RealTime Preview—How many times do you wonder what your document would look like if you changed the font, line-spacing, color, font size, margins, added columns, etc? You change one of these, then apply it, only to have to UNDO it. Then you do it again, don't like it, undo it, etc, etc, etc. Not in WordPerfect! As you can see in the previous screen cap, WordPerfect instantly applies changes to your document as you select a new font, font size, etc—If you like it, select it, if you don't, move to/hover over the next font, font size, line spacing, zoom, etc!

Property Bar—How cluttered does your Toolbar get? Every time you want to work on a different task, you hit View (appropriate) Toolbar. Not in WordPerfect. Every time you work on something, your Property Bar updates with the tools you need.

Work in a constant state of WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get)—Have you ever worked in a document and then hit 'Print Preview', only to see that your document isn't going to print the way it should? Not in WordPerfect. WordPerfect is in a constant state of WYSIWYG.

Application Bar—Every time you open a document, the Application Bar displays the name of the open document. You don't have to switch back and forth between windows; nor do you have to remember which documents you have open. Additionally, using the Application Bar, you can drag and drop text between documents.

Tabs—In Word, tabs can be a nightmare. Because WordPerfect flows, if you change tabs for one line of text, all subsequent lines change also, keeping your document looking consistent. Each line or paragraph isn't treated as if it were a separate entity. When I was trained using Word (before I knew WordPerfect existed), tabs were what I hated most (well, I hated Line Spacing too; fortunately, this is also a breeze in WordPerfect).

Indents—in WordPerfect, Indents are also a breeze. They are achieved simply by hitting F7. All text will now wrap accordingly. The Indent is broken by hitting Return. To achieve the same result in Word, you have to hit Ctrl+T for each tab stop, then tab to that point. To UNDO an Indent, you would have to hit Shift+Ctrl+T for each. (Note: This is not the same as using the Indent Icon in Word; using this icon, your entire line indents, regardless of what your line position is). Anyway, as stated, in WordPerfect, you hit F7 to Indent and simply backspace to UNDO an Indent. It's also easy to Flush Right or Flush Right with Dot Leaders. Achieving the same in Word is time-consuming.

Shadow Cursor—Open a new or existing document, position your cursor anywhere on the page, click, and start typing. WordPerfect automatically inserts all necessary tabs and returns for you. Word may have this now, but WordPerfect has had it for years.

Other Features:
Join, Size, and Split cells in a Table with a single click!

Adjust Margins directly on your page! Additionally, if you want all your margins to be even, instead of having to change each one individually, simply click "Even". To set the Margins to the absolute minimum that your Printer will allow, simply click "Minimum". No more messages like "One or more of your margins are outside the printable area of the page . . ."

Labels—Not only can you create entire sheets of labels easily, you can also create or edit them to include your own margins inside the labels . . . great if you have Labels or Name Badges with logos on them. Where I used to work, people using Word97 had to come to our offices (where we used the old WordPerfect (6.1)) to create customized labels!

Many features added to other programs have been in WordPerfect for years; there is no doubt that WordPerfect is the leader—other programs follow.

Q.What about switching from your existing wordprocessor . . . you may need to share files with other people using other programs?

A. Not a problem—The conversion filters in WP are excellent at converting documents. You can even get WordPerfect to save your document as a Word document. Often, people using older versions of Word will have an easier time reading a WordPerfect document than they would reading a new Word document!

To see an in-depth comparison between Microsoft Word and WordPerfect, click HERE