S
SysAdmin
Why I Switched from Word to WordPerfect
The following is copied from http://www.anova.org/zsoft/wp/ and should be
shared with the WordPerfect Universe forum. It was posted earlier this month
in the newsgroups. Here's the full post, and I apologize for its length and
hope it's not inappropriately posted here.
A Letter to Microsoft from a [once] Loyal Customer,
(or Why WordPerfect has become better than Word)
Last month I downloaded WordPerfect 11 and spent fourteen straight days
diving deep into the program, and by the time I finished my evaluation, I
was a registered user. I've worked as both a writer and a software trainer
for ten years and when asked for my recommendation, have consistently
recommended WordPerfect over Word to corporate clients who were interested
in power and stability for their Small Office/Home Office word processing
needs. Although a devout Microsoft Word user for eleven years, I
occasionally bought a new WordPerfect version (skipping versions 7, 8, and
10) just so I could learn it well enough to get around it comfortably when
training in healthcare and legal settings.
In the end and with the help of some experts below, I found WordPerfect to
be better than Word. Just as there are better browsers and shell extensions
than Microsoft's Internet Explorer, I strongly believe there is also a
better word processor on the market right now.
The past eight months were spent evaluating other word processors as a
replacement for Word and what follows is why.
Background
I'm a Certified Word/Excel Expert and as most well know, there have been no
significant improvements in Word since Word 97. All the things that myself
and scores of Microsoft MVPs have requested for years have gone ignored.
(The same can be said for Internet Explorer: what does Redmond have against
tabbed browsing and killing pop-up ads?) Microsoft even eliminated its "Wish
List" web page after Microsoft Office 2000. It's as if Redmond gave us all
the finger while laughing all the way to the bank. Like millions of Word
users, I'm fed up with Microsoft. And yes, there are few "Microsofties" left
anymore, that is, those who love a Microsoft product no matter how bad it
is, how insecure it is, or how much it costs.
But eventually I switched to Word 1.1 for Windows and did not look back
until Microsoft announced in late 2002 that Word 11 would only run on
Windows XP and no previous operating systems, and that all prior Word
versions would be incompatible with and unable to read Word 11 documents
unless upgraded. (Microsoft Word had also segmented its self-compatibility
among Word 6.0/95, 97/2000, and with version 10, or the XP version, it is
eliminating backward compatibility with every version now. Don't even get me
started on what a Word version 6.0 file looks like when I open it in Word
11; it's as if Word is not even compatible with itself, losing valuable and
time-consuming formatting in every document, not to mention altering the
appearance and font size of footnotes.)
For a user, that is both unnecessary and unacceptable. New technology is
sometimes great. Listening to user feedback through honest criticism and
responding with ingenuity is even better. Changing file format compatibility
so often is like having to go out and replace your LPs with 8-track tapes
with cassettes with CDs with DVDs all in a span of ten years. "Innovation"
at that rate encourages businesses and users toward cautious restraint, not
continuous adoption. And that in part is why fewer and fewer people buy each
new upgrade.
Add in the upgrade roller-coaster money train of (1) buy Microsoft Office
software, which includes (2) all kinds of new "security" features among
other bloat that no one is asking for - has anyone ever used SmartTags for
example? - which then requires that (3) one upgrade the Microsoft operating
system, which eventually entails (4) that you upgrade your system to handle
the new, slow, bloated Microsoft application software on your new Microsoft
operating system, which leaves you with a bigger, fatter, and slower word
processing application in the end. Two years later, just as the kinks are
getting ironed out of one version, Microsoft tells us we must upgrade to the
new, improved version, whether we need to or not. Then the roller-coaster
begins all over again - see #(1) above. Computers are capable of lasting for
more than two years, and like most people, I have neither the money nor the
time to constantly upgrade my system.
Evaluation
Three programs I evaluated were 602Text by 602Software, TextMaker by
SoftMaker, and Writer by OpenOffice.org. I have been an advanced user of
Word for many years now and judged each of these programs along with
WordPerfect against it.
