Microsoft Office 2007 versus Everybody - Part IV: Corel WordPerfect Office X3

When I begin my IT career, I started out as a computer instructor. I learned a lot of different programs, and then I got to teach others how to use them. Some of them I already knew like the back of my hand ... WordPerfect. Back then, it was king of all word processing programs - whether you used WordPerfect 6.0 for Windows, or old faithful WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS.

But I was forced to also teach this new word processing program called Microsoft Word (perhaps you've heard of it.) There was resistance at first, being so used to WordPerfect. So I complained about subtle differences from the start, including how you couldn't see the "Reveal Codes" behind the document like you can in WordPerfect.

Despite my concerns, I was scheduled to teach it anyway. But then I began feeling comfortable using Microsoft Word. It was easier to use, so much so that I never needed to see Reveal Codes. This also made it easier to teach to others, which was good because we taught Microsoft Word about 5-7 times more than the WordPerfect class. Once it was packaged with Excel, PowerPoint and Access in Microsoft Office, I was hooked.

After my teaching days were over, I hardly ever used anything but Microsoft Office. But a few years ago, I was given a free copy of Corel WordPerfect. After trying it out, found WordPerfect to be as great a word processing program as ever. It still had all of the important features that you could find in Microsoft Word; but the fact remained that Microsoft Word was still easier to use.

Aside from that, QuattroPro was no match for the spreadsheet capabilities found in Microsoft Excel; and there's nothing out on the market to this day that can compete with Microsoft PowerPoint when it comes to creating presentations. Overall, I found it to be a solid office suite, and still is with its latest version Corel WordPerfect Office X3.

You can now get a 30-day free trial of the Standard Version when you register to their website. I'm pretty sure that I'll download later on and post a product review. It'll be interesting to see if Reveal Codes is still there, and more importantly if it's more user-friendly. However, I imagine it won't be enough to overcome my favoritism towards Microsoft Office 2007.