Corel WordPerfect Office 12 review

Before Microsoft Word rose to the top of the food chain, WordPerfect used to be the most commonly used word processor.

It's joined in this suite by Quattro Pro, a well-established spreadsheet, and Presentations, Corel's own presentation package. And that's your lot - no database, organiser or other fripperies. As you might expect from Corel, though, you do get nearly 10,000 clip art images, 600 fonts and over 180 photos.

If you're used to Microsoft Office, you can use the Workspace Manager to make Corel's applications work more like it.

WordPerfect Office makes a point of exporting to standard file formats: you can save PDF files directly from Word Pro and Presentations without needing Adobe Acrobat, which is more than Microsoft Office can manage. That's handy, because almost any kind of formatting should come out right in a PDF when someone else views it. Other formats supported via the Compatibility toolbar include HTML for the Web, and XML for documents that can be moved around between lots of different types of programs (databases and Web browsers for example), plus Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

WordPerfect made a real mess of importing our Word newsletter layout. It would have been quicker to recreate the document starting from scratch. Our Word text file came out fine, though, so if you're not into advanced formatting you should have no problems. Similar concerns apply to Excel files. Quattro Pro doesn't use exactly the same formulae as the Microsoft spreadsheet, but it gives you the option of emulating Excel. Unless you really need that, you'll be better off letting Quattro do its own thing because, from a standing start, it's probably slightly easier to get to grips with than Excel.

Presentations can import Microsoft PowerPoint files, but again some things may not quite reproduce correctly. There are plenty of features for making new slideshows, along with some reasonable templates, and you can save a standalone file that will play on most other PCs.

As well as program icons for the three applications, there's one labelled 'New Project' which launches Perfect Expert, a list of templates categorised both by application and under headings such as Personal Finances and Time Management. Unfortunately it only provides text descriptions, there's no thumbnail preview, so you can't be sure what you're going to get until you open one. There's also a Perfect Expert Tutor window within each application to help you get the hang of basic tasks, which is a good idea, although its advice sometimes isn't foolproof enough for beginners.

A wider range of templates - even more if you choose to buy them online - can be accessed through the OfficeReady browser. You may not know you've got OfficeReady, because it comes on a second CD and doesn't seem to be mentioned in the manual, which annoyingly, is indexed separately for each application. Once you've tracked it down and installed it, you get a long list of ready-made projects with previews.

WordPerfect and Quattro Pro are decent alternatives to Word and Excel, and although Presentations is a bit clunkier, it's still very usable. Microsoft file compatibility aside, the biggest problem with Corel's suite is the price. It's more expensive than SmartSuite and covers less ground. For that reason, it falls short of getting an award.