602Text does more but has definite limits that hinder its usability,
especially in its awkward implementation of object-orientation. 602Text
essentially mimics Word itself in many ways. It's very affordable with the
full add-in of PC Suite Plus at only $30.
I've also spent the past 18 months using, testing, and documenting issues
for OpenOffice Writer (and Calc), but have been disappointed in its
quirkiness, its muddled user interface, and oddball implementations of
routine functions. And after all that, even with the 2.0 version coming out,
from the perspective of usability I cannot recommend OpenOffice to anyone in
good conscience, and certainly no one in an office/corporate environment.
The program may get better but it will remain a second-tier application for
several years to come since very few Word and WordPerfect users will give up
their word processors for OpenOffice.
TextMaker on the other hand, while not powerful (it's in its first full
version for both Linux and Windows), has thrown out many traditional "bad
ideas" found in word processing applications and rethought some
implementations, such as headers and footers. It has simplified several
complex features often found in object-oriented word processors such as
OpenOffice and 602Text, for example. Moreover, TextMaker only takes up 18Mb
on the hard drive and has a concurrent Linux version. However, it is
marketed as a light-duty word processor and not intended to compete with the
likes of WordPerfect and Word. I would not hesitate to recommend TextMaker
to anyone except advanced users, as its Word file conversion filter is
impressively accurate.
WordPerfect Past
In 1986 I began using WordPerfect 4.2 for DOS, and when WordPerfect 5.1 for
DOS came along in 1989, I was in heaven. To this day, it is still one of the
greatest programs ever created for any operating system. It's power was
unique in its day, but moreover, it was an elegant program. It used the
entire keyboard and every function key. And for those of us old enough to
remember those good old DOS days, once you learned those keyboard shortcuts,
they were burned in your brain for good, and you could work far faster than
if you constantly reached for the mouse. And back then kids, there were no
viruses because there was no internet and application software could fit on
as few as one or two 1.44Mb diskettes! When the first Windows versions of
WordPerfect came along I purchased them, but as you remember, they were slow
and essentially lost all the things that made its DOS 5.1 counterpart
great - speed, power, efficiency.
As Ed Trumbo writes: "WordPerfect 5.1 became so successful that attempts to
modernize the product with version 6.0 aggravated their customer base, who
found GUI influenced dialog boxes in place of keystroke oriented screens and
macros that needed serious updating. In moving to the Windows environment,
WordPerfect faced some tough choices; retaining the familiar but weird
keyboard commands for which 5.1 was known or switching to a CUA/Windows
command set, and bringing their own printer drivers into Windows or
accepting the comparatively feeble drivers that were part of Windows. In
each case, WordPerfect elected to do both, giving customers a choice at
installation between a WordPerfect that happened to run natively in Windows
or a Windows application that had some of WordPerfect's strengths. While
this may sound reasonable at first, it bloated the program and made life
difficult for corporate tech support, which left WordPerfect's market share
vulnerable to Microsoft Word."
In defense of WordPerfect, those keyboard shortcuts weren't "weird;" they
were the standard for the time. Windows had not yet established similar
shortcut keys because Microsoft Word for DOS was hardly used. To this day,
Microsoft does not enforce its keyboard shortcuts, assigning programs like
Publisher, Excel, and WordPad some key differences among its standard
shortcuts.
WordPerfect 5.1-6.0 for Windows was not very good. WordPerfect tried to
migrate all of its advanced functionality to the Windows platform and simply
put, they overreached on those first two Windows versions. The result was a
slow and buggy application that frustrated users and either hurled us back
to our WordPerfect-DOS versions or left those like myself vulnerable to the
lure of the new, shiny, and fast Microsoft Word 1.1-2.0. Many migrated to
Microsoft Word 2.0 because it was so well integrated with Windows and was
significantly faster than WordPerfect for Windows at that time. The train
had left the station on DOS and most of us were attracted to GUI word
processing because it made sense to see what you were typing like they could
on the Macintosh. And many like myself never left Word until now, when
Microsoft itself has forced me to reevaluate that choice for an issue that
wasn't considered then: portability, or the positive answer to the question:
"Can I take my document with me?"
