WordPerfect Office Blog

WordPerfect in the Top 10 - One award I could live without

2009-11-02T15:10:00Z

ZDNet ran an article on the 10 biggest failures in IT history last Friday. I usually like to be part of top 10s, but maybe not this one. But, there was WordPerfect right at #8 on the list. Well, not so much WordPerfect, but Corel, for failing to topple Microsoft with this great technology.

I can't speak for decisions made 20 or even 10 years ago. But, I have always been competitive, so I like to think that there are always possibilities, and some may have been missed. But, I can not discount Microsoft's ability to stamp out comeptitors (allegedly) through bundling and other techniques. Just ask Netscape, or SUN and Java or maybe even ODF...

What I can speak to though, is the absolute focus on our key customers. We do not have multi-million dollar launch budgets to spread our message like Microsoft. But we have been successfully delivering huge value to our customers, that sees us holding many major customers against a powerful Microsoft tide. And, maybe, shame on the Corel of old for failing to win the market, but for the last twenty years we have pushed Microsoft to deliver greater features at increasingly lower prices - saving taxpayers, consumers and businesses millions of dollars and increasing the utility of office software. And, although we do not make billions of dollars, even a small percentage of a $12B market allows us to continue to deliver great software and service to our customers.

As part of the discriminating population that knows the value in WordPerfect, dear OfficeCommunity readers, thank you for your taste, your loyalty and belief in a better office suite.

Cheers,

Jay

Do any lawyers out there work on TOAs?

2009-10-08T01:23:00Z

Hi Folks,

Just polling community members as to whether anyone works on TOAs (either manual or using some sort of tool or WPO itself). Would love to dialog on how you do things.

Regards,

Jay

September eNewsletter part 1

2009-10-02T11:58:00Z

Hi folks,

Sometimes our marketing folks create content that doesn't get used. Below is an example of a recent Newsletter that will not get sent out due to a high volume of eMails already being sent to our user base (we just had a significant Digital Media product launch). The content is still very valid for users of this forum though, so I decided to paste it for your enjoyment.

Cheers,

Jay

The days are shorter, but the fun has just begun!
With the bathing suits packed away and the kids heading back to school, it's time to fire up the PC and start turning your favorite summer moments into special keepsakes for sharing. WordPerfect Office X4 gives you lots of ways to save your favorite memories. Check out the project ideas below for fresh inspiration, then get ready to create!

Creating a newsletter in WordPerfect
Telling the story of your summer adventures in newsletter form is a fun way to let friends and family know what you've been up to. With WordPerfect X4, it's easy to create a professional, print-ready layout for your words and pictures. You can even save the finished newsletter as a PDF for easy emailing, or as HTML to upload to a website if you're tech-savvy!

To create your newsletter from a template, simply open a new document by clicking File > New from project > Newsletter
If you want to get more adventurous and create your own layout, you can pick up a few tips here. Read the tutorial
Once you're finished, you can publish your newsletter as a PDF for easy printing or sharing over email! Read the tutorial

Now, get those memories down on paper before they fade away!

In praise of dependable technologies

2009-09-22T14:21:00Z

A really fascinating web preso recaping COBOL, was released today by eWeek. This programming language has been around for 50 years, has over $2T invested in it and still boasts BILLIONS of lines of new code per year. Amazing how important some of our older technologies are to us. I remember wondering why my dad would program in COBOL for the Federal Government 20 years ago versus some of the "hipper" languages at the time. But, a true testament to people who built the language, exteneded it and made sure it would still work with today's technologies.

Happy belated birthday COBOL!

Jay

Next version thoughts

2009-09-03T14:50:00Z

Hi Folks,

We continue to think about what people would like to see in the next version. So, I thought I would create a new area on our site to get your direct feedback (the area I created earlier for new feature requests is getting clogged by support type stuff). Under the Forums->WordPerfect-> path you will find a new forum called "Next version X4+ thoughts". We would love your input on what you would like changed or added in the next version of the Suite. So, please provide your feedback.

Regards,

Jay

What types of fish will you catch?

2009-08-11T21:25:00Z

I am just back from 3 weeks vacation and had time to reflect on many things. Some of them productivity...

My son and I went fishing during our holiday. I was tickled by how he fished. He changed lures frequently, threw his hooks far - sometimes onto land, and then changed to dangle them over the side of the boat 3 feet down so he could see them. In my opinion, his hook spent more time out of the water than in prime fish locations. I caught more fish than he did and talked to him once or twice about how I thought he should change his approach to get more and bigger fish. He didn't listen...

