents such as business letters. If you do anything over several pages, you are much better off with WordPerfect.

Take time to get to know the software and you'll be glad you purchased it.

Other Programs:

The Corel Office package includes replacement programs for most of the stuff in Microsoft Office. The suite includes a Microsoft Outlook replacement (Mail), a PowerPoint replacement (Presentation), an exceptional spreadsheet program (Quattro) and Lightning. I haven't yet figured out what Lightning does except act as a notebook of some sort.

It's difficult to review so vast a package of software briefly enough to keep the review readable but detailed enough to give it a fair shake. One thing which I can say first and foremost is that everything I received was not in a working state. The training CD tutorials simply do not work. If you try to run them, you get numerous script errors and have to force quit. Additionally, I could not get the WordPerfect Mail application to run on my Windows XP machine despite it having more than adequate specs.

Additionally, you cannot rely on WordPerfect to open either Microsoft Word or .pdf files without problems. In my tests, I could open some MS Word files fine, but others did not open at all and some opened with very confused formatting. The open .pdf function failed entirely on several attempts (particularly with large files, even when asking WordPerfect to open only a few pages of the large document). If you work in a multi-language environment with double-byte characters (like Japanese), you can forget about using WordPerfect to open MS documents containing such languages. I will also note that, when attempting to take a screen capture of an open .pdf, WordPerfect crashed despite being the only open application at the time.

All that being said, if opening legacy documents or documents sent to you from MS Word users is not a big concern for you, building WordPerfect documents from scratch is easy and effective. If you want to use the software as your primary word processor, you can do basic page layout and word processing with its easy to use interface. Formatting text and editing images is very easy. You can even open the software in different modes so that you can use different interfaces (such as MS Word) to help you feel more comfortable navigating the interface.

The main problem I have with WordPerfect as it is at present is that the price is very high considering the lack of reliability of some of the features that are supposed to make it work smoothly with Word and pdf documents. Very few people do their document creation and processing in a vacuum and I'd feel stranded without a proper way to send and receive documents from others who are likely not using WordPerfect should it be my only alternative.

I'd like to recommend WordPerfect Office X4 wholeheartedly and I wanted to explore it and use it instead of other options, but the functionality to pursue this path is not up to snuff.

For the past year, ever since Microsoft's Office 2007 came-out, I've been in a quandary: I felt that Office 2007 had become too complicated.

Well, let's face-it, there always was more that Office could do than you needed, but with 2007, and the "ribbon," I found myself playing "hide and seek" with Microsoft's programmers for menu items that were either relocated or deleted (for instance, the insertion of a date that will automatically update itself for a template must have been something "extra" that Microsoft feels it could do without).

As recently as four years ago, I looked into WordPerfect Suite 12, but the lack of a mail program stopped me, now with X4 I feel confident enough to ditch Office; however, there are a couple of sticky points one must consider before abandoning the Microsoft ship.

On the positive side: WordFerfect is truly an adaptive wordprocessor. It is, no-holds-barred, the most complimentary word processor I have ever seen. It even can convert files into Wordstar, which is a strange, insofar as I haven't heard of anyone useing Wordstar since 1990, and it handled the conversion of Word to WordPerfect, and vice versa, easily. It even opened and converted Word files to pdf files without any complications.

For those who don't remember, Quatro Pro, originally developed by Borland, was the "plain English" command spreadsheet program that Microsoft emulated when it first developed Excel. I found Quatro Pro readily able to convert Excel files, and I found that it handled the equations fine in the files that I tried. I did find that sometimes the table boxes were in a larger size than the original, but this was easily re-sized, which I have to tell you isn't as easy with Excel.

WordPerfect Mail turned-out to be the weakest of the included programs, in my opinion, but it did everything I wanted it to do. At first it seemed to rely on using Outlook's files to build its contact list, and would even import all of ones mail from Outlook. Contacts could be imported from Outlook via a CSV (Comma Separated Value) file that was easier to use between programs than it was when I imported contacts to the Microsoft Office for Mac's mail program, Entourage. I did find that WordPerfect Mail took up to a minute to load sometimes, which seemed odd, especially when no other of the suite's program had any delays in loading.