WordPerfect's market share was further hurt by acquisitions in the 1990s
from Novell to Corel, within which it acquired Quattro Pro from Borland. I
was intrigued rather than discouraged when Corel acquired WordPerfect
Office. I have used CorelDRAW since version 3 and have enjoyed its steady
progression. My own hope for Corel is that they focus on what they do best,
and that is software. I don't need a software company to be a global
conglomerate, make telephones, keyboards, or game machines. I'm just a guy
looking for a great word processor.
WordPerfect Present
To my rescue comes Corel with WordPerfect 11. I can safely get off the
Microsoft Office upgrade roller-coaster with this new WordPerfect. I did
everything I could to "break it" to prove that it couldn't handle my writing
needs, from research papers and monographs, to indexing, to tables with
formulas, to large documents and accurate file conversions. It worked and
wasn't difficult to learn either. Outlining is far faster and easier, and
WordPerfect has a track changes feature that actually works! I wanted to
keep my old Word keyboard shortcuts, and WordPerfect allowed me to do that
and even use Word's menus if desired. I could even save different keyboard
shortcut mapping schemas and switch from one to the other if I wanted.
Let's revisit the idea of real document portability. Using WordPerfect 11 I
can retain the content of my writings and data by using its "Publish to
XML/PDF/HTML" feature, not to mention it reliably saves in a variety of
plain text, UTF-8, or RTF formats. In longer documents, Word collapses the
paragraphs on themselves, making for extra work in text conversions. Either
way, my content is protected thanks to WordPerfect's excellent file
conversion filters. I can do what I want, or rather what I need to do to
protect my creative investment for future formatting or revision in any word
processor I choose, even if that turns out to be a great text editor like
UltraEdit.
I continued to be more impressed when WordPerfect did things that Word could
not do, e.g., its font and graphics handling abilities, XML/PDF export, easy
template creation and management, along with the ability to create and
manage very large files. Initially I had trouble printing envelopes, but
then briefly studied the help file and voila! it worked fine. The one thing
I did not like at first was the way it handled XML, but when I saw that
WordPerfect gave me "clean" xml, rather than the proprietary WordML that
Microsoft is pushing and only in its Premium/Enterprise version of Microsoft
Office I actually grew fond of its options. I even created and edited a
435Mb document (a technical support data set of names, addresses, emails,
etc.) in WordPerfect 11 and it handled it without problems, and even
converted it to plain text! (Word XP, on the other hand, has a measly 32Mb
file size limit, which is too small for some of my work these days.
Microsoft Office 11 does not enlarge this file capacity nor does it increase
the row and column capacity for Excel 11.) And Reveal Codes is worth a
thousand words in itself.
I wish I could only purchase WordPerfect 11 by itself, but at $150, it's
very affordable, especially when compared with Microsoft Office and is
competitively priced with Word alone. WordPerfect should be a standalone,
dedicated product, but by now we've come to accept the idea of bundled
suites when most people or businesses use the word processor most often
followed by fewer using the spreadsheet and the fewest the database product.
Everything else is candy. Me? I use only the word processor and spreadsheet,
mining both for everything they offer.
Microsoft Past
One thing is certain: I will not be upgrading to Microsoft Office/Word 11.
In fact, the only software I'll use of Microsoft's is Windows, Excel, and
FrontPage, and I use Windows only because it is convenient. Microsoft was
once a good company, but now it seems they're only in it for the money and
in recent years, forgetting that when you lose a loyalist like myself, your
software is on the downside of being competitive. Add in Digital Rights
Management, Product Activation, feature-bloat, unwanted security functions,
along with the lack of innovation and you can count me out. With every new
version I see things that "Microsoft" wants in its Office suite, but
virtually none of the things that users have asked for... repeatedly. As a
result, Word has become buggy and bloated.