On later reflection, I think I may have done him a disservice. He was experimenting, trying new things and enjoying different aspects of the experience. While he may not have caught as many quality fish as I did, he tried new things while learning something in the process.

It is like this in our day-to-day worklife. We learn over time how to "fish" - whether that fishing is for new clients or finding a bug in an application. The key thing you have to know though, is how your approach aligns with market realities and your organization's focus. It may be OK to explore, experiment or seed, but when deadlines have to be met or quotas have to be filled you will not receive great appreciation or support for your efforts. You have to learn what types of fish you are looking for and when the best time to fish for them is. Similarly, if you have been "fishing" for a while in your organization you may think you know the best fishing holes - but times, industries, technologies and customers will continue to change.

So, to those of you just starting out - be experimental. Try out new approaches - but when things are important, make sure you understand your environment and, if you have questions, seek counsel from those who have done it before. For those of you at the other end of the spectrum - see what you can learn. Watch the new guys, offer them counsel but don't get preachy and don't forget that you can even learn from the new guy.

And as a first getting started step - think about your organization's approach and the fish they are looking for. Are you trying to land those types of fish?

Happy fishing.

PerfectScript Example 1 Part 1 - Retrieve filenames from a directory

2009-07-22T15:27:00Z

Welcome to the first of what I hope to be a series of PerfectScript macro discussions and examples. These examples have been derived from actual customer workflows, Corel in-house procedures and some useful stuff from the web. While they aren't tutorials as such, hopefully they can provide insight into some of the tasks that can be automated by PerfectScript and perhaps trigger ideas for your own workflows. The intended audience is not the true beginner, but someone who has at least some scripting knowledge and has used PerfectScript in the past. If you are a beginner interested in learning PerfectScript, check out the PerfectScript Utility help file (ps.chm) in your installation folder.

For the first example, I'm going to show how to automate a customer workflow which takes content from multiple WordPerfect documents and inserts it all into one master document. In this case, the documents are weekly status reports from employees. These status reports are stored in several directories based on specific projects and follow a common formatting theme. The macro will create one master document per project so that the manager can have all status updates in a single file. I'll break the full macro down into several posts so we can focus on each piece of code in a little more depth than one posting might allow.

The inital part of the macro will involve asking the user to point to the directory where a project's status reports are stored. The macro will then get the list of all .wpd files in the folder. In the final macro we will use the data stored in an array, but for this first example we'll print the list to the document window. To see the macro in action, simply copy the following code to WordPerfect and compile it. Open a new document and run the macro from there. When prompted, you'll need to point to a directory that has at least a few .wpd files.

//************************MACRO START**********************************************

//The first line launches a directory selection dialog. After user interaction, the result is returned to the macro in the variable vDir.

vDir = FileNameDialog(DirectoryDialog!;"Choose dialog to scan")+"\"

//The next line finds the first file in the chosen directory which matches the file type, in this case, .wpd. The next line removes the path from the output string, leaving only the filename and extension

vFilename=FileFind (vDir+"*.wpd"; Normal! ; 1)

vFilename=vFilename-vDir

vSearchInit=vFilename

/* The following section will repeat the search through the directory and concatenate all filenames into a single string, each filename separated by an @ character. When no more files that match the file type are found, macro execution will proceed to the next section of code

Repeat

vSearchInit=FileFind(;;1)

vSearchInit=vSearchInit-vDir

vFilename=vFilename+"@"+vSearchInit

Until(vSearchInit="")

/*The StrParstList command is used to take the concatenated string from above and store each filename value in an array. The macro then loops through the array and types each value to the document window. When the loop has run once for every array entry, the macro ends.

FileArray[]=StrParseList(vFilename;"@"; )

ForNext(i;1;FileArray[0];1)

Type(FileArray[i])

HardReturn()

If(i=Dimensions (FileArray[]; ElementCount!))

Return()

EndIf

EndFor

Quit

//***********************MACRO END***************************************************

So there you have it, we've successfully retrieved the names of all .wpd files from a folder. In the next post we'll use the data stored in FileArray[] to copy content from each file and paste it into the master document. That's all for now!

