WordPerfect Office 12: A Very Viable Office Alternative Living in a Microsoft World Wayne Kawamoto
Long the underdog, bridesmaid and runner-up, WordPerfect Office has always provided scrappy competition for Microsoft Office. Corel's latest version, WordPerfect Office 12 - Small Business Edition (WPO), offers useful innovations that make it easier to use. It has new e-mail client software and excellent compatibility with Microsoft Office, and it's even undergone plastic surgery to mimic Office's interface. If you like a world of Coca-Cola and Pepsi that still offers Dr. Pepper, you'll find WordPerfect Office 12 to be a worthy alternative at a lower price than Microsoft Office.
Like Microsoft Office Small Business Edition 2003, WPO is actually a suite of applications that includes at its core a word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation program — in this case, respectively, WordPerfect 12, Quattro Pro 12, and Presentations 12.
Living in a Microsoft World
All of the suite's applications acknowledge that they reside in a Microsoft world and each carefully mimics the interface of the competing Microsoft program. When you first launch WordPerfect, Quattro Pro, or Presentations, the programs will ask whether you want to work with their native Corel interfaces, or that of the corresponding Microsoft program.
Choose the Microsoft interface, and you'll be greeted with toolbars and menus that are virtually identical to those in the Microsoft applications.
The programs even save your documents in the Microsoft format.
The disguise is convincing enough that long-time Microsoft Office users will be able to immediately find their way around WordPerfect without adjusting their long-time work habits. In particular, WordPerfect offers strong compatibility with Microsoft Word files. While you can find some inconsistencies when dealing with complex documents with custom margins and such, conversions are quite good.
The Task Manager is a welcome new feature that lets you pick from a wide range of templates to create various business documents. Templates are grouped by type: the "Business Plans" set includes marketing materials, brochures, newsletters, and advertising; in "Sales Tools" you'll find reports, invoices, and job estimation forms; the "Financial Tools" set provides budgeting, profit-and-loss statements, and expense tracking; "Planning Resources" include forms for vacation requests, employee evaluations, and organizational presentations; and "Stationery" provides designs for various letters, envelopes, calendars, business cards, and more.
Select a document and the Task Manager opens the best application for the job. Choose "budgeting," for example, and the Task Manager starts Quattro Pro with a template that allows you to simply fill in budgetary data and view the calculated results. Choosing "Brochures" brings up WordPerfect; "organizational structure" brings up Presentations. The templates are attractive and professional looking. Corel also offers helpful online resources to dispense more templates, as well as business advice and tips.
