Corel WordPerfect Office X3 Standard: A Review

Corel WordPerfect Office X3 Standard: A Review
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Introduction

Corel WordPerfect Office X3 Standard is an excellent alternative to the Microsoft Office 2007 software which includes one of the best presentations products as well as a competitive spreadsheet product. Corel WordPerfect Office X3 is comprised four main software products:

  1. WordPerfect X3 - Word processor. [See Image 1]

  2. Quattro Pro X3 - Spreadsheet software. [See Image 2]

  3. Presentations X3 - Presentations software. [See Image 3]

  4. WordPerfect Mail - Email client. [See Image 4]

Corel WordPerfect Office X3 has all the features and tools you need for your day-to-day work, yet it is available at a price much lower than Microsoft Office 2007. Moreover, WordPerfect X3, Quattro Pro X3, and Presentations X3 all have features that you won’t find in that other office software suite. The highlight of these products lies in its highly interactive graphics user interface. You don’t have to keep on going to the menu bar again and again, as almost all features are accessible from the window pane located at one side of the main window.

The Presentations X3 software is the strongest product in the suite. This is probably due to the fact that Corel has developed some of the best graphics software, including CorelDraw and Paint Shop; this legacy shows in Presentations X3. The weakest product of the suite is WordPerfect Mail, which in no way could compete with Microsoft Outlook 2007 or even Thunderbird.

Alhough Corel WordPerfect Office X3 is cheaper than Microsoft Office 2007, bear in mind that the Corel WordPerfect Office X3 Standard version doesn’t include other valuable software like a database product, an HTML editor, and so on. There is always the option of the Office suite available absolutely free to consider also.

Performance (4 out of 5)

What’s Hot:

After getting habituated to using MS Word 2003, I found using WordPerfect X3 more convenient. The credit for this goes to the “Perfect Expert” located in the extreme left or right side. I never expected that finding and using various functions could be so quick and easy. Using Presentations X3 is a delight for me. Since the tools are available right in front of your eyes, you tend to be more creative and productive.

Price to Value (2 out of 5)

What’s Hot:

Corel WordPerfect Office X3 Standard is available for $299.99. Microsoft Office 2007 Standard is available for $399. The WordPerfect Office X3’s components, WordPerfect X3, Quattro Pro and Presentations X3 are indeed worth the cost. They all offer excellent features and a highly interactive user interface, which makes using the software easy.

What’s Not:

I would have expected Corel to sell WordPerfect Office X3 Standard at a much lower price considering the fact that excellent office software exists in OpenOffice, which is free. I would suggest that the company bring down the price level to around $200, as this would surely boost its sales.

To be frank, if I had to purchase an office suite I would spend the extra $100 and purchase Microsoft Office 2007 Standard over the same product from Corel, though even Office 2007 is also over priced. If you can’t afford to spend that much, the best option is OpenOffice, which carries most of the functions of these costlier products.

Installation & Setup (4 out of 5)

What’s Hot:

Corel Office WordPerfect X3 Standard is 242MB in size, which is quite small considering that these days office software can suck up to a 1GB of space. Installation was easy and there were no hiccups or complicated questions during my installation and setup.

User Interface (5 out of 5)

What’s Hot:

The highlight of Corel WordPerfect Office X3 is its highly interactive and easy to understand user interface. While creating your project you don’t have to keep on crossing large distances across the screen as all the menus are available on screen.

The best thing I found in Corel WordPerfect Office X3 is the “Perfect Expert.” In fact I would consider this to be the greatest asset in WordPerfect Office X3, and makes it worth buying. It opens in the form of thin side pane when you choose to display it. It performs two important functions:

  1. It displays all menus and functions, which makes choosing any you need easy. Within the main headings of the menus there are other sub-menus, and selecting them was also smooth. [See Image 5 and 6]
  1. As the name “Perfect Expert” implies, this feature explains the meaning of prominent menus and features. Whichever function you select you will see its meaning explained at the bottom, in the form of tips. If a certain function is what you are looking for you can immediately select it without traveling here and there across the screen searching for that function. If you need the detailed information about the feature you can even get more help. [see image 7]

“Perfect Expert” performs the dual function of training you and also easing navigation through the program. It is available on all the software products in Corel WordPerfect Office X3 Standard except WordPerfect Mail. This highly creative feature helps lessen any learning curves and increases your creativity and productivity.

Another important aspect of Corel WordPerfect Office X3 is that you can open your document in various modes like Microsoft or WordPerfect.