When I purchased Microsoft Office 2007, I found myself buying the full product because I was tired of having to go through the loading of upgrade products until I got to Office 2003. When I upgraded my computer or had to restore it to the original factory settings, I was having to load Word for Windows 2.0, then load Office '97, then Office XP, and finally Office 2003. On top of this, with Microsoft Office 2007 it appears that Microsoft is so worried about piracy that Office 2007 interacts, via the Internet, with Microsoft so much that this has caused from problems for me when the Internet was reduced to a crawl, or my ISP's servers were down. WordPerfect Office X4 is still a stand alone product, and that is a plus.

If WordPerfect Office X4 a suitable alternative to Microsoft Office 2007? Yes, and its price is more than competitive.

I've been a WordPerfect user since the days of DOS. I've tried other programs but WP always has been the best choice for the type of documents I write (research reports with lots and lots of graphics, tables, charts, etc.). So I can't claim this is a unbiased review since I knew before I opened the box that I would like the program.

So, the main thrust of this review is to answer the question "If you're a WP user, is this a worthy upgrade?" Short answer: absolutly!

I've been using WP 12 for quite some time. I tried X3 when it came out, but while some of the new features were nice, it didn't seen ready for prime time. The PDF editing in particular - that was the main feature I was looking forward to, but it was very hit and miss in execution. Nothing else really distinguished X3 from v12, so I stayed with what I knew.

X4, however, is a different story. The PDF capabilities have been clearly improved in X4. No, it's still not perfect and probably never will be. A complex PDF with lots of graphics will cause it to gag, but basic PDFs read in and out without a hitch. Can't tell you how much time that saves me!

The platform itself seems a lot more stable than X3 -- occasional crashes was the main reason I went back to v12, which has been rock steady for me. So far, X4 is running as well as v12 and appears a bit more speedy on complex tasks such as huge merges and sorts.

Bottom line -- if you're using v12 or before, this is an excellent upgrade and one you'll be very happy you made. It's a bit less certain if you're an X3 user -- if you find it stable, and are happy with its PDF capabilities, then you won't see much change going to X4. If, however, you find X3 unstable or need a more robust PDF environment, X4 is worth the upgrade cost.

WordPerfect Office 4X Standard

This is a fully functional Office package that rivals and in some cases surpasses MS Office. Each of the programs load more quickly then it's MS Office counterparts do on the same PC. It installs in less time then MS Office and you are asked less questions during the install.

It can open almost any file including PDF's but with the documents originally created in MS Office it makes slight format changes and in some cases changes the font style.

I have used other editions of Word Perfect nice the time that Novell owned it and I have always liked the functionality of each edition and this is no different in fact in some areas it surpassed my high expectations. I just with it was a little more interoperable with MS Office. It does work fairly well with Open Office that I have installed on my MAC but the formatting changes somewhat here too.

One of the nice features is the ability to preview a document without having to open it, it's a real time saver for me. The edition of a fully functional mail program is nice.

The graphics selection is great and inserting and resizing graphics has become easier.

It's great as a stand alone processor or in a network environment where only Word Perfect is used but unfortunately won't work that well in an environment dominated by MS Office. Still it's my preferred home processor by far. It's easy to use, fairly intuitive and you can turn out some really professional looking documentation with little effort.

An interesting alternative to Microsoft Office and nearly comparable in price and after some give and take, although unintended by Corel, the features are just about equal. Some may say this program is a bit buggy, but I wouldn't go that far as most of us won't be putting it through such extreme paces trying to find a good benchmark for it.

A lot of Business, Legal, Government and Industry professionals have been using this program in its earlier version for years. The Master Documents feature is one of its strongest features, allowing you to build huge documents out of separate files and manage them seamlessly, much fast and far better than the old `cut and paste'. Lightning Note helps the user to achieve this and embeds itself into right-click menus that one can easily get adjusted to.

Some things about this program seemed a bit hyped, like the PDF support and handling which is hit or miss, mostly miss -- and Quattro Pro is honestly a poor substitute for Excel, especially Excel 2007.

While some users may have recently abandoned Microsoft Office permanently because of the 2007 Office release being such a strange departure from all its previous versions and upsetting a large portion of its base of users, I don't believe that this is the program to supplant it. OpenOffice, a free program, is a still a strong rival in this market and will continue to force the two largest Office program suppliers to better their wares.