Understand the revolt I'm articulating here on behalf of users. As a user, I
don't want Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer (or anyone or any company) to
control access to my data and writings anymore. Microsoft has even written
white papers on why users do not want or need a Reveal Codes feature, but
they do encourage you to learn Visual Basic programming to perform many of
the same simple tasks.
I have over 17 years of writings, research, papers, correspondence, records,
articles, etc. tied up in various word processing formats and the last thing
I want is one company controlling access to my data. It's mine, I created
it, and I own it - not Microsoft, not SCO, or even Corel. Yet Microsoft
seems to feel that anything created using one of their products is
indirectly owned by them via their EULA. Not in my mind; not in my world;
not in my lifetime. I bought your software, so therefore I own my copy of
your software, and not just its license that was created by an army of
lawyers. Of course this does not mean that I'm allowed to sell copies or
give it away to all my relatives, but then I never did. (I even made my
friends buy software throughout the years because I wanted to support
companies that were writing good applications. Good software begets more
good software.)
Back Where I Started
My rigorous testing and evaluation has encouraged me to come home again to
where I started, with WordPerfect 11. What is helpful is to have spent this
month with WordPerfect on my own, and then to discover that not only did
WordPerfect get a whole lot better while I was gone, but its users helped
keep it alive and shape it into the best word processor in the world today.
Finally, I deeply appreciate websites such as WPuniverse.com, but also Laura
Acklen's WPWriter.com, and OfficeCommunity.com, that have allowed me to
compare more features and functions and dig deeper and broader than I
normally would with my own work in the midst of my evaluation, and for that
I thank them. My thanks also go to people like ErinShore's WordPerfect vs.
Word site for its comprehensive coverage of features for both Word and
WordPerfect, and to John Walkenbach, who not only has enlivened our interest
in what software can and should be, but shows with clarity how we can all
become more efficient and intelligent users of any software.
Zaine Ridling
(WordPerfect Advocate)
Access Foundation
St. Louis, Missouri USA
The following is copied from http://www.anova.org/zsoft/wp/ and should be
shared with the WordPerfect Universe forum. It was posted earlier this month
in the newsgroups. Here's the full post, and I apologize for its length and
hope it's not inappropriately posted here.
A Letter to Microsoft from a [once] Loyal Customer,
(or Why WordPerfect has become better than Word)
Last month I downloaded WordPerfect 11 and spent fourteen straight days
diving deep into the program, and by the time I finished my evaluation, I
was a registered user. I've worked as both a writer and a software trainer
for ten years and when asked for my recommendation, have consistently
recommended WordPerfect over Word to corporate clients who were interested
in power and stability for their Small Office/Home Office word processing
needs. Although a devout Microsoft Word user for eleven years, I
occasionally bought a new WordPerfect version (skipping versions 7, 8, and
10) just so I could learn it well enough to get around it comfortably when
training in healthcare and legal settings.
In the end and with the help of some experts below, I found WordPerfect to
be better than Word. Just as there are better browsers and shell extensions
than Microsoft's Internet Explorer, I strongly believe there is also a
better word processor on the market right now.
The past eight months were spent evaluating other word processors as a
replacement for Word and what follows is why.
Background
I'm a Certified Word/Excel Expert and as most well know, there have been no
significant improvements in Word since Word 97. All the things that myself
and scores of Microsoft MVPs have requested for years have gone ignored.
(The same can be said for Internet Explorer: what does Redmond have against
tabbed browsing and killing pop-up ads?) Microsoft even eliminated its "Wish
List" web page after Microsoft Office 2000. It's as if Redmond gave us all
the finger while laughing all the way to the bank. Like millions of Word
users, I'm fed up with Microsoft. And yes, there are few "Microsofties" left
anymore, that is, those who love a Microsoft product no matter how bad it
is, how insecure it is, or how much it costs.
