Corel’s WordPerfect Office 2000 Suite and Microsoft’s Office 2000: Cool Legal Stuff for Small Firm Lawyers

by Ross Kodner, Daniel Coolidge, Bruce Dorner, Sheryn Bruehl
©1999 Ross L. Kodner, Daniel Coolidge, Bruce L. Dorner, Sheryn L. Bruehl, All Rights Reserved

My word processor can beat up your word processor! Gee are we tired of hearing who has the best word processor? Well, in our view both of the perennial titans work–Corel’s WordPerfect Office 2000 and Microsoft’s Office 2000. But the similarity and suitability for law office document production tasks ends with the identical product names–these are far from being operational clones. We still prefer WordPerfect as a legal word processing tool, and the latest version appears to support our desire to stay with this venerable law office tool. We suspect it will delight the legions of WordPerfect faithful worldwide. For those firms looking for a reason to stay with their tried and true document production system, we think this new Suite makes it obvious. This is not to say Microsoft Office 2000 is without a degree of "techno.coolness" but Microsoft clearly is headed in a different strategic document creation direction than "the rest of us." We also suspect that WordPerfect Office 2000 and the forthcoming WordPerfect Law Office 2000 (the successor to the popular WordPerfect 8 Legal Suite) will be the impetus for some firms that made "panic" transitions to its Microsoft counterpart . . . to come back home to WordPerfect. In fact, if Corel’s stellar 3^rd quarter 1999 financial results and surge in stock share value are any kind of indicator, this may be empirically verifiable!

As with much new technology this review was first based on a beta or test version of the program. In fact, it we started with a very early beta release of the WordPerfect 9 product, which has since been renamed WordPerfect 2000 (http://www.corel.com/office2000) for its release which occurred in May 1999. With a beta version of a program, it would have been typical to find that not all of the new features are working. There may also be a few times when the software responds more like a two year old throwing a tantrum. However, just like the two year old, it gives us electronic hugs and kisses that make up for the rough spots. And refreshingly, this "Beta" of the WordPerfect 2000 Suite was remarkably reliable and stable - certainly a good sign for the eventual publicly released version. The proof is in the virtual pudding, so to speak and the now (as of this writing) five month old product has shown itself to be a real trooper out in the field . . . not without faults mind you, but nothing earth-shattering. In fact, Corel quickly released a Service Pack that corrected a number of release issues. More on this later . . .

At first blush, WordPerfect 2000 looks visually nearly identical to its predecessor, WordPerfect 8. Toolbars, the screen and menu presentation could just as well be the tried and true version 8. Corel has publicly intimated that this release, while incorporating a number of clever new features and even a higher-value bundle than the 8 Suite, is squarely focused on refining its already ground-breaking feature set and maximizing stability. With five months of "in the field" track record under its belt, overall the product has shown itself to be a relatively clean new release. We’ll focus on the inevitable "gotchas" a bit later.

One of the most intriguing new legal-useful features of WordPerfect 2000 is a real-time preview of changes to text. Let’s say you have a document on the screen and wonder how that paragraph would look if the font changed from "Times Roman" to "Arial." Furthermore, how might that font change affect the layout and pagination of the document--certainly real considerations when you’re under the auspices of court-prescribed formats. Well, just drop down the font list from the screen and let your mouse "hover" above the desired font. The text automatically changes so you can visually see what the result. If you like it, "click," and it’s selected. If you don’t like it, just move away from the font drop-down list and the document remains in original format. Just think, we learned how to left click. Then we learned how to use the right click. Now we have a new technique — "point and hover."

The "Make it Fit" expert, first introduced in WordPerfect many moons ago, provided invaluable capabilities when you had to squeeze a too long (or I guess, too short) document into a specific number of pages. If you were writing a trial brief, where, for example, the judge imposed a 12 page limit, and try as you might, your necessary arguments took you three paragraphs into your 13th page, you had a problem. Given that most judges don’t take kindly to 1/4 inch margins, less than single line spacing and microscopic 7 point typestyles, you were previously faced with potentially hours of touchy little changes to all sorts of different document settings. The "Make it Fit" expert changed all that­it put document sizing on autopilot, automatically mixing and matching document layout and text format changes to ever so subtly cram in that extra text without making it look totally obvious. But that worked only for entire documents . . .

