WordPerfect X4 Goes Beyond Loyal

Law firms, universities and government agencies that standardized on WordPerfect during its heyday have maintained it. In return, Corel has continued to update WordPerfect as a full business suite that includes the Quattro Pro X 4 spreadsheet application; Presentations X4 slide-building application; and WordPerfect Mail, among several other add-ins. Corel also refers to WordPerfect X4 as a "PDF Office Suite," owing to the tight integration of PDF creation and management into its various elements.

WordPerfect X4

As advertised, WordPerfect X4 word processing software is nicely PDF-enabled and allows for PDF management including password-protecting documents in that format. It's also compatible with versions of Microsoft Word through Office 2003. The WordPerfect X4 ribbon is similar to those versions of Word, and documents can be written and saved in formats ranging from ASCII DOS text to xyWrite III Plus 4.0. It can also open ODF (Open Document Format) files, while saving them in a different format. Its use of macros, for items like document signatures, is simple to deploy) and it should make both longtime users of WordPerfect as well as those who migrate from Office, Google Docs or other applications feel at ease. Overall, WordPerfect X4 is comfortable to use, makes great use of PDF capability and compatibility with Microsoft Word, and gets the job done.

Quattro Pro X4

If you want to create complete bedlam in an office, mess with someone's macros. In Quattro Pro X4, WordPerfect clearly wants to keep the bedlam at bay: Macros are easy to create natively and macros created in Microsoft Office Excel—at least the simple ones we tested—worked fine when opened in Corel's application. Quattro Pro X4 is compatible with Excel .xlsx file formats, meaning Excel spreadsheets with Macros created in Microsoft Visual Basic work when opened, edited and saved. Corel has also provided additional rendering features for quick charts and graphs. Spreadsheets can be opened in "Microsoft Excel Mode" and "Lotus 1-2-3 Mode" in addition to Quattro Pro mode. In a head-to-head, Excel would likely eclipse Quattro Pro in functionality and ease of use by a fair margin; however, considering price, compatibility and legacy data, Quattro Pro acquits itself well.

WordPerfect Mail

There's not a lot to say about WordPerfect Mail, except that its mail, calendaring and contacts all work fine. It allows for "saved searches" in various mailboxes—a feature we liked—and is simple to configure.

WordPerfect Lightning

We like that Corel included WordPerfect Lightning in with this suite of productivity software. Designed as an online tool to enable access to data and information from anywhere, Lightning provides a start panel that allows for viewing documents, making notes and taking screen shots; a second console keeps track of notes, files and data that have been uploaded to the client for light access between devices. Other, third-party and free software can do largely the same thing (the free-and-for-fee application, Evernote, comes to mind.) But the inclusion of Lightning allows everybody in an enterprise to use the same toolbox. It's worth noting that other features, including Presentation X4 (which is compatible with PowerPoint), and Visual Intelligence SE (a "lite" version of Visual Intelligence Professional, which creates graphic presentations of data) all work as advertised. List price for WordPerfect Office X4 is $299 vs. $499.95 for Microsoft's Office Professional 2007 or $679.95 for Office Ultimate 2007 (although other versions go for much less.) All things considered, including compatibility, file types supported and its versatility, Corel prices it correctly.

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