File Menu Item

WP

Word

Comments

Word & WP: New Document

WP: 1

In WP, a new document is always on the screen.

WP: New from Project
Word: New

WP: 5

Word: 1

A big improvement for Word and WordPerfect is the number of Templates available.

Both programs now give you the option of obtaining Projects/Templates from the Web. Where WP has always excelled is the ability to edit, copy, move, and create Categories for your templates. You can also (easily) Build Prompts (click HERE to see an example) for your Templates, so that all the correct information is entered anywhere in your document (in the correct order).

WP: 1

Word: 5

Word & WP: Open Dialog Box

WP: 5

Word: 1

With Office XP, Microsoft FINALLY got a clue and enabled MSOffice Dialog Boxes to be resized (previously only a small Dialog Box opened, which meant you couldn't see very many files; you, therefore, had to scroll all over the place to view your files).

WP also allows you to perform far better/easier file management capabilities from the Open Dialog Box, including, Move, Print File List, etc. Other options such as Undo and Copy are only available in Office 2003 via a right-click, which may mean many less savvy users miss these capabilities.

WP still wins when it comes to Previewing a File, as you have the following options:

• Tear Off (Separate Preview Window so you can utilize the entire screen, although you don't have to use Tear Off, as the WP Preview Window can be resized . . . Word's can't.)
• Page View (Choose which size you prefer in this View: Original Size, Size to Width, and Size to Height

The only notable aspect that Word has is that its Properties are slightly better, e.g., you can see the number of words in the document, etc, which means you don't have to open the file. It also has a 'My Places' feature, which is basically a Favorites menu, but it's faster to access, so it deserves kudos for that.

Word & WP: Save/Save As

WP: 1

WP has far more 'Save As' file types, although, let's face it: in this day and age, the choice of file formats is far fewer than it was 10 years ago.

Word: Save As Web Page
WP: Publish to HTML

WP: 1

Word: 5

In Word, it's as easy as saving a standard document. WP11 has simplified (and amplified the power of) its HTML publishing, but Word still wins outright, as MS made Web-enabling Word (and MSOffice) its Number 1 feature/goal.

WP's Web capability is good, but unfortunately, it doesn't use CSS2 to its full extent, which means that graphics lose the ability to be positioned above or below text when saved as HTML.

Word: 1

This new facility is part of Microsoft's new Information Rights Management (IRM) feature, but it requires that your office be using Windows Server 2000 SP3 and above.

The idea is that by assigning Permissions to Files, you can help prevent sensitive information from getting into the hands of the wrong people, whether by accident or carelessness. You can give users Read and Change access, as well as set expiration dates for content

This has to be one of the most controversial 'innovations' Microsoft has ever introduced. I've received E‑mails from people switching to WordPerfect because of this feature! Others are decrying it as they see it as a way of MS taking control of people's content and locking them out of their own documents! It's one of those things that is good in theory . . .

Word: File Search
WP: Incorporated into the Open 
Dialog Box

WP: 10

Microsoft has once again improved MSOffice's FIND facility, which is good news, as XP's was useless. For example, I copied the text from the Author Field of a PowerPoint file's Properties, then pasted it into a Search Dialog box, instructing the Search to Find all PowerPoint Files by said Author . . . Result? No files found??? I've tested Word 2003's Find, and it does seem better, but it's still not as powerful or as easy to use as WP's Find Facility.

WP on the other hand, has the most powerful indexing and Search facility imaginable. Not only can you setup custom searches, you can save them for instant access. For example, say you often search for a file typed by your colleague, you can simply setup a Search, and you can then use this saved Search the next time you want to search for a document your colleague typed; you don't have to set it up again. Using WP's Indexer, you can also make sure that your Searches are lighting fast, by enabling timed indexing of any Folder you want. Add to this the fact that the WP Search Facility is easy to use (and intuitive), and you can see why WP gets 10 points.

Word & WP: Properties

WP: 1

Word: 1

Both are excellent. Again, each program has options the other doesn't:

WP allows you to . . .
Extract  META information about a document and save it as a new file.
Print the Properties (although Word can do this from its Print Dialog Box)
Delete META Data (Word allows this via Tools » Options)
Save Properties as a New Document

Word, however, allows you to . . .
See Statistics about your document, such as the time you've worked on it
Create new Property Fields

WP: Signature

WP: 1

Word: 1

Both programs allow you to Digitally sign your document.