[See Image 8]

What’s Not:

I would have expected rich graphics in the user interface with modern looks and colors. When you open Corel WordPerfect Office X3 the first feel you get is that you have opened some older product. The looks of the icons and even the arrows of the “Perfect Expert” seem old fashioned. This is in contrast to highly rich and ultra modern looks of MS Office 2007. In fact the greatest difference between WordPerfect Office X3 and MS Office 2007 is in their look and feel. Corel WordPerfect Office X3 offers excellent features and a cool user interface but it’s lagging behind in appearance.

Product Features (4 out of 5)

What’s Hot:

Most Office Suites provide many of the same functions, although each has improved on their previous versions. At this stage the attention seems to have shifted from providing more features to creating your documents easily with minimum navigation across the screen. This is clearly visible in “Perfect Expert” in Corel WordPerfect Office X3.

Corel WordPerfect Office X3 has numerous features. Some of which I found quite new, interesting, and productive are described below:

  1. While creating your word document if you wish to search for something or open Yahoo mail, for example, you don’t have to leave your document and go to the related software. In WordPerfect X3 there is a toolbar below the standard toolbar (this terminology is taken from MS Office) which carries various Internet related options. [See Image 9]
  1. When you are typing your document in WordPerfect X3, you will see the words appearing in a small window in a toolbar below the menu bar. When you type a few initial letters the words related to it open in this window and they can be selected for our document.

  2. Selecting any function or the tools from “Perfect Expert” is very easy and convenient. [See Image 11]

  3. One of the interesting tools is the “Draw Picture” that helps you draw the picture right within your document.

[See Image 12]

  1. Another useful feature is the “TextArt” which enables you insert text with various shapes including 3D. [See Image 13]
  1. You can create the PDF files from WordPerfect Office X3.

  2. Creating the spreadsheets with Quattro Pro X3 is very convenient. Using functions and adding effects from “Perfect Expert” are a breeze.

  3. Of the four software products within Corel WordPerfect Office X3, the best software is Presentations X3. In this software there is a thin window towards the extreme right in the main window that carries the tabbed options of: Slide Editor, Slide Outliner, Slide Sorter and QuickPlay. This makes it easy to edit the slides and see the slide show.

  4. In Presentations X3, clicking the “Perfect Expert” window activates another thin window that carries various drawing tools making it easier for you to insert various shapes and fill colors.

  5. One interesting feature within Presentations X3 is creating the bitmap image within your slides. [See Image 14]

  1. Even in Presentations X3, adding various effects and using functions from “Perfect Expert” is easy and convenient. It greatly enhances your creativity and productivity.

  2. Within WordPerfect Mail saving various types of searches in the folders can be very useful.

Apart from this, Corel WordPerfect Office X3 has many other excellent features which are easy to comprehend and utilize.

What’s Not:

WordPerfect Mail X3 is very ordinary software. There are a number of better email clients available for free. Maybe Corel should think of tying-up with software like Thunderbird, to include it within WordPerfect Office X3 instead. Considering the high price of the software I would have expected an excellent email client from Corel, but this one is disappointing. This convinces me more that the price of the software should be reduced.

At the price-tag that the company is offering Corel WordPerfect Office X3, it could have included more software in the suite, like that of database.

Images

WordPerfect X3

Quattro Pro X3

Presentations X3

WordPerfect Mail

PerfectExpert

Sub-menu in PerfectExpert

Tips and more help in PerfectExpert

Opening Document in Different Modes

Web Options in WordPerfect X3

Completing the word

Selecting Tool from PerfectExpert

Creating the Drawing within Document

TextArt Feature

Creating Bitmap image in Presentations X3

Suggested Features

  1. Reduce the price of Corel WordPerfect Office X3 to a more reasonable $200.

  2. Enrich the graphics further with more colors and modern looks.

Conclusion

Corel WordPerfect Office X3 is an excellent alternative to Microsoft Windows 2007. Corel has been a specialist in creating world-class graphics and it shows in its Presentations X3, which is better than PowerPoint. The other two products in the suite, WordPerfect X3 and Quattro Pro X3 are highly competitive.

The highlight and the strength of WordPerfect Office X3 Standard is its highly interactive user interface with “Perfect Expert.” It makes using various features within each product easy to use and convenient, thus increasing your productivity.

Corel WordPerfect Office X3 Standard hits most high marks except in its price. I think around $200 would have been appropriate for this suite. All these major companies seem to increase the price of their popular products well beyond the reasonable limits. Corel should take initiative to reverse this trend.

Microsoft Office 2007, Lotus SmartSuite 9.8, Open Office 2.3, StarOffice 8.0