Open Office

[RSW]

WP is still the preferred mode for some legal secretaries. I think the court systems in places still will load WP files.

I wish MS had simply bought WP and kept the formats...Like you there are things I cannot figure out how to do with Word..and handling pictures is particularly awkward to me. I hate the terminology of Word "Frames" etc.

There was a whole suite for WP just like Word. It had Dbase 3, Lotus, Paridox, (I think). and a few other programs.

 

[cejack]

Suite for WP

There was a whole suite for WP just like Word. It had Dbase 3, Lotus, Paridox, (I think). and a few other programs.

Yeah. It was Corel/WordPerfect Office amongst a whole host of other names. It actually had Quattro (Lotus/Excel imitation), Borland's Paradox - a great database prog in its time, Corel Draw, and WordPerfect to my recollection. Found this on Wikipedia.

1993 — Borland Office for Windows (WordPerfect 5.2, Quattro Pro 1.0, Paradox 1.0 for Windows)
1994 — Borland Office 2.0 for Windows (WordPerfect 6.0, Paradox 4.5, Quattro Pro 5.0 for Windows)
1994 — Novell Perfect Office for Windows 3.1x — (WordPerfect 6.1, Quattro Pro 6.0, Presentations 3.0, InfoCentral 1.1, Paradox 5.0 [Paradox included in Professional version only])
1996 — Corel WordPerfect Suite for DOS — (WordPerfect 6.2, Quattro Pro 5.6, Presentations 2.1, Shell 4.0c, WordPerfect 6.1 for Windows)
1996 — Corel WordPerfect Suite 7 for Windows 95.
1997 — Corel WordPerfect Suite 8.
1997 — Corel WordPerfect Suite 7 for Windows 3.1x.
1999 — WordPerfect Office 2000 Professional (WordPerfect 9, Quattro Pro 9, Presentations 9, Paradox 9, CorelCENTRAL 9, Trellix 2)
2001 — WordPerfect Office 2002 (version 10)
2003 — WordPerfect Office (version 11)
2004 — WordPerfect Office (version 12)
2006 — WordPerfect Office X3 (version 13)
2008 — WordPerfect Office X4 (version 14) supporting PDF, OpenDocument and Office Open XML
2010 — WordPerfect Office X5 (version 15)
2012 — WordPerfect Office X6 (version 16)

The one thing I hated about WordPerfect was all the stupid Service Packs. You may think it was not a buggy software package, but their bug releases and updates would argue with you.

If I was opening a new office from scratch, I would seriously consider Open Office or Libre Office as my base. Being able to run on all platforms is a great idea and since Linux is very mature and much easier to install and deal with now and works very well on all sorts of higher level hardware, I see the possibility that Linux will make some big headway on the desktop especially if MS keeps charging bloated prices for Windows 7 and later and Apple hardware maintains their very pricey levels.

With all the Word Files I have created or collected, I just don't think it would be feasible for me to switch to Open Office. Like others, it works pretty well, but the conversion / opening of Word files is not perfect and requires some significant formatting time that you will not have to deal with if you just stick with MS Word.

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

PRE WINDOWS there was also WP 4.2, which is what I started on. 5.1 was what my ex used to teach in biz school, along with Lotus 123, Database, and Paradox
Their absolute best program was DOS 6.1c and 6.2 which SMOKED. You could not outtype it. When I switched to WINDOWS 6.1 I could type 3 or 4 words ahead of the program..I hated it. 7 was better - 9, 10 better but buggy like you say... X4 and X5 still "fail" occasionally, but I can tell absolutely no difference in those two programs... I am not going to upgrade to X6 under I am forced to...hopefully never. As usual WP managed to issue a new version just before the new version of Windows comes out... Windows, i am convinced sabatoges WP with code deliberately meant to confound the program.
I have used the menus and short cuts so long, and my templates are so complex I cannot hope to duplicate them in Word...and I despise Word "frames" etc. awful and you cannot tell what's hidden easily by turning reveal codes off and on in the same way as WP. And I have Word 2003, 2007 and 2010...2003 is the best of the bunch. 2010, like every other MS product just absolutely cannot keep their menus the same. And with Win 7 virtually everything I do takes exactly 1 more step to "get there" than it did with XP.

1993 — Borland Office for Windows (WordPerfect 5.2, Quattro Pro 1.0, Paradox 1.0 for Windows)
1994 — Borland Office 2.0 for Windows (WordPerfect 6.0, Paradox 4.5, Quattro Pro 5.0 for Windows)
1994 — Novell Perfect Office for Windows 3.1x — (WordPerfect 6.1, Quattro Pro 6.0, Presentations 3.0, InfoCentral 1.1, Paradox 5.0 [Paradox included in Professional version only])
1996 — Corel WordPerfect Suite for DOS — (WordPerfect 6.2, Quattro Pro 5.6, Presentations 2.1, Shell 4.0c, WordPerfect 6.1 for Windows)
1996 — Corel WordPerfect Suite 7 for Windows 95.
1997 — Corel WordPerfect Suite 8.
1997 — Corel WordPerfect Suite 7 for Windows 3.1x.
1999 — WordPerfect Office 2000 Professional (WordPerfect 9, Quattro Pro 9, Presentations 9, Paradox 9, CorelCENTRAL 9, Trellix 2)
2001 — WordPerfect Office 2002 (version 10)
2003 — WordPerfect Office (version 11)
2004 — WordPerfect Office (version 12)
2006 — WordPerfect Office X3 (version 13)
2008 — WordPerfect Office X4 (version 14) supporting PDF, OpenDocument and Office Open XML
2010 — WordPerfect Office X5 (version 15)
2012 — WordPerfect Office X6 (version 16)

 

[OCApp]

I used to use WordPerfect when I was doing court depositions a couple of decades ago. Also remember using some little program that would let you build abbreviations so that, say, you could type, "t" and it would respond with "the" or "ts" would be "this." Cool little program. It made typing long depos and court hearings go really fast. The only problem was that when you got to a computer without it your brain was trained to use the short cuts. I fought going to Word back then but as the years have evolved it has taken over.

Never played with Open Office.

Dan

There used to be a macro program called Robotype which was free shareware for many years. Worked great. You could set up whatever abbreviations you wanted. For example, you could set it so that whenever you typed usa and hit the spacebar, the program would out out United States of America. Or you could set a one or two letter abbreviation to type out a whole page if you wanted it to.

Here's a link to it in PC Mag:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2380508,00.asp