Online Encyclopedia Search Tool

Your Online Encyclopedia

 

Online Encylopedia and Dictionary Research Site

Online Encyclopedia Free Search Online Encyclopedia Search    Online Encyclopedia Browse    welcome to our free dictionary for your research of every kind

Online Encyclopedia



WordPerfect

WordPerfect is a word processing program; at the height of its popularity in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it was the de facto standard word processor, but has since been eclipsed in sales by Microsoft Word.

WordPerfect was originally produced by Satellite Software, Inc. of Orem, Utah, which later renamed itself to WordPerfect Corporation . They produced the most successful version ever: WordPerfect 5.1 DOS. Many people still know the key combinations from WordPerfect 5.1 DOS that date back to the time that function keys were on the left of the keyboard, where, for instance, Tab and F4 (Indent) were adjacent.

WordPerfect was sold twice, first to Novell in June of 1994, who then sold it to Corel in January of 1996. Prior to the first sale however, WordPerfect had also become part of an office applications suite when it entered into a co-licensing agreement with Borland Software Corporation in 1993. The offerings were Borland Office, which contained Quattro Pro, and WordPerfect Office which was LAN based. WordPerfect was late in coming to market with a Windows version, however, and the program suffered a decline in popularity from which it has never recovered. Amongst its remaining avid users are many law firms and a few universities. Nor did Corel's attempt to promote it as the standard word processor on Linux systems prove successful. In 2003 Corel was bought by Vector Capital , a venture capital investor.

There has been a recent technology preview of WordPerfect 8 for Linux and in April of 2004, the company released an updated version of WordPerfect 8, for Linux, as a "Proof-of-Concept", to test the Linux marketplace.

WordPerfect 5.1 and later versions through 7.0 were known for using just about every possible combination of function keys. (In earlier versions it didn't use Shift, Ctrl, and Alt in conjunction with F11 and F12, because these keys didn't exist on early personal computer keyboards.) The fact that nearly every possible function key combination was used made it necessary for many users to use a keyboard template showing each function. This was in contrast to WordStar, which it had supplanted as the major word processor -- WordStar used only Ctrl in conjuction with keys on the regular keyboard.

WordPerfect aficionados remain convinced of the superiority of their word processor, pointing out how the Reveal Codes function (which allows the user to toggle between normal editing mode and a mode in which embedded formatting commands are visible and editable) gives the power user very precise control over the text. They also argue that WordPerfect has powerful features for creating tables of authorities in legal documents and correctly counts the number of words in the document, including footnotes.

Those preferring the Microsoft Office suite cite MS Office's better integration between the different programs (such as e-mail programs), and WordPerfect's poor implementation of Windows conventions (in the early Windows versions of WordPerfect) and what they perceived as its lack of user-friendliness. For many users these arguments lost some validity after 1996, when newer versions of WordPerfect eliminated those perceived weaknesses. Corel's marketing department, however, has failed to capitalize on what dedicated users still consider WordPerfect's superiority.

In WordPerfect 11 Corel added the Classic Mode. This was an attempt to win back users that switched to MS Word because the Windows versions of WordPerfect were so different from the famous WordPerfect 5.1 DOS version. See WordPerfect 12, which was released in 2004, for an extended description of the Classic Mode.

Older features that are still unique to WordPerfect, compared to Word, include a one-click PDF creation feature, which lets users convert their documents to PDF without buying Adobe Acrobat. It also features a built-in dictionary and a thesaurus which suggests new words from a drop-down box while users type. 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.

WordPerfect for Macintosh

WordPerfect for Macintosh's first release was a crude port of the DOS version, and was not accepted warmly in the marketplace. Version 2 was a total re-write, and made WordPerfect for Mac a "proper" Mac application. Version 3 took this further, making extensive use of the technologies Apple introduced in Systems 7.0–7.5, while remaining fast and capable of running well on older machines. Corel released WordPerfect for Mac version 3.5 in 1996, but it was never updated beyond that, and was later discontinued. For a few years after that, Corel allowed Mac users to download version 3.5 for free off the website. Some Mac users still prefer WordPerfect, and continue using it, but because it was written for slow machines, it scrolls uncontrollably fast on modern hardware, prompting an independent developer to write a patch to throttle the scroll speed, allowing it to run well on current machines.

Versions

Versions for Microsoft DOS include:

  • 1983 WordPerfect 3.0 for DOS
  • 1984 WordPerfect 4.0 for DOS
  • 1988 WordPerfect 5.0 for DOS
  • 1993 WordPerfect 6.0 for DOS

Versions for Apple II include:

  • 1985 WordPerfect 1.0 for Apple II
  • 1986 WordPerfect 2.0 for Apple II

Versions for the Apple Macintosh include:

  • 1988 WordPerfect 1.0 for Macintosh
  • 1990 WordPerfect 2.0 for Macintosh
  • 1993 WordPerfect 3.0 for Macintosh
  • 1995 WordPerfect 3.5 for Macintosh

Versions for Microsoft Windows include:

  • 1991 WordPerfect 5.1 for Windows
  • 1993 WordPerfect 6.0 for Windows
  • 1996 WordPerfect 7.0 for Windows
  • 1997 WordPerfect 8.0 for Windows
  • 1999 WordPerfect 9.0 for Windows

Versions for Linux include:

  • 1996 WordPerfect 6.0 for Linux
  • 2000 WordPerfect 9.0 for Linux

External links




Last updated: 10-24-2004 05:10:45