But eventually I switched to Word 1.1 for Windows and did not look back
until Microsoft announced in late 2002 that Word 11 would only run on
Windows XP and no previous operating systems, and that all prior Word
versions would be incompatible with and unable to read Word 11 documents
unless upgraded. (Microsoft Word had also segmented its self-compatibility
among Word 6.0/95, 97/2000, and with version 10, or the XP version, it is
eliminating backward compatibility with every version now. Don't even get me
started on what a Word version 6.0 file looks like when I open it in Word
11; it's as if Word is not even compatible with itself, losing valuable and
time-consuming formatting in every document, not to mention altering the
appearance and font size of footnotes.)
For a user, that is both unnecessary and unacceptable. New technology is
sometimes great. Listening to user feedback through honest criticism and
responding with ingenuity is even better. Changing file format compatibility
so often is like having to go out and replace your LPs with 8-track tapes
with cassettes with CDs with DVDs all in a span of ten years. "Innovation"
at that rate encourages businesses and users toward cautious restraint, not
continuous adoption. And that in part is why fewer and fewer people buy each
new upgrade.
Add in the upgrade roller-coaster money train of (1) buy Microsoft Office
software, which includes (2) all kinds of new "security" features among
other bloat that no one is asking for - has anyone ever used SmartTags for
example? - which then requires that (3) one upgrade the Microsoft operating
system, which eventually entails (4) that you upgrade your system to handle
the new, slow, bloated Microsoft application software on your new Microsoft
operating system, which leaves you with a bigger, fatter, and slower word
processing application in the end. Two years later, just as the kinks are
getting ironed out of one version, Microsoft tells us we must upgrade to the
new, improved version, whether we need to or not. Then the roller-coaster
begins all over again - see #(1) above. Computers are capable of lasting for
more than two years, and like most people, I have neither the money nor the
time to constantly upgrade my system.
Evaluation
Three programs I evaluated were 602Text by 602Software, TextMaker by
SoftMaker, and Writer by OpenOffice.org. I have been an advanced user of
Word for many years now and judged each of these programs along with
WordPerfect against it.
602Text does more but has definite limits that hinder its usability,
especially in its awkward implementation of object-orientation. 602Text
essentially mimics Word itself in many ways. It's very affordable with the
full add-in of PC Suite Plus at only $30.
I've also spent the past 18 months using, testing, and documenting issues
for OpenOffice Writer (and Calc), but have been disappointed in its
quirkiness, its muddled user interface, and oddball implementations of
routine functions. And after all that, even with the 2.0 version coming out,
from the perspective of usability I cannot recommend OpenOffice to anyone in
good conscience, and certainly no one in an office/corporate environment.
The program may get better but it will remain a second-tier application for
several years to come since very few Word and WordPerfect users will give up
their word processors for OpenOffice.
TextMaker on the other hand, while not powerful (it's in its first full
version for both Linux and Windows), has thrown out many traditional "bad
ideas" found in word processing applications and rethought some
implementations, such as headers and footers. It has simplified several
complex features often found in object-oriented word processors such as
OpenOffice and 602Text, for example. Moreover, TextMaker only takes up 18Mb
on the hard drive and has a concurrent Linux version. However, it is
marketed as a light-duty word processor and not intended to compete with the
likes of WordPerfect and Word. I would not hesitate to recommend TextMaker
to anyone except advanced users, as its Word file conversion filter is
impressively accurate.
WordPerfect Past
In 1986 I began using WordPerfect 4.2 for DOS, and when WordPerfect 5.1 for
DOS came along in 1989, I was in heaven. To this day, it is still one of the
greatest programs ever created for any operating system. It's power was
unique in its day, but moreover, it was an elegant program. It used the
entire keyboard and every function key. And for those of us old enough to
remember those good old DOS days, once you learned those keyboard shortcuts,
they were burned in your brain for good, and you could work far faster than
if you constantly reached for the mouse. And back then kids, there were no
viruses because there was no internet and application software could fit on
as few as one or two 1.44Mb diskettes! When the first Windows versions of
WordPerfect came along I purchased them, but as you remember, they were slow
and essentially lost all the things that made its DOS 5.1 counterpart
great - speed, power, efficiency.
