ScreenDemo

No longer can you choose from ten word processors for your Windows desktop--not if you want collaboration and desktop publishing tools in addition to the more generic but still necessary features such as editing, formatting, automated templates and wizards, and management of long documents. The word processors from the three reviewed suites each take a good stab at fulfilling these criteria.

Formatting and layout concerns the program's ability to control character, paragraph, and page layout. The text entry/correction rating reflects the tools for entering and editing text on the page. User automation involves the wizards and templates that are provided, as well as the user's ability to modify these and create his own. We also consider collaboration, taking a look at tools for creating, reviewing, and distributing documents within a group. Desktop publishing concerns the program's ability to create highly stylized document layouts. Long documents involves tools for managing documents such as table of contents, indexes, and master documents.

Corel WordPerfect 7

You can customize the preview window and then use the advanced viewers in Inso's Quick View Plus 4.0.

Corel WordPerfect 7's File/Open dialog box includes a tabbed interface for a fast, elaborate file indexer.

Corel Corp.
Corel
WordPerfect 7

When Corel acquired WordPerfect from Novell, it breathed new life into the classic word processor. Corel WordPerfect 7, the new, 32-bit version, extends the vast range and power of earlier releases while clarifying the interface, adding automation features, and improving speed and reliability. This version retains the same file format and remains unrivaled in its ability to organize large documents and apply precise formatting. HTML- and SGML-editing capabilities also enhance Corel WordPerfect 7.

Formatting options in prior versions often seemed overwhelming, but this release offers on-screen lines you can drag to adjust margins, headers, and tables. Another option, QuickSpot, shows a button next to the current paragraph, graphic, or table; you click on it for fast, graphical access to the format controls you use most often.

Tables in WordPerfect now support 100 spreadsheet functions, and a new Floating Cell feature lets you easily display, anywhere in your text, the value of a table cell. WordPerfect's typographic controls, for functions such as the precise positioning of any character, remain unparalleled. In addition, although this version no longer supports WordPerfect's DOS printer drivers, it includes unique control over Windows' printer drivers. For example, you can specify a different default font for each printer and save named settings for printers and fonts.

WordPerfect's Internet tools let you edit and create basic HTML files with tables but not forms. A wizard for building Web sites automatically creates a home page and any links to other pages, and a toolbar button lets you preview pages in Netscape Navigator. With Corel's Barista technology, you can save any WordPerfect document as a Java applet, so any formatting you display in the word processor will appear in any Java-equipped browser.

Corel has also smoothly integrated Hypertext/Web Links, a longtime WordPerfect feature, with HTML editing. The dialog box for links shows the address of the page currently displayed in Navigator, and it lets you easily build a link to it. But unlike Word or Word Pro, WordPerfect won't let you open a Web page directly from the Internet. You have to save the page to disk from your browser before opening it in the word processor.

Although the basic outline and numbering features are easy to use, customizing and integrating them can be difficult. Corel promises major improvements in Version 8, due out in the first half of this year. That release will also include a context-sensitive toolbar, support for HTML forms, and a revamped equation editor.

Because WordPerfect continues to use Version 6's file format, the latest Windows release is compatible with earlier Windows and DOS versions. But the older format doesn't let you edit different parts of a file at once using separate windows, as you can in Word and Word Pro.

WordPerfect's depth and range of features make it almost a software suite in itself. Its mixing of WYSIWYG and code-based interfaces, however, makes this package more suitable for established WordPerfect users than for those who want to change to a new word processor.

Corel WordPerfect 7. List price: None (the product is not sold as a standalone program, only as part of a suite). Requires: 486-based PC or better, 8MB RAM, 30MB to 220MB hard disk space, Microsoft Windows 95. Corel Corp., Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; 800-772-6735, 613-728-3733; fax, 613-728-9790; www.corel.com.

Microsoft Word 97

If you select an item from the Favorites list, Word connects to the Internet and opens the item.

When you click on the Edit button on the Internet Explorer toolbar, the current document in the browser opens in Word.

Microsoft Corp.
Microsoft Word 97

Long the best-balanced and most intuitive of Windows word processors, Microsoft Word is now also the most powerful. Microsoft Word 97's menus and keyboard are basically the same as they are in Word 95, allowing effortless upgrading, but Microsoft has enhanced virtually every other feature, sometimes spectacularly.

Word now stores multiple versions of a document in a single file, and desktop publishing features include the ability to make text flow from one box to another on a different page. You can use a new table-drawing pencil tool to create tables on the screen instead of needing a dialog box, and a Document Map now displays all headers in outline form (and lets you jump to any header simply by clicking on it).

Word's impressive features for formatting on the fly now include the abilities to let you apply boldface or italic to the first item in a bulleted list, as well as customize bulleting and numbering. The company has also eliminated annoyances found in earlier versions of Word, such as a bulleting and numbering dialog that didn't show your customizations. And powerful organizing features, such as cross-referencing and numbering, now equal or surpass similar features once superior in WordPerfect.

