There was a time when WordPerfect was the dominant word processor, before that other word processor came along. With the latest release of WordPerfect Office, WordPerfect may be inching a little closer to regaining its former crown.

One of the main things that kept many individuals and businesses from investing in WordPerfect Office was its lack of an integrated email client. Microsoft Office's inclusion of Microsoft Outlook (a dubious blessing, at best) makes it appear to be a more perfect business solution. With X3, WordPerfect Office finally includes its own mail client, WordPerfect Mail, although it isn't yet integrated into the rest of the suite. In addition to a lack of massive security holes, WordPerfect Mail has an impressive search feature that makes it easy to find a specific piece of mail, or locate and organize a group of mail by sender or recipient. WordPerfect Mail also includes support for managing RSS feeds, as well as a customizable spam filter.

WordPerfect is as easy to use as ever, despite the addition of new features. It can now import PDF files as well as create them, although the import feature needs a little work. Page formatting and graphics placement don't always survive the import process intact. A new Yahoo! toolbar lets you perform web searches from within WordPerfect. The program can now also strip metadata from documents, which can prevent you from including embarrassing or confidential comments or other information when you distribute documents. You still have your choice of user interface (WordPerfect 5.1, WordPerfect Legal, Microsoft Word, or X3); the Reveal Codes feature is also still intact.

Quattro Pro and Presentations lack some of the more advanced features of Excel and PowerPoint, but they are easy to use, and will easily meet the needs of most individuals.

The package includes 900 fonts, more than 9,500 clip art images, more than 175 photos, a collection of more than 75 templates, and some third-party training videos.


Pro: All of the bundled programs are full-featured and easy to use. Now includes an email client. WordPerfect can import PDF files as well as create them. More intuitive interface than Microsoft Office, with less bloat and better security.
Con: Mail client isn't yet integrated into the rest of the suite. PDF import feature tends to stumble with page formatting and pagination.