As Ed Trumbo writes: "WordPerfect 5.1 became so successful that attempts to
modernize the product with version 6.0 aggravated their customer base, who
found GUI influenced dialog boxes in place of keystroke oriented screens and
macros that needed serious updating. In moving to the Windows environment,
WordPerfect faced some tough choices; retaining the familiar but weird
keyboard commands for which 5.1 was known or switching to a CUA/Windows
command set, and bringing their own printer drivers into Windows or
accepting the comparatively feeble drivers that were part of Windows. In
each case, WordPerfect elected to do both, giving customers a choice at
installation between a WordPerfect that happened to run natively in Windows
or a Windows application that had some of WordPerfect's strengths. While
this may sound reasonable at first, it bloated the program and made life
difficult for corporate tech support, which left WordPerfect's market share
vulnerable to Microsoft Word."
In defense of WordPerfect, those keyboard shortcuts weren't "weird;" they
were the standard for the time. Windows had not yet established similar
shortcut keys because Microsoft Word for DOS was hardly used. To this day,
Microsoft does not enforce its keyboard shortcuts, assigning programs like
Publisher, Excel, and WordPad some key differences among its standard
shortcuts.
WordPerfect 5.1-6.0 for Windows was not very good. WordPerfect tried to
migrate all of its advanced functionality to the Windows platform and simply
put, they overreached on those first two Windows versions. The result was a
slow and buggy application that frustrated users and either hurled us back
to our WordPerfect-DOS versions or left those like myself vulnerable to the
lure of the new, shiny, and fast Microsoft Word 1.1-2.0. Many migrated to
Microsoft Word 2.0 because it was so well integrated with Windows and was
significantly faster than WordPerfect for Windows at that time. The train
had left the station on DOS and most of us were attracted to GUI word
processing because it made sense to see what you were typing like they could
on the Macintosh. And many like myself never left Word until now, when
Microsoft itself has forced me to reevaluate that choice for an issue that
wasn't considered then: portability, or the positive answer to the question:
"Can I take my document with me?"
WordPerfect's market share was further hurt by acquisitions in the 1990s
from Novell to Corel, within which it acquired Quattro Pro from Borland. I
was intrigued rather than discouraged when Corel acquired WordPerfect
Office. I have used CorelDRAW since version 3 and have enjoyed its steady
progression. My own hope for Corel is that they focus on what they do best,
and that is software. I don't need a software company to be a global
conglomerate, make telephones, keyboards, or game machines. I'm just a guy
looking for a great word processor.
WordPerfect Present
To my rescue comes Corel with WordPerfect 11. I can safely get off the
Microsoft Office upgrade roller-coaster with this new WordPerfect. I did
everything I could to "break it" to prove that it couldn't handle my writing
needs, from research papers and monographs, to indexing, to tables with
formulas, to large documents and accurate file conversions. It worked and
wasn't difficult to learn either. Outlining is far faster and easier, and
WordPerfect has a track changes feature that actually works! I wanted to
keep my old Word keyboard shortcuts, and WordPerfect allowed me to do that
and even use Word's menus if desired. I could even save different keyboard
shortcut mapping schemas and switch from one to the other if I wanted.
Let's revisit the idea of real document portability. Using WordPerfect 11 I
can retain the content of my writings and data by using its "Publish to
XML/PDF/HTML" feature, not to mention it reliably saves in a variety of
plain text, UTF-8, or RTF formats. In longer documents, Word collapses the
paragraphs on themselves, making for extra work in text conversions. Either
way, my content is protected thanks to WordPerfect's excellent file
conversion filters. I can do what I want, or rather what I need to do to
protect my creative investment for future formatting or revision in any word
processor I choose, even if that turns out to be a great text editor like
UltraEdit.
