In an upcoming version of WordPerfect due in 2007, Corel announced this week, users will have the options of reading and writing in both Microsoft Office Open XML format (introduced in Office 2007) and OpenDocument Format. Will WordPerfect become the ODF word processor of record? Corel’s answer was surprising.
I did not realize corel was still around! Amazing!
Excellent answer.
Nope, it’ll still be used to create and edit WordPerfect documents among the few industries still using WP. The features they like, like reveal codes, seem very hard or impossible to implement in ODF. Otherwise it would have been done already 😉
The stubborn WP users at my organization are goign to stick to WP8 unless Corel sells an edition with just the word processor andor has non-profit prices.
Yep, WP is used HEAVILY in the legal services industry.
Edited 2006-12-04 00:21
Well, when you see how long it takes the legal industry to update its _words_, you don’t even want to ask how long it takes to update a word processor.
It’s not really that, it’s simply a lot of people who do the word processing in the legal industry have WP setup for their work, converting short forms to full forms, etc. My Aunt actually does this, and it is *amazing* the speed at which she can type, with great accuracy, using the short form – which gets translated by WP. She still uses the old dos version, no less.
One of these days I’m going to have to have her teach me, if you saw her type, you’d want to learn too. Just hazarding a guess, I’d estimate 150+ WPM. It’s this kind of entrenched typing-style that won’t disappear any time soon, and with all the time these people have spent setting up WP exactly how they want, they aren’t likely to change any time soon. I can’t blame them. WP for DOS was awesome.
So Office 2007 will use an XML based open format, but does anyone know if it will be able to import/export ODF documents? Because if it can’t and organizations start to use ODF as it seems it might happen, then MS Office won’t be an alternative anymore (people can’t pay for a product that won’t allow them to read some official documents).
But then if it does support ODF, why did they create another XML open standard to be their default format? They could have helped to improve OASIS instead.
//So Office 2007 will use an XML based open format, but does anyone know if it will be able to import/export ODF documents? Because if it can’t and organizations start to use ODF as it seems it might happen, then MS Office won’t be an alternative anymore (people can’t pay for a product that won’t allow them to read some official documents). //
Office 2007 does not support ODF out-of-the-box. Microsoft have a vested interest in trying to make ODF appear inferior to the format that Microsoft control (OOXML).
There are, however, at least two soon-to-be-released plugins for ODF for Office 2007.
One plugin is sponsored by Microsoft, and it is essentially a converter or translator between OOXML and ODF. Using this plugin is extremely awkward, it is software that requires OOXML in the first place, and the way that it is implemented means that ODF cannot be set as the default format. “Save as ODF” is not an option either, one must use a type of “File->export” in order to use this plugin. It currently does a very poor job of conversion … AFAIK files do not survive the “round trip”, you cannot save a document as ODF, re-load it later and save it back as OOXML and get the same document as you started with.
Another plugin is sponsored by the OpenDocument alliance. This plugin converts directly between Office 2007 internal memory structure and the ODF file, one is able to do a “File->Save As” ODF format, and ODF can be set as the default document format. Files do survive the round trip. Using this plugin, ODF does not seem at all as a second-class format. You can assume Microsoft will try to bad-mouth this plugin, or possibly try to sabotage it in some way. Perhaps Microsoft defender will identify it it as malware after an update one day.
Edited 2006-12-04 02:16
That complete “interview” reads like a poorly disguised ad. How could this gets passed the editors?
It is interesting that corel would choose to badmouth ODF by not making it its default format, precisely now that it actually became an ISO standard.
Most governments take ISO standards very seriously.
WordPerfect uses SGML (standard or standardised general markup language) for it’s file format. SGML is an ISO standard (ISO 8879:1986). How are they ignoring ISO standards again?
XML is based on SGML. ODF is based on XML, and has just now become ISO standard. Now Corel is offering it as a secondary file format in WordPerfect. How are they ignoring ISO standards again?
Who cares if WP becomes the “ODF word processor of record,” whatever the hell that actually means? Corel’s suite is overpriced and available for Windows only. Ain’t much “open” about that.
It matters because of its an open format supported across platforms.
Whether Corel choose to release a version of their program to support an alternative operating system to windows is their choice.
The open format gives people the choice to use the best package available to them. I suspect though for companies looking to avoid vendor lock-in, a better solution may be a cross platform application.
They are just trying to sell more of wordperfect. Nothing really interesting to me…
I might be wrong but from what I’ve read a senior Corel developer was one of the original four authors of the OpenDocument specification. Who knows what’s going on inside Corel — they have a bit of a history of failed ventures so they’re probably a bit more cautious than they used to be.
Just as ODF will be one choice among many Corel’s WordpPerfect has become one choice among many. For all of the efforts made by Microsoft, ODF is becoming a ubiquitous format option. Even Office will have an available plugin (or two, or three…) to allow it to use ODF. Corel is not terribly unique in this respect.
What Corel is doing is reflected even better on the second page of the article. Corel offers various choices in user interfaces, and MS has made it quite simple for them to implement the “ribbon” should they so desire. Corel is the only vendor that can guarantee perfect compatibility with WordPerfect formats. Corel now offers ODF and OOXML. They are trying to be everything to everyone, and in some ways this might help them be very successful as an alternative to MS Office.
Corel is truly doing everything they think is feasible to win customers over one person at a time if necessary. Personally, until StarOffice/OOo gets a new charting module (which also seems to be dependant on a new graphics module) I’m stuck using/recommending something else to create visual representations of numbers for those who don’t have the time to process raw data tables. So, I’m looking forward to seeing what the next version of WordPerfect is like.