In WordPerfect 9, "Make it Fit" goes a step further. What if you only want to force one paragraph, or maybe one table onto a single page and the old Block Protect just doesn’t cut it. Now you can select a chunk of text­any size you want­and apply "Make it Fit" just to that block. Cool, huh?

Since the Internet has taken over most of the time we spend on the keyboard, Corel got the hint and added "Backward" and "Forward" buttons to the tool bar. Two little arrows on the WordPerfect 9 toolbar do something pretty cool. Much like the use of the Back and Forward buttons in a web browser, in WordPerfect 9 these move you to the prior or subsequent insertion points in your document. In other words, say you want to go back to the third last paragraph you edited. Do you even know where it is in the document? Maybe not. But click the "Back" button three times and it goes right where you want it to. Secretaries will LOVE this feature! Why didn’t someone think of this before­it sure would have made document editing easier.

The Back, Forward and Autoscroll Functions (to the right)

For those lawyers generating long documents and a need to proofread in detail, the new "autoscroll" feature is a welcomed addition. You click on the icon and then move the pointer towards the top or bottom of your screen. As you move in that direction the text scrolls up or down. This is not unlike using the "hand" icon Adobe Acrobat Reader presents. The closer you go to the top or bottom of the screen, the faster the scroll. You set the speed with the positioning of the icon­the closer to the top of the screen, the faster it scrolls towards the beginning of your document; the closer to the bottom of the screen, the faster you scroll towards the end. Move to the center of the screen and you can shift Autoscroll into "neutral." No longer do you have to keep hitting the down arrow or page down key to move through a document in a smooth fashion.

For the novice, or for those with occasional needs to do something different, the Corel PerfectExpert has been significantly enhanced. This is the Corel version of "how do I do/make/change/create a" fill in the blank. A small portion of the left side of the screen it taken over by the Expert. The user responds to questions and the task gets completed. For the programming inclined, one can use the PerfectScript language to create new tasks, such as building a set of real estate closing documents or inserting text from a "paragraph library" into an estate plan. A special note also: Corel also has licensed the VBA (Visual Basic) programming language from Microsoft (no, that’s not a misprint!) and offers it as a side-by-side alternative to PerfectScript for building macros. Theoretically, this allows the same tight integration with Microsoft Office applications like Excel and Outlook as Microsoft Word would have. Of course, with it, we may see the threat of Microsoft macro viruses, to which WordPerfect has been previously immune. In fact, in the Help for VBA in the new WordPerfect 9, it specifically cautions that opening a WordPerfect 2000 document that uses VBA macros exposes you to a virus risk. But there is still an element of "having your cake and eating it too" with this new macro language addition and you have the option of not installing it at all during a "Custom Install."

Corel now comes with Adobe Acrobat Reader so you can access those now ubiquitous "PDF" files (PDF stands for "Portable Document File") that are fueling the use of law firm intranets as document repositories for access by those inside the firm as well as via extranets making case-related documents available to clients, co-counsel and experts--without document compatibility concerns. You can also WRITE PDF files without the need to buy the extra Adobe Acrobat Distiller/"Writer" software--a great value and its as easy as clicking File | Publish to PDF. Note that a possible gotcha here is that the version of the PDF writer included in the WordPerfect 2000 Suite seems like a "lite" product. What it doesn’t do that the full Adobe Acrobat 4.0 PDF Writer will do is:

Ë Deal with multiple column documents completely correctly - some users have reported difficulties with the text in the farthest right column on a page not correctly right-justifying . . . admittedly this is a tad bit obscure since for many uses, the "Table" feature with "hidden lines" is actually preferable to using columns anyway.