Jason Hoskins

Senior Quality Assurance Specialist

WordPerfect Office

Call for IT Managers from Burton Group

2009-06-26T18:36:00Z

Hi Folks,

Burton Group, an independent analyst house, is creating a review of Office Productivity alternatives. If you are responsible for purchasing Office Productivity software for your company and want to share some of your thoughts, please contact Guy. Here is his blog post on this subject where you can find out more on the suites he is interested in learning about and the time commitment required:

http://ccsblog.burtongroup.com/collaboration_and_content/2009/06/looking-for-people-to-interview-on-productivity-suites.html

Cheers,

Jay

Looking for macro users or wannabees

2009-06-24T02:51:00Z

Hi Folks,

We have been trying to make things easier for people to learn and work with WordPerfect Office. One of the areas we are working on is macros - and we are revamping the documentation to try to make it easier for people to understand and work with WordPerfect to make their repetitive tasks easier.

We are looking for some volunteers (either those interested in learning about macros or those already familiar who may have opinions on macros) to check out our latest documentation revisions. We'd love to have your feedback on what works for you and what you may suggest to make the documents better.

If you are interested drop me a private note or reply in this thread.

Cheers,

Jay

Wave goodbye to eMail? Not yet...

2009-05-31T20:10:00Z

Tired of how eMail currently works? Wish you could find something to replace the current system?

There is a very interesting demonstration of a new preview technology out of Google - named Google Wave - that came out of the Google I/O Conference. The developer team's intent was to step back and try to invent how people would eMail today without any legacy baggage of how things have been done historically. Here is a picture of the proposed interface:

What is interesting is how conversations are grouped into threads or waves - and depending on your particular context you can work in several modes (either like traditional eMail or more like IM if someone is in the wave at that same particular moment); and inviting others means they can quickly learn what the thread is about (and can even step through the conversation piece by piece with a nifty playback feature). And if you extend this further you can imagine how it could affect eMail, collaborative documents, and just general communication/organization of people. Google also has great plans for rolling this out. Basically making it available for Developers to embed in their applications and websites (courting developers is a play right out of Microsoft's playbook) and making it Open Source. And they will allow Enterprises to run it behind their own firewall removing security concerns.

While, as a techie, I think this is pretty cool and I can see lots of benefits and other applications, a few things concern me at this stage:

1) Vapourware is just always cool. This was a very early prototype - The promise is always less than can be delivered (because it is always easier to hand-wave over tough things to code). And promising so much across the board in terms of functionality may mean specific areas may not get the depth of coverage required for adoption

2) I hope customers do not think that this is real (which sometimes happens when they see something working). Truth be told, this would so help release Microsoft's lock on the Enterprise (because Outlook is a huge tool for collaboration - a new way of thinking is so desparately overdue too) - its removal would make it easier for competitive suites to be adopted. But, Enterprises can not bank on this being available this year. Maybe for some consumers we will see a demo, or be invited into a trial but this product as demonstrated is years away.

If we put all of that aside though - having someone step back and reconsider a new way to do something is always refreshing, even if Microsoft is still sleeping soundly tonight. Check it out at http://wave.google.com/

For me, communications needs to improve in a few dimensions in addition to this though:

Unification - make all my internet accounts one. Integrate my eMail, Voice Mail, Cellular, Blackberry, etc messages into one favored device based on my context, that I can control easily
Reuse - I am not the smartest person in the world. Sometimes I am not even the smartest in my office (when I am alone). A lot of people have already solved/pondered/debated what I am currently struggling with. Get me that content when I need it.
Simplification - I hate being cc'd on threads for my information. I can't imagine the crush of a bunch of waves in future. The best system would know what waves were important to me and could respond on my behalf if not relevant (and/or deliver me some info to tease me on the wave by a method I choose)

I have about 5 more points on how to improve communication. But, one of the most important pieces to know how to communicate well is to know when to "shut up". So, that's what I will do now. My message on "check out Google's new proposed tool" was the main thing I wanted to convey today anyway.

Cheers

Jay

Learn how to make WPO work better for you - at our free webinar

2009-05-27T17:49:00Z

WordPerfect Office Webinar May 28, 1-2 PM EDT.

Learn valuable time-saving techniques and tips for doing more with WordPerfect Office X4. Live demo includes:

Creating your own shortcuts
Customizing the Toolbar
Designing your own templates
and more...

