WordPerfect to support ODF and Open XML

Gosh, I love WordPerfect. If everybody else didn't demand MS Word's format when collaborating with them, I'd certainly use WordPerfect over Word any day.

I think WordPerfect is still the standard application used in many legal offices, so that's probably the biggest install base, but IANAL. :-)

I agree with Steve & Ian. I started using WordPerfect in 1990 (ver 5.0 & MSDOS 4.0). I've found it's formatting features & other functions far superior to MS Word. I only know a handful of lawyers and they all use WordPerfect. Corel's WP will always be the first choice for, and recommendation from, me.

As others have noted WordPerfect continued to be quite common amongst lawyers much later than with other groups. However, I think even lawyers now use Word much more often than WordPerfect. I don't know any student at my law school who uses it either so it doesn't look good for the future.

On the other hand, if Word, WordPerfect and OpenOffice all support OpenDocument and/or OpenXML, is there anything that will force users to continue to use Word as opposed to increasing the use of WordPerfect and OpenOffice? Informed thoughts would be appreciated.

I was a die-hard WordPerfect user in the 1990s, from its MSDOS roots, through its WYSIWYG evolution, even into its first couple of iterations into a real Windows application. I remained loyal to WordPerfect when I entered college in 1994 -- but as collaborations with other students and faculty became increasingly important, the lack of document inter-portability that existed at the time became a serious obstacle. Most others were adopting msWord -- which I hated at first, but which I've grown to accept, now at version 2003.

What I dislike about Word is that it tries to do too much that it shouldn't (e.g., e-mail, word art, etc.), and fails to do some of the things it should (e.g., better layout and design, better handling of title pages and header/footers, etc.). I prefer purpose-specific tools that do their jobs well, and over the years I've accumulated an arsenal of hard-hitters... To name some favorites: Photoshop, Corel Painter, CorelDRAW, Excel, PowerPoint and Adobe InDesign (formerly Aldus Pagemaker) -- all of which I use for personal and professional projects, alike. But there's been this big void with regard to choosing a word processor. Presently, for word processing I use msWord, but I usually publish to PDF.

One of the most important things that forces me to use msWord at this time is EndNote for cite-as-you-write inclusion of citations from my ever-growing reference library. If EndNote were compatible with OpenOffice or Corel WordPerfect, I probably would make the switch today. Although, to be fair, I need to evaluate the new msWord 2007, also.

I've used WordPerfect since the mid 90's during grad school. Once you are used to it, it becomes difficult to switch to something like MS Word. In fact, when our church needed flyers for an event, I used WordPerfect. When I want to make a poster, I use it. When I want to convert a document to PDF format, I use it. It seems like it does everything I need. Yes, things are changing, but I will keep using it as long as possible ... just because.