Why I Have No Intention of Leaving WPWin
I balked when they asked me to entitle this article "Why I Love Word Perfect". First of all, love is an emotion I reserve for my wife, my children, and my parents. Secondly, because irritating problems arise with any Windows-based software, a slash and the word "Hate" would have to appear in such a title. Nevertheless, because the WPWin positives far out weigh the Windows negatives, I feel compelled to speak out about the recent spate of WordPerfect Bashing.
Nearly every legal publication I pick up these days contains at least one article announcing the impending demise of WordPerfect. The frenzy among these prophets of doom has much in common with scenes in old movies depicting the Great Crash of the 1930's (or is it the Keystone Kops?). The apparent cause of this outbreak of Me- Too-ism was Novell's divestiture of part of its WordPerfect holdings. (Very few of these hysterical commentaries point out that because Novell retained a very valuable portion of the WordPerfect package, for which it paid, yes, a billion dollars, maybe it didn't take such a big bath after all.)
As I recall, when the Novell-WordPerfect marriage was announced in May 1994, many of these same pundits declared -- much more calmly -- that it was a bad match. And, you know what -- they were right! Novell has proven that it cannot handle face- to-face interaction with the general public. In other words, it does not know how to market and it does not understand that people expect friendly support as a part of the product they purchase. In contrast, Corel, the new owner of what most of us use -- WordPerfect word processing, supposedly knows how to market and enjoys an excellent reputation for support among the users of its existing products.
I, for one, will stay with WordPerfect for the following reasons:
Reason #1: Inertia.
I have willingly invested (and have received a generous return on) a great amount of time to familiarize myself, my partner, and my staff with the "look and feel" of WordPerfect, its idiosyncrasies, and its numerous NiftyFeatures. We are not anywhere near done with that process. We have not even upgraded to the next version of WordPerfect because we have not yet squeezed all the juice out of the orange we have. Why then would I throw all of this on the scrap heap and put myself, my partner, and my staff through another agonizing learning curve just because some consultant writing in a legal publication declares that WordPerfect's sky is falling?
Reason #2: Reveal Codes.
WordPerfect has it; MicroSoft Word does not. If you don't know what Reveal Codes are and how they are used, please disqualify yourself from any further commentary on the relative merits and futures of these two products. Designing a modern, Windows-based word processor without a Reveal Codes feature is tantamount to building a jet plane without an instrument panel in the cockpit.
Reason #3: Macros.
"One of the biggest obstacles to making the switch to Word for Windows in some [?] law offices is the necessity of converting lots of WordPerfect macros." David P. Vandagriff, J.D., page 90, Law Office Computing, June/July 1996. I'll say! We are talking megahours if you are one of those "some law offices". You should have macros to do every repetitive task in your office -- from looking up a phone number to generating labels, cards, and filing system entries for each new matter. If you don't, then you should not be contemplating your navel about Word v. WordPerfect. Instead, you should be contemplating the navel of your WordPerfect orange and figuring out how to tap this most rich source of juice.
Reason #4: Name Recognition.
"WordPerfect" has to be the greatest name ever concocted for a piece of software or it finishes a close second behind Lotus 1-2-3. If you believe that people chose WordPerfect over AmiPro after an exhaustive comparison of the two products, then you have probably have deluded yourself into believing that you bought your Reeboks because of their superior design features and favorable pricing. (You probably also think that your '57 Chevy was actually a better car than my '58 Studebaker.)
WordPerfect absolutely dominates the legal market. I know one Judge who uses MicroSoft Word; I know no lawyer whose office uses MicroSoft Word. And, despite recent hysteria, I see nothing to reverse the trend. Fortunately, most lawyers who subscribe to legal publications haven't ever paid much attention to the articles about computers. Unfortunately, most of the lawyers who subscribe to this magazine aren't paying attention to this article either. Fortunately, those lawyers will ask people like you and me our opinion when it comes to computers. Unfortunately, you may have been panicked by the articles about WordPerfect's demise that you have read elsewhere and are thinking about leaving the family. Fortunately, I have gotten to you in time -- I hope.
Reason #5: Compatibility.
We have come a long way since the days when I could send you a document on disk only if you had the same word processing software as my office. But, while I can "convert" a MicroSoft Word document into WordPerfect, it ain't perfect. I still prefer to exchange information with offices that have exactly what I have -- WPWin. Consequently, for the near future (and, I suspect, for the distant future), given the omnipresence of WordPerfect in our profession, I am more likely to be an attractive co-counsel for another law office if I, too, have WordPerfect.