Webmasters will find Word an almost complete tool for building advanced HTML pages. You can create standard headings and layouts effortlessly and build complex elements, such as forms, from a toolbar. But you do need to understand the technical details of HTML forms processing, and if you want to build HTML forms seamlessly, you should choose a dedicated package, such as Microsoft's FrontPage. Otherwise, Word includes tools for building almost everything imaginable on a Web page, except frames and Java applets. For instance, you can add decorative horizontal lines and standard bullets using a menu, and you can have Word automatically convert Internet addresses into hyperlink fields.

Also, Word now includes formatting features such as animated and blinking text. These resemble similar features you can build into HTML pages through Java or ActiveX applets, but they appear only in documents you view in Word or in the free Word Viewer available from Microsoft's Web site. When you export a Word document to HTML format, Word converts these features into ordinary text.

Word has finally begun employing Visual Basic for Applications as its macro language instead of WordBasic, and it automatically converts the macros from its earlier versions when you open a document or template containing them. But a few hindrances remain from earlier releases: The master-document feature continues to link awkwardly to the outline feature, and you still menu-hop a lot if you want to create or modify styles by hand.

In addition, the View Options dialog box may baffle even expert users, because Word offers only options for the current view. You must close the dialog and change views before you can access all options.

But these are small flaws in a package that ranks as the best word processor--and among the most powerful and elegant applications for Windows--ever written.

Microsoft Word 97. Street price: $340; upgrade, $85. Requires: 486-based PC or better, 8MB (for Microsoft Windows 95) or 16MB (for Windows NT 3.51 or later) RAM, 20MB hard disk space, Windows 95 or Windows NT 3.51 or later. Microsoft Corp., Redmond, WA; 800-426-9400, 206-882-8080; fax, 206-936-7329; www.microsoft.com.

Word Pro 97

Word Pro's special views, such as this one, display reduced views of all pages along with a full-size view of the current page.

The InfoBox gives instant access to all formatting features applicable to the text or graphic under the cursor.

Although Word Pro 97 doesn't differ much from its previous release, don't think that Lotus's word processor is falling behind the times. When Word Pro 96 was first released, it was the most innovative word processor in many years, and it still leads its rivals in workgroup, versioning, and display features. Improvements in Word Pro 97 include increased performance, more stability, and enhanced document backgrounds.

Word Pro's tabbed document divider interface lets you organize multipart documents more intuitively than anything else on the market, and you can easily move sections, chapters, and inserted or linked objects like spreadsheets or images simply by dragging a tab. Lotus has added new or improved interface toolbars for features like tables of contents and cross-referencing. Word Pro, unlike Word and WordPerfect, never seems overloaded with features, but even experienced users will be frustrated by the complexity of creating and using macros, which you can't assign to keystrokes unless you learn the LotusScript programming language.

Like everything else in SmartSuite 97, Word Pro stands out for its workgroup features. Security provisions for reading, editing, and annotating files are rich in detail and easy to use, and the TeamMail feature--a mail-routing system--can automatically send a receipt when each recipient on a mailing list opens your file.

Word Pro's intuitive frames let you insert text, graphics, or any other object. Text can flow between discontinuous frames on the same page or on separate pages. When you select a frame, it displays with lines connected to its anchor point, making frame-positioning especially easy to manage. The program's drawing tools match the advanced tools in Freelance Graphics 97, but unlike in Word and WordPerfect, you can't wrap text around an irregular graphic.

Internet features are more intelligently integrated than in rival word processors. A special dialog box opens or saves files on FTP or World Wide Web sites, and it lets you store lists of FTP sites by descriptive names. But Word Pro won't create a full linked Web site like WordPerfect and, unlike Word and WordPerfect, it can't automatically create a link to the page currently displayed in your browser.

Web page templates include a toolbar for building HTML forms and provide good-looking starting points for creating your own pages, but the program can't automatically create a whole site of linked pages like WordPerfect's Website wizard. And unlike both Word and WordPerfect, it won't create a link to the site currently displayed in your Web browser.

Impressive and innovative as it is, Word Pro probably doesn't have the automation or depth of features needed to lure away much of the market for Word and WordPerfect. But any organization that needs the ultimate in collaboration, security, audit trail, and similar features will find Word Pro 97 the obvious first choice.

Word Pro 97. List price: $105; upgrade, $105. Requires: 486-based CPU or better, 8MB (for Microsoft Windows 95) or 16MB (for Windows NT 4.0) RAM, 46MB hard disk space, Windows 95 or Windows NT 4.0. Lotus Development Corp., Cambridge, MA; 800-426-7682, 617-577-8500; fax, 617-693-3512; www.lotus.com.