lol they still sell Corel Wordperfect

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Mixolydian

Mixolydian

Lifer
Nov 7, 2011
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I seem to remember reading that its still very popular in the legal field.

I haven't used it in over 10 years. It came pre installed on an HP PC we had.
 
shortylickens

shortylickens

No Lifer
Jul 15, 2003
80,287
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Red Squirrel said:
Thats the part I find funny, 8 is a super old version, we had it when I was in elementary school. o_O Funny they even still sell it. Guess Corel is not like MS where as soon as a new version of something comes out they want the old one off the shelves.
Click to expand...

you can get old photoshops too.

Actually thats a good cheap way to get started.
 
DrPizza

DrPizza

Administrator Elite Member Goat Whisperer
Mar 5, 2001
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I used to think that WordPerfect was a lot more intuitive than Word. Especially for working on macros, and the ability to see hidden aspects like tab, bold, etc.
 
S

sswingle

Diamond Member
Mar 2, 2000
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88keys

88keys

Golden Member
Aug 24, 2012
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At my last job, they were still using Quattro up until last year.
 
lxskllr

lxskllr

No Lifer
Nov 30, 2004
60,324
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Mixolydian said:
I seem to remember reading that its still very popular in the legal field.
Click to expand...

I asked here about that, and I don't think I got a satisfactory answer. I think it's cause lawyers are cheap asses, and they decided en masse to never upgrade their software again.

I was in a lawyer's office a couple years ago, and there was an antique sitting on the desk. I think it might have been a 286. It predated my use of IBM computers. I asked about it, and he said he still used for some software package. I can appreciate the thrift, but c'mon. Sometimes you letting go is better for everyone involved.
 
DrPizza

DrPizza

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lxskllr said:
I asked here about that, and I don't think I got a satisfactory answer. I think it's cause lawyers are cheap asses, and they decided en masse to never upgrade their software again.

I was in a lawyer's office a couple years ago, and there was an antique sitting on the desk. I think it might have been a 286. It predated my use of IBM computers. I asked about it, and he said he still used for some software package. I can appreciate the thrift, but c'mon. Sometimes you letting go is better for everyone involved.
Click to expand...

Just out of curiosity, for the typical documents that most secretaries would type, what's wrong with an old version of WordPerfect & a 286? I suppose that if they had typed 100 pages, then had the software spell check it for them, it might take 6 or so seconds - so I suppose there IS some productivity lost.
 
lxskllr

lxskllr

No Lifer
Nov 30, 2004
60,324
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DrPizza said:
Just out of curiosity, for the typical documents that most secretaries would type, what's wrong with an old version of WordPerfect & a 286? I suppose that if they had typed 100 pages, then had the software spell check it for them, it might take 6 or so seconds - so I suppose there IS some productivity lost.
Click to expand...

That particular lawyer I mentioned, I don't remember if they had a modern machine in there or not. The one I saw wasn't turned on. It was for special use. Assuming that was the only computer, you lose things like USB ports, and internet communication. If that was an extra machine, you waste power and time turning it on. OpenOffice has been free since at least 2000, and there's LibreOffice now. I see little point in holding onto antique computers unless they do something special like retro gaming.
 
Perknose

Perknose

Forum Director & Omnipotent Overlord
Forum Director
Oct 9, 1999
46,882
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lxskllr said:
I asked here about that, and I don't think I got a satisfactory answer. I think it's cause lawyers are cheap asses, and they decided en masse to never upgrade their software again.

I was in a lawyer's office a couple years ago, and there was an antique sitting on the desk. I think it might have been a 286. It predated my use of IBM computers. I asked about it, and he said he still used for some software package. I can appreciate the thrift, but c'mon. Sometimes you letting go is better for everyone involved.
Click to expand...

Not the reason, of course. Wordperfect held sway for a long time in the legal profession, long after the mass market moved to Word. Legacy issues are why.

Legal document are ultra precise in their wording. They have to be. Lawyers make their living finding minute loopholes in the legal wording of documents put forth by other lawyers.

So, most lawyers, when drawing up a document, begin with proven, legally bullet-proof templates as their initial starting point. If you tried to reinvent the wheel each time, not only would productivity suffer, but you'd run the risk of fucking up.

Remember the days of file conversion from one word processing program to another? None ever got the formatting 100% right! Now, increase that complexity of that task by thousand of legal docs with their headers and footers and so forth.

"Don't fix what ain't broke" and inertia ruled. Any major corporation that has had to execute a change from one software program to another has experienced a major institutional migraine. The horror stories are out there. And since legal docs are all text, WP on dos was all they ever needed.

Except . . .

What has forced many, if not most, law firms to finally change is that fact that their clients all now use Word, so for seamless interoperablity of communication they have had to swallow hard and go through the conversion nightmare.

However, IANAL, so . . . ;)
 
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MotionMan

MotionMan

Lifer
Jan 11, 2006
17,124
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We still use WordPerfect, but I am working on getting us converted to Word.

We represent other lawyers, they all want to edit our work and they want it all in Word. That is giving me some inertia for the change.

I hope to have the powers-that-be convinced soon, but it is not yet looking good.

MotionMan
 
LTC8K6

LTC8K6

Lifer
Mar 10, 2004
28,520
1,576
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Still using WordPerfect 12 here. Not all that often, but we still use it.
 
C

Craig234

Lifer
May 1, 2006
38,548
350
126
DrPizza said:
I used to think that WordPerfect was a lot more intuitive than Word. Especially for working on macros, and the ability to see hidden aspects like tab, bold, etc.
Click to expand...

As I recall it went kind of like this:

- Microsoft gets fat selling Office

- Borland i(?) innovates with a 'better' set of products like Quattro versus Excel

- Borland realizes that compability with Office documents is key to sales

- Microsoft sues over compatilibility, claimng excluse rights to lots of things

- There was a period with sort of 'workaround' comatibility. Humorous today. Like 'you can cnfigure a key to do something, maybe you want it to be the same as Word'.

- Not sure why the alternative product sales seemed to go down, they seemed to
 
Linflas

Linflas

Lifer
Jan 30, 2001
15,395
78
91
Unless they have drastically changed things the reason it retains a bit of popularity is because through reveal codes it allows you to see every single formatting code that is applied to the document and delete/change/insert before them. Many legal secretaries also use the rotate feature of their monitors and video driver to work on documents as well.
 
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