I continued to be more impressed when WordPerfect did things that Word could
not do, e.g., its font and graphics handling abilities, XML/PDF export, easy
template creation and management, along with the ability to create and
manage very large files. Initially I had trouble printing envelopes, but
then briefly studied the help file and voila! it worked fine. The one thing
I did not like at first was the way it handled XML, but when I saw that
WordPerfect gave me "clean" xml, rather than the proprietary WordML that
Microsoft is pushing and only in its Premium/Enterprise version of Microsoft
Office I actually grew fond of its options. I even created and edited a
435Mb document (a technical support data set of names, addresses, emails,
etc.) in WordPerfect 11 and it handled it without problems, and even
converted it to plain text! (Word XP, on the other hand, has a measly 32Mb
file size limit, which is too small for some of my work these days.
Microsoft Office 11 does not enlarge this file capacity nor does it increase
the row and column capacity for Excel 11.) And Reveal Codes is worth a
thousand words in itself.
I wish I could only purchase WordPerfect 11 by itself, but at $150, it's
very affordable, especially when compared with Microsoft Office and is
competitively priced with Word alone. WordPerfect should be a standalone,
dedicated product, but by now we've come to accept the idea of bundled
suites when most people or businesses use the word processor most often
followed by fewer using the spreadsheet and the fewest the database product.
Everything else is candy. Me? I use only the word processor and spreadsheet,
mining both for everything they offer.
Microsoft Past
One thing is certain: I will not be upgrading to Microsoft Office/Word 11.
In fact, the only software I'll use of Microsoft's is Windows, Excel, and
FrontPage, and I use Windows only because it is convenient. Microsoft was
once a good company, but now it seems they're only in it for the money and
in recent years, forgetting that when you lose a loyalist like myself, your
software is on the downside of being competitive. Add in Digital Rights
Management, Product Activation, feature-bloat, unwanted security functions,
along with the lack of innovation and you can count me out. With every new
version I see things that "Microsoft" wants in its Office suite, but
virtually none of the things that users have asked for... repeatedly. As a
result, Word has become buggy and bloated.
Understand the revolt I'm articulating here on behalf of users. As a user, I
don't want Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer (or anyone or any company) to
control access to my data and writings anymore. Microsoft has even written
white papers on why users do not want or need a Reveal Codes feature, but
they do encourage you to learn Visual Basic programming to perform many of
the same simple tasks.
I have over 17 years of writings, research, papers, correspondence, records,
articles, etc. tied up in various word processing formats and the last thing
I want is one company controlling access to my data. It's mine, I created
it, and I own it - not Microsoft, not SCO, or even Corel. Yet Microsoft
seems to feel that anything created using one of their products is
indirectly owned by them via their EULA. Not in my mind; not in my world;
not in my lifetime. I bought your software, so therefore I own my copy of
your software, and not just its license that was created by an army of
lawyers. Of course this does not mean that I'm allowed to sell copies or
give it away to all my relatives, but then I never did. (I even made my
friends buy software throughout the years because I wanted to support
companies that were writing good applications. Good software begets more
good software.)
Back Where I Started
My rigorous testing and evaluation has encouraged me to come home again to
where I started, with WordPerfect 11. What is helpful is to have spent this
month with WordPerfect on my own, and then to discover that not only did
WordPerfect get a whole lot better while I was gone, but its users helped
keep it alive and shape it into the best word processor in the world today.
Finally, I deeply appreciate websites such as WPuniverse.com, but also Laura
Acklen's WPWriter.com, and OfficeCommunity.com, that have allowed me to
compare more features and functions and dig deeper and broader than I
normally would with my own work in the midst of my evaluation, and for that
I thank them. My thanks also go to people like ErinShore's WordPerfect vs.
Word site for its comprehensive coverage of features for both Word and
WordPerfect, and to John Walkenbach, who not only has enlivened our interest
in what software can and should be, but shows with clarity how we can all
become more efficient and intelligent users of any software.
Zaine Ridling
(WordPerfect Advocate)
Access Foundation
St. Louis, Missouri USA