WP: Document » Compare
Word: Compare and Merge Documents (Tools Menu)

WP: 1

Word: 1

Word: Track Changes
WP: Document Review

WP: 1

Both are excellent, although Word users have to be very careful, as you MUST check the 'Warn' check box to ensure Word removes tracking information before sending files to clients etc, as a known issue in Word is that recipients can (embarrassingly) see your Tracked Changes even after you remove them (this is why Microsoft specifically added this option in WordXP).

WP: 1

Word: 1

Word: Default . . .
WP: Document Style

WP: 5

I really like the way Word has DEFAULT on some of its Dialog Boxes. However, and it's a big However, WP does provide a much more comprehensive, coordinated approach to setting defaults, & more can be set without having to create, delete, & rename the default Template.

WP: 1

Word & WP: Page Setup

Refer Format Menu

WP: Subdivide
Word: Section Breaks

WP: 5

WP allows you to split your page, e.g., halves, quarters, eighths, etc. Particularly useful if you want one page with different margins, boxes, columns, etc.

You can use Section Breaks in Word, but it's nowhere near as easy, flexible, or powerful as WP.

In addition, Word only allows you to insert Section Breaks horizontally—not vertically.

Word & WP: Print

Word: 1

Word & WP: Print Preview

WP: 5

Word: 1

WP only added this feature in version 9—and only to accommodate people switching from Word (and those who didn't realize that WP is in a constant state of WYSIWYG [What You See Is What You Get]). Here's what a former employee of Microsoft had to say about Word's WYSIWYG ability.

"I did support at Microsoft in the Word unit from v1.1a through Word97, about four months before the release of Office 2000. (That's a very long time in dog years.) I can tell you that the reason Word's WYSIWYG is sometimes a little shabby was basically performance, and the vagaries of the continuous four-way conversation between the printer driver, Windows GDI, the font rasterizer, and Word's layout engine. These four items are interdependent and the calculations are intense and performed basically at every edit (= every *character* entered or removed; this is why Normal View is still around). Sometimes third-party printer drivers lie about stuff to Word or the GDI, or Windows' rasterization of the font outline is faulty, causing imprecise WYSIWYG at certain magnifications or display resolutions. This is also assuming a quality font; sometimes the fonts themselves are buggy or have crappy kerning tables. In those days, the answer would have been, "Marketing be damned, this isn't desktop publishing, it's a power-user's document processor". The situation has changed fairly dramatically since then, in that machines are vastly more capable and can do the calculations without an unacceptable degradation of performance: perhaps it's time Development looked at Word's WYSIWYG again. Periodically, whole features of Word are gutted and rewritten, as had to be done to enable tables-within-tables for Word 2000 when the band-aids and fig-leaves had reached the end of usefulness.

Perhaps the WYSIWYG is next. One can only hope . . ."

Anyway, so there you have it. Word still isn't WYSIWYG, and that's why Word still has Print Preview, while in WP, Print Preview isn't needed (thanks to ingenious programming by the original designers of WP). However, if you do decide to use Print Preview in WP, you still have access to all your Toolbars & Property Bars without having to go to View/Toolbars.

The only good thing about Print Preview in Word is the ability to see all pages in your document, which is good for spotting blank pages after a Mail Merge.

WP: Publish to PDF

WP: 1

This is integrated into WP. You would have to either pay for Acrobat, buy a cheap PDF-producing program, or put up with a banner-advertisement (free) program in order to be able to publish Word documents to PDF.

This feature has been enhanced in WP11 to support Acrobat 5.0.

WP: 1

New Feature in WP11. For the legal eagles, here's the info. from WP's Help:

WordPerfect lets you publish documents to an Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval (EDGAR) system format. WordPerfect does not create all the documentation necessary for a complete electronic filing, but it alleviates many problems associated with the ASCII DOS.TXT option.
WordPerfect EDGAR features include

· 80 characters per line of text
· 132 characters per line in tables
· a restricted ASCII character set
· an export of footnotes as part of the ASCII document
· a special tagging for footnote numbering
· an End Of Document tag

Word & WP: Send To . . .

WP: 1

Word: 1

Both have options the other doesn't, e.g., you can send to a Compressed Folder or My Documents from WP, but you can send a document for Review from Word.

Word: Recent Documents

WP: 1

Word: 1

A great new addition to MSOffice 2000 was the History Folder, which shows the last 50 documents used. I always thought that something like this would be a great idea. However, you can also see at least 40 of your most recent Corel documents by using 'New Project'.

FILE MENU POINTS

WP: 49

Word: 21