Ë Lack of PDF file creation adjustment tools including the "automatic view upon creation" capability that lets you look at the newly created file and make sure it looks as expected–you have to manually access and view the file with Windows Explorer (or a suitable and better replacement like Mijenix’s terrific Powerdesk utility (www.mijenix.com)) as well as compression and resolution adjustments. But for 99.9% of the law office PDF-creating public, saving the $200 that the full Adobe Acrobat 4.0 PDF Writer costs is still an absolute bargain.

Taking the PDF-friendliness of WordPerfect 2000, two new features make it an ideal tool for building and maintaining an "open standards" document base on an intranet or extranet. The first capability, one being much-hyped lately, is the inclusion of the XML document format. XML (Extensible Markup Language) can be considered a "super-set" of the HTML language upon which most internet-located documents are based. Both are a subset of SGML, the mother lode of "open standard" document formats. What this could means, especially in light of Microsoft’s announced inclusion of XML capability, is that we could truly achieve the ever-elusive "round-trip" capability between WordPerfect and Word. In other words, one creating an XML document in WordPerfect could retrieve it and work with it in Word, then review it again in WordPerfect without the notorious headaches that result using the original proprietary document formats of both products. This would mean that it wouldn’t make any difference which program the law firm, or its client, used--each would be free to choose the preferred word processing platform as long as XML doesn't become proprietarized with vendor-specific "extensions." Watch for the rush of U.S. court systems to adopt e-filing and the related need to find word processor-neutral formats for filing to drive the rise in use of XML. Of course, we would NEVER expect Microsoft to attempt to "improve" XML by adding any private "extensions" - not like they did with the Java Virtual Machine that Sun Microsystems put in the public domain . . .nah . . . never . . .

There is a fascinating addition to the WordPerfect Office 2000 bundle - it is called Trellix, the latest software wonder from Visicalc creator and PC software legend Dan Bricklin. Trellix is an award-winning program which helps build documents for web viewing in a manner far more conducive to on-line viewing and perusal in a hypertext-dominated environment than scrolling through a long, traditional word processing document. Take Trellix, XML and the PDF-friendliness of WordPerfect 2000 and the message from Corel is loud and clear--it intends to be a force to be reckoned with as more and more law firms, and yes, even smaller firms, think about using intranets to access and distribute documents.

Following previous high-value "bundleware" tradition, Corel continues to be very generous in providing more than 1,000 fonts on the CD as well as 12,000 pieces of high-quality clipart from Corel’s famous graphics library. The Dragon Naturally Speaking voice recognition software will continue to be bundled and integrated with the WordPerfect Suite. Corel has publicly announced that a successor to the popular Legal version of the WordPerfect 8 Suite will appear on November 15, 1999. So far, they are being tight-lipped, even among us so-called WordPerfect legal advisors, as to the contents of the bundle. They have announced it will include the Deal Proof software from Expert Ease Software (info is at www.expertease.com/deal.html). This is a sophisticated hybrid document assembly product aimed at drafting and building complex contracts and agreements. More info about the rest of the legal bundle will reportedly be released by Corel shortly.

A rundown of other noteworthy new WordPerfect 2000 features includes:

Ë Further improved Microsoft Word Compatibility (both in terms of the program interface and document conversions, to and from). In fact, WordPerfect 9 actually converts and reads Word documents, in some respects, better than third party document conversion utilities (such as prior champ, Conversions Plus from Dataviz - info at www.dataviz.com). The Help system includes a broad range of information about converting to and from Word 97 (which also implies Word 2000 since the latter is mostly consistent and compatible with the former) including a table that compares how Word and WordPerfect settings in a document are translated to and from each other.

Ë Improved document compare and review capabilities - many firms who have previously felt it necessary to spend additional money on document comparison utility extraordinaire, CompareRite, should try the native comparo capabilities of WordPerfect 9 first.