Reason #6: Here a Quick. There a Quick. Everywhere a QuickQuick.
Many of WordPerfect's NiftyFeatures have names like QuickList, QuickCorrect, and QuickMenus. If you have WPWin and do not use these "QuickQuicks", then you have an awful a lot of juice remaining to be squeezed out of your orange. I would not leave WordPerfect for another unless I was absolutely certain that my new best friend could do all of these QuickQuicks. For one, I seriously doubt that MicroSoft Word has the equivalent of WordPerfect's powerful QuickFinder (which is so valuable that Novell hung on to it and is licensing its use by Corel in WordPerfect).
The same holds true for other non-Quick features such as customizable keyboards, templates, and styles. I know that MicroSoft Word has many of these same kinds of features. But, are all of them as good? Are any of them better?
Reason #7: Actual Experience.
Whenever I read those declarations of WordPerfect's imminent disappearance from the word processing landscape, I wonder whether the people writing them have actually sat down and used the product day in and day out as I do. Their dire reports never rely upon any product comparisons demonstrating glaring deficiencies in WordPerfect. Instead, these doomsayers seem merely to concede the monolithic inevitability of mighty MicroSoft and declare that Word will take over the world.
But, isn't the issue who has the better product? I have yet to read any comparison anywhere that concludes that MicroSoft Word is clearly superior to WordPerfect (or any other word processor) in those categories which mean the most to those of us who use these things everyday: functionality, friendliness, reliability, and speed. (In fact, the comparisons often favor WordPerfect.) None of these reviews even concludes that one company's support lags far behind another's -- despite Novell's dismal reputation in this area. Most comparisons I have read can be fairly characterized as Cadillac/Mercedes arguments: take your pick; they're both loaded with features; it's hard to go wrong. (If you are a Word devotee and you think it has a knock-your-socks-off feature that WordPerfect can't match, let me know. Wake me up. Maybe I am living in a dream world -- but I doubt it.)
Reason #8: WordPerfect has Magazines.
Spin-offs of WordPerfect, now wholly independent, publish WordPerfect for DOS and WordPerfect for Windows Magazines. I subscribe to the latter and look forward to its monthly arrival with as much anticipation as my weekly Sports Illustrated. So vast is WordPerfect's influence in the legal profession that it has spawned other publications, to which I also subscribe, called The Perfect Lawyer, Inside WordPerfect for Windows, and WordPerfect for the Law Office. MicroSoft Word has no such following and no similar source of "little" tips. [Update: everybody's gone onto the InterNet for this type of thing; so this point may no longer be relevant.]
Reason #9: The MicroSoft hegemony.
The mere mention of the name Bill Gates does not evoke in me the deep-seated antipathy which so many people seem to experience whenever they encounter any reference to the genius who has masterminded MicroSoft's success. First of all, I don't know the man. Secondly, if you read his book, he at least gives the impression of a well-rounded and kind-spirited young businessman. [Update: then, again, there's those e-mails...]
Nevertheless, I do support the Resistance that has developed in response to MicroSoft's unrelenting, monolithic advance. It concerns me that MicroSoft has been exhibiting the corporate arrogance, which seems to infect the nouveaux riches of American capitalism. (Exhibits A and B: Nike and Reebok.) In addition, even though one can travel on MicroSoft's highway (Windows) with a fair degree of comfort, it still bothers me that I am pretty much forced by circumstances to use it for every type of computer travel I might undertake. Consequently, I will do my small part in the Resistance to make sure that the day will never come when the only place where I can buy a car or truck or moped (i.e. a word processor, a spreadsheet, a game, an InterNet browser, a mouse pad) is at MicroSoft's dealership. That is why, so long as I can get a darn good vehicle, such as WordPerfect, at some place other than MicroSoft, then I am going to shop there.
[No, late night viewers, there won' be a Reason #10.]
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So, fellow WordPerfect users (all many millions of us!), let's sit back, take a deep breath, and relax. Give Corel a chance to work through its transition period and, instead of spending the next few months fretting over whether WordPerfect will disappear, use that time to learn one or two new WPWin features, which you still haven't mastered. Because, unless you and I bail out for no good reason and create a Depression-like run on the bank that causes new users entering the word processing market to panic, WordPerfect will be around for a long time.
Terry W. Light, J.D. © 1999 All Rights Reserved
[Terry W. Light is a 1974 graduate of the Harvard Law School, who practices personal injury law in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.]
Published November 1, 1998 in the Lawyers PC.
tlight@brann-light.com
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