Word vs. WordPerfect: summary

[geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA]

 Last week, I asked the folks on the techwr-l (technical
 writing) and copyediting-l (editing) internet discussion
 lists for their opinions on the pros and cons of Word vs.
 WordPerfect to provide additional input for my employer's
 upcoming choice of a new wordprocessor. I've summarized
 this information here, and kept a copy of the full text of
 all messages that came directly to me (rather than in
 digests). This is available on request (unsummarized) if
 you send a message directly to me: if not, I probably won't
 see your request and thus can't act on it. Please be
 patient... I expect to be inundated with requests.

 In summary, both packages were universally acknowledged as
 powerful, feature-laden word processors. I've appended my
 list of the main problems that have been reported with both
 packages; my understanding is that the new version of
 WordPerfect (8.0) has achieved parity with Word in terms of
 features and performance. Word seems considerably buggier
 than WordPerfect, though this depends strongly on the
 version number, varied among individual reports, and may be
 a statistical artefact (more Word users responded to my
 question).

 I regret being unable to respond personally to everyone who
 took the time to write to me, which is my usual practice; I
 simply got too many responses and I was off sick for a few
 days, so I'm well behind on my current projects. Thanks to
 the following individuals who responded directly to me (and
 to any who responded "on digest" and whose messages I
 haven't yet seen): Smokey Lynne L Bare, Bill Blinn, Martha
 Breil, Jill Burgchardt, Christopher Carr, Don Dale, Win
 Day, Mary Durlak, Steve Evanina, Christine Fedruk, Robert
 Goodman, Carolyn Haley, Nancy Holland, Greg Ioannou, Chris
 Knight, Cassie LaBelle, Sharyn Mathews, Nancy McDonald,
 "mizwiz", Bill Peschel, John Renish, Sarah Schlosser, Terry
 Smith, Elena Westbrook, and Teresa Wittel.

 Common problems with Microsoft Word
 **********************************
 - Word is the most commonly used tool by professional
 writers, but also attracts the most negative comments; in
 particular, it often takes two or more "service releases"
 to fix the bugs introduced with each new release. Word97 is
 particularly rich in problems and the general advice is to
 avoid it; Word 7.0 is relatively stable.
 - Performance and reliability are highly variable: some
 users report no problems, while others report many
 problems. There is no obvious common factor that identifies
 which people will have problems and which won't.
 There are occasional intractable problems with tabs,
 indents and justification (especially when you try to
 combine them).
 - Unreliable autonumbering feature (i.e., numbering items
 in lists). One user reported that this problem develops
 over time; initially, it occurrs erratically and
 subsequently becomes a persistent problem that nobody can
 solve.
 - The autocorrect feature is occasionally unpredictable.
 Graphics and data exchange with Corel and Quattro is likely
 to work less well than with the new WordPerfect integrated
 suite.
 - Graphics are difficult to work with, and often behave
 unpredictably. With many graphics in a file, the software
 tends to crash or corrupt files. Word also works very
 poorly with large files; it is unstable, crashes a lot,
 corrupts files, paginates the file incorrectly, etc.
 - Layout is less flexible than with WordPerfect (e.g.,
 there are more frequent problems with grpahics, headers and
 footers).
 - The table feature harder to use than in WordPerfect, and
 is much less flexible (e.g., it can be difficult to join
 cells in a table).
 - No support for SGML.
 - WordBasic "macro viruses" require upgrades to our
 antivirus software; because "everybody hates Microsoft",
 these viruses are a growing problem, and a particularly
 difficult one to resolve unless you disable some of the
 most powerful features of the software's macro language.
 - The file format regularly changes between versions, which
 often make it difficult (or impossible) to import files
 saved by previous versions of the software.
 - Word lacks WordPerfect's "reveal codes" feature, which is
 a lifesaver in solving formatting problems when they
 arise... which is a common occurrence with Word.
 - The page numbering feature can be confusing and
 unpredictable (and has a steep learning curve, as is the
 case for some other features).
 - No easy way to convert AmiPro documents to Word format,
 not even by cut and paste.
 - The "master doc" feature (for multi-chapter books) is
 unreliable and crash-prone, and Microsoft has known about
 (and ignored) the problem for several full releases of the
 software; WordPerfect's version works well.
 - It's much easier to create a TOC (table of contents) in
 AmiPro.
 - Templates in Word behave very differently from the way
 they work in AmiPro.
 - Word is notorious as a memory hog; although it requires
 16 Meg to be productive, it prefers 32 Meg (and some people
 claim it only works well with 64 Meg and Windows NT).
 - Poor documentation.

 Common problems with WordPerfect
 ********************************
 Note: As there are fewer WordPerfect users, there may be
 some bias in these results because of the disparity in
 numbers.
 - WordPerfect is generally not as versatile (powerful?) or
 as easy to use as Word.
 - The software is less commonly used by freelancers and
 technical writers, so file exchange is more likely to be
 more problematic. Similarly, there may be fewer resources
 for solving obscure problems.
 - Some say it crashes more often than Word, others say less
 often. Before version 8 (at least), there were many
 problems that required frequent service releases. Version 8
 seems much improved, but is still relatively new on the
 market and there are rumors of bugs. WordPerfect 7 Release
 7.0.2.19 is apparently very stable, and much more so than
 any version of Word.
 - File exchange problems can occur if you're moving between
 OS's (e.g., Mac to PC). This is unlikely to be a problem
 for us.
 - WordPerfect's macro language is less powerful than
 Word's; however, there are no common macro viruses for
 WordPerfect yet.
 - WordPerfect is not as powerful as Word for developing
 online help. (Not a problem for FERIC, since we have a
 separate copy of Word specifically for that purpose.)
 - Style sheets and the integrated outliner are less
 powerful than in Word.
 - The automatic hyphenation feature is inconsistent.
 - The software may be limited to 9 open windows (on one
 user's system, a 486 with 8 Meg); this may be a function of
 memory management rather than the software, though.

 Common problems with both packages
 *********************************
 - Graphics occasionally don't stay where you put them.
 - Exchanging files between the two packages often leads to
 problems with Greek characters and equations.
 - Both programs are very variable in their behavior: on
 some systems, they work well, on others they cause endless
 problems. No general causes were identified or solutions
 proposed.
 - Opinions of technical support varied, though in general,
 both packages get good reviews.
 - There's something of a trend, in that people who started
 with one wordprocessor continue to like it better than the
 other, though there are definitely people who learned to
 hate one program and looked upon the other program as their
 saviour!

 Other
 *****
 - WordPro is considered a good update of AmiPro and might
 be a good solution for us, since it minimizes retraining
 expenses.
 - At least two respondents reported that they missed
 AmiPro/WordPro after making an "upgrade" to Word or
 WordPerfect.
 - Why are we not considering a system based on a proper
 desktop publishing program, such as PageMaker, Quark,
 Frame, or Ventura?

 --Geoff Hart     @8^{)}     geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
 Disclaimer: Speaking for myself, not FERIC.

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