Ë New drawing tools - you can add over 100 new shapes to a WordPerfect document by selecting them from one of the new Shape Palettes. Choose from Basic Shapes, Arrows, Stars and Banners, and Flowcharting. Action Button shapes prompt you to assign an action. "Callout" shapes have pointers that you can anchor anywhere in your document. Want to add text? Just click in any shape and start typing. Looks like the death of dull-looking legal documents to us!

Ë In the "why didn’t we think of that" category, there is "Install on Demand" - this lets you minimize the hard disk space required by the entire suite, by installing only the bare necessities at first. If you click on a feature you have not installed, such as TextArt, you will be asked if you want to install it at that time and the program will then do it automatically for you. Of course, you need to keep that CD handy!

Ë Major improvements in the QuickFinder text search system, particularly in the area of being able to automatically schedule the all-important text indexing to occur at night when the PC is not being used.

Ë It may seem minor, but if you’ve tried to do this before and have been stymied, you’ll love it - "Skewed Tables" lets you slant the heading row or column on a table. This gives the table a 3D look, which makes the heading take up less space and stand out from the body of the table. Make those divorce financial disclosure forms and P.I. settlement statements really stand out!

Ë Major improvements in the interface of the Corel Address Book - the tabs on the Address Book have been replaced by a "tree view" that will make it easier to manage multiple address books.

Ë In what has become a real marketing edge for Corel’s WordPerfect products, Corel has managed to continue its technical tradition of nearly complete forward and backward compatibility of both its macros and its document formats running the broad range from WordPerfect 6.x to the latest 9 series products. Of course it’s not perfect–there are probably hundreds of features additions and changes from the oldest to the newest. However, the fact that one might only need to edit a complex WordPerfect 7 macro with a few changes to account for different menu structures or slightly different feature implements is nothing short of amazing. One particularly amazing thing happened to Sheryn Bruehl recently–and it well illustrates this concept of backward compatibility. She was supposed to give a CLE presentation in her home state–the slideshow was created in the latest Corel Presentations 9 format. The PC that contained the software self-immolated, at least in the virtual sense with Windows 98 becoming hopelessly fouled up. With a slideshow to deliver and no software to use to present, Sheryn took the slideshow laden ZIP-disk to another PC that had "ancient" Presentations 7 on it . . . thinking, there is NO way this is gonna work. Lo and behold . . . it ran like a charm.

And there’s more, these specifically from co-author Sheryn Bruehl, distilled from the seething software testing cauldron that only a busy small firm can offer:

Ë Install-as-You-Go: Lets the user make only a minimal installation of the Suite, leaving out seldom used programs, and will prompt to ask whether you want to install the program if you ever attempt to use it.

Ë Drop-down Buttons on Toolbar: Many of the toolbar buttons include small arrows that, when clicked, reveal multiple options for that function....MUCH faster than the old dialog boxes....just click, hover, click and you are working again. Hard to describe, but extremely efficient for power users. Works with shapes, bullet lists, tables, outlining options, highlighter colors, etc.

Ë Enhanced print capabilities: Books, booklets, double-sided with any printer, etc. "Imbedded fonts" now let you print a document from any computer/printer, even if the user doesn't have the same fonts...so your document retains the same formatting, and doesn't change to some ugly default format when opened somewhere other than your computer.

Ë Intangibles: We can't document or measure it, but we are not the only user to report that WP9 seems faster than WP8. It is certainly more intuitive, and seems stable...after you install Service Pack 1, which fixes a few persistent problems. Cross-program functionality and look/feel have been improved within the Suite.

With all that said, what problems would a WordPerfect 2000 user encounter with the product? Well as is the case with virtually all software released today, there are a few bugs as well as a few feature changes that can best be called "odd." Here’s a quick rundown:

Ë Weird lack of proper integration with Dragon NaturallySpeaking which is ESPECIALLY weird since the "Personal" edition of the popular voice recognition product is available bundled with some version of the Corel WordPerfect 2000 Suite. Both companies are reportedly working on the integration issues that are primarily focused on voice control of WordPerfect functions.

