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 Microsoft Office is the 800-pound gorilla of business suites, but that doesn't mean it's the only suite worth considering. Corel's WordPerfect Office 2000 is a heavyweight in its own right, and it does some fancy tricks - including ones you won't even get from Microsoft Office 2000.WordPerfect Office 2000 Professional forgoes the kitchen-sink approach to issuing new suite editions. In other words, Corel hasn't just thrown in more programs to create more bloatware. Instead the company has concentrated on Web-centric additions, most notably integrating Trellix, an industrial-strength Web designer that simplifies the creation of complex multipage sites. Not that you have to use Trellix: All the applications in WordPerfect Office 2000 - a word processor, Quattro Pro, Presentations, Paradox, and a PIM - can save pages directly to HTML format. There are still some traces of WordPerfect Office 2000's heritage - it was, after all, assembled from programs created by different companies. But the overall interface now has a common look and feel. And in addition to its own macros and script language, the suite now supports Visual Basic for creating custom applications. In a concession to Microsoft's market share, the suite opens files created with Microsoft Office and saves them in their original file format. But once you've tried WordPerfect Office 2000, you'll feel sorry for coworkers who are still using Microsoft Office. The Corel WordPerfect Office 2000 Professional is rated 4 stars out of 5. It is described as a complete and powerful suite of business productivity applications. Its pros were highly customizable; has new Web friendliness while its cons were adds nothing over Microsoft. |