Title: WordPerfect Office X4 Tips & Tricks
Date: Thursday, May 28, 2009
Time: 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. EDT

Space is limited.
Reserve your Webinar seat now at https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/295065107

Save time by automating with macros

2009-04-27T02:30:00Z

Hi Folks,

A great feature of WordPerfect is the ability to automate what actually gets created, so that you can save time by using WordPerfect to complete what would normally be repetitive tasks. Think of how many times you may create a signature at the bottom of a letter, grab data from some other place (like a database), or change dates in a document. Larger organizations utliize macros a great deal. But, you can too. Check out the basic tutorial below to get started with your own documents:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD7rSqfqkU8

As you become more proficient you can start using other tools like variables (for more advanced users). http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=Corel2/Products/Content&pid=1047022958453&cid=1047024297526&trkid=wpe0205tip1 But, once you start playing with macros it won't be a huge leap for you.

If you are into macros let me know about it and I can post more tips on this interesting area.

Regards,

Jay

Twitter for lawyers (and others)

2009-04-23T12:59:00Z

Social media continues to get people's attention - "How do we leverage FaceBook?", "Should we post customer reviews?", "What is Twitter?" are all things being discussed around board tables across many organizations. This site is one aspect of our approach into social media. And, I must say, there has been a lot of good feedback for us. So, I am always interested in seeing how other social approaches can help us get the word out on WPO (because my marketing budgets are a bit lower than Microsoft's unfortunately).

As part of collecting more detail, a buddy at Corel forwarded me the article below - "Social Media for Lawyers". It was a pretty balanced piece with some good links to other articles written especially for lawyers. But, I believe the concepts are applicable to other verticals.

I think things like Communities add a lot of value. But, I have a harder time understanding the value of Twitter. I have been a member for a while and while I admit that it was good when I was at a tradeshow to follow people's thoughts/opinions on presentations in real-time (and I did start to "follow" one analyst who had some great thoughts) I haven't been very active with it (because I didn't see the return for my efforts). But maybe I am just missing the critical mass around a specific topic to make me return more frequently.

Regardless, here is the article for you to check out. It is probably a 10 minute read and will take you from the basics of Twitter to how you can use it to your advantage (if you visit some of the links). I hope you enjoy it. And don't be afraid to just tell me I don't get it (but please tell me why, so I can learn).

http://thelegalintelligencer.typepad.com/tli/2009/03/to-friend-or-not-to-friend-social-media-for-lawyers-part-4-twitter-for-lawyers.html

Cheers,

Jay

Copy to Lightning Note in FireFox

2009-03-30T18:12:00Z

--- July 2009 update ----

We have this live at the Mozilla site for Firefox https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10984 - so please check it out. And also rate it. Once we get it approved it goes into a production ready state. Lightning v1.0 users and above can install this to work with the most current versions of FireFox.

Regards,

Jay

---------------------

--- Update to this ----

We have not been able use the Mozilla site to publish this to you (there seems to be an issue if you have a EULA or disclaimer that causes corruption in the download path). So, in the interest of getting something to you we just posted it to our site at: http://officecommunity.com/media/p/1891.aspx

If it works for you and you like it please submit your approval to the Mozilla site below so we can get this approved and others can download the add-on from Mozilla with our disclaimer.

cheers,

Jay

--------------

Old note --

There were lots of questions and comments on using Lightning with the newest version of FireFox. We have a new add-on at FireFox that should allow you to copy to Notes in FireFox at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10984

We are still in the Sandbox, but the more people use and comment on the add-on the quicker we can finalize it and get it self updating. So, please do give it a shot.

Regards,

Jay

PS - You may have to uninstall your previous plug-in for this and I (or a WPO architect) will post how to do this in the comments section if required

New - free - learning opportunities

2009-03-21T12:55:00Z

Ways to learn more. They are freeeeeeeeee.

Spring Clean with WordPerfect Office

Find out ways to use WordPerfect Office to help you get organized and ready for spring.

- Creating labels and smart templates in WordPerfect

- Working on a tight budget in Quattro Pro

- Design a landscaping plan with Presentations

Title:
Spring Clean with WordPerfect Office
Date:
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Time:
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM EDT
Space is limited.

Reserve your Webinar seat now at:

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/270541522

Corel WordPerfect Office X4 - tips and tricks

Learn some valuable time saving techniques and tips for doing more with WordPerfect Office X4.

Live Demo of:

• Creating your own shortcuts

• Customizing the toolbar

• Design your own templates

• and more...

Title:
Corel WordPerfect Office X4 - tips and tricks
Date:
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Time:
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM EDT
Space is limited.

Reserve your Webinar seat now at:

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/295065107