Ë A Service Pack that in addition to correcting some problems, creates some new ones. Specifically, before installing the Service Pack-1 (which should be done by the way, regardless of our cautions), first find the file called POP90.EXE within the \PROGRAM FILES\COREL structure where the WordPerfect 2000 Suite will install itself (use Windows’ Start | Find Files function to search for it--that’s the easiest way--it should turn up in \Program Files\Corel\WordPerfect Office 2000\programs) and then copy it to a safe place (i.e. make a new folder called C:\SAFE and copy the whole program there). Then after installing the Service Pack-1, copy POP90.EXE from your "safe place" back to the original location OVER the new one that the Service Pack-1 installed. This will fix a peculiar problem related to the updated version being unable to reliably store default paper tray definitions on laser printer definitions that include multiple paper trays (the problem otherwise is that you never really know what paper type your documents will print on, although it is safe to assume that if paper is to be wasted, it will be your most expensive stock).

While "pricing" may not necessarily be a "feature", it sure is in the eyes of small law firm consumers. The Corel WordPerfect 2000 Suite is an absolute steal available as little as $70 in upgrade versions without the Dragon NaturallySpeaking voice recognition software and when using the Corel Choice License Plan (CLP). Amazingly, all you need to do to qualify for this "volume" license plan is buy 3 or more licenses (up to a maximum of 50)--it saves a bunch of money! Further, Corel continues with the very reasonable concurrent licensing approach--this says that if you have 12 PCs and at any given time, a good faith estimate indicates 10 people will be simultaneously using any part of the Corel WordPerfect Suite, you only need buy 10 licenses. See how this compares to the Microsoft "WE WANT ALL YOUR MONEY! NOW!" approach described later in this article. And as to "upgrade pricing" what do you need to do to qualify for it? Two basic qualifications:

1) You must be alive, and

2) You must, during your business career, have owned SOME piece of software--we have speculated that even an Atari 800's "Pong" cartridge would probably suffice.

So all in all, combined with the improvements in the rest of the Suite, we think Corel’s WordPerfect 2000 Suite is a winner--once again showing up its rival from the Pacific Northwest. With the addition of "open standards" document formats and the "permission" this gives firms to switch back from Word to WordPerfect, we can’t see anything but great success for this product in the legal, and even corporate marketplace. With the final release version newly arrived, we're seeing that the final product fulfills the promise of the early beta we tested . . . we can hardly wait to see the forthcoming WordPerfect 2000 Legal Suite.

Other WordPerfect 2000 Suite Components Shine

New features in the well-reviewed Presentations software include:

Ë All sorts of new color and font schemes as well as cool new graphic/clipart animation capabilities to breathe life into those tired old CLE slideshows

Ë Text-editing facilitation with a "Convert Case" function

Ë A new "Format-as-You-Go" feature

Ë Hyperlink of slides to web sites

Ë More master layouts

Ë A new "smart shapes" function making it easier to insert lines, arrows and boxes into your slides

Ë Enhanced web presentation options

The Quattro Pro 2000 spreadsheet brings:

Ë Solid compatibility with Microsoft Excel - of course about 75% of the functionality of Quattro Pro is built into the table feature of WordPerfect 9 already so . . .

Ë The same real-time preview as included in WordPerfect 2000

Ë And for die-hard spreadsheet whizzes a slew of new capabilities including Cross Tabs, Custom Controls, new Data Forms, publication to HTML formats, support for Dragon’s voice recognition software, Web Queries, and the ability to embed XML tags

Every piece of new software for the next year is going to be numbered "2000" in some fashion and hyped as the answer for the new millennium. But more likely, it will be just an evolutionary advance you can ignore, sitting out one or two upgrade cycles without losing much functionality. That is the case with Microsoft Office 2000 and its Word 2000 component: It is new, improved and better, but if you don*t need the new features . . . .

What*s New in Microsoft Word 2000 that would be even remotely interesting to law office users . . . well some of the following might . . .

The hit parade includes:

HTML to Word and back again.

Slick and accurate, seamless HTML reading and writing at last! You can create a document in Word and save it as an HTML document Or you can read an HTML document, edit it and save it as a Word document. You can keep going back and forth as you like, pretty much without the loss of formatting.

With Microsoft supporting XML partially in this release and claiming to support it fully in the future, we finally may have reached the Nirvana of word processing: a truly universal format that all word processors can read, write and exchange. (Word 2000 supports the creation of frames, as well, eliminating for many the need for a separate HTML editor.)

Click and type. If you are keyboard literate, you know you can center text in Word by pressing <Ctrl> <c>. However, the bulk of legalkind hunts around with the mouse to find a menu selection or a button that says center text" or the like. Now, you can just double-click the mouse where you want the text to be, whether centered or left- or right-justified, and go on typing. Microsoft has implemented a "ghost cursor" that hovers next to the familiar "I beam" insertion cursor. If the ghost cursor is near the center, the text you enter will be centered; if near the right side, the text will be right-justified. (This is catch-up with a feature from WordPerfect 8, like so much of Microsoft’s collection of "innovations" but hey—it*s still a good idea!)

Document switching. It always has been possible to switch quickly between open applications by entering <Ctrl><Tab>, but that wouldn*t work if you had multiple documents open in Word. And dropping down the Window menu and selecting the document was cumbersome. Microsoft (bless it!) has heard my silent pleas. Each document opens as a separate item on the task bar, so that switching among multiple documents is a breeze (note that there is some controversy that opening multiple documents with all these task bars sucking up Windows Resources is a bad thing . . . the jury’s still out on that). In comparison, we have to say though that WordPerfect 9's approach to dealing with multiple open documents--putting a small title of the open document on the WordPerfect status line at the bottom of the screen and allowing you to click between documents is just plain more elegant.

Enhanced clipboard. Suppose you have a hundred-page document open (presumably the "Great American Geek Novel" since few judges would look very kindly on wading through any brief that size). You want to add various provisions from three other documents and paste them into three different locations. Until now, that has meant a lot of moving around and a lot of work—selecting each piece of text in turn, then switching documents and going to where you needed to paste. Word 2000 is smarter: You can paste up to 12 separate bits of text onto the clipboard, then paste them separately. So you can go through one document, grab each of the text selections you want, go on to another document and do the same, then go to the new document and select each piece from the clipboard as you need it, scrolling through the document. And finding the text on the clipboard is easy because the text appears in a floating banner above the cursor as you run the cursor over the clipboard popup window.

Improved table formatting. Word always has been unwieldy when trying to do something fancy with tables, such as wrap text or put two tables side by side. Now it has gotten a whole lot smarter and easier to use. You can resize the table with handles at the lower right, move the table (center, left or right, up or down) with a handle at the upper left and, best of all, get text to wrap around your table so that the table is associated with the text.

Themes. We can*t all be graphic artists. Just because someone hands us a palette full of paints and a few brushes doesn*t mean we can paint like Renoir. Too, we aren*t all born to use all the slick graphical elements in a modern word processor and have something come out that doesn*t look like one of my childhood efforts with a crayon. So ... remember the handy themes that came with PowerPoint? Those pre-assembled color correct assemblages that made your slide look really good? Now they*re available with Word 2000. You want slick? You*ve got slick—in dozens of varieties!

Autorepair. Something stops working (which is not at all an uncommon experience for Windows users . . . ) and you have no idea what has happened. Suddenly, you*re getting error messages every time you try to insert a bullet or use the WordArt feature. Should you call the help desk? No! Gall "Perky the #&@* Paperclip*s" help system! With a couple of mouse clicks, you can have Word 2000 automatically self-diagnose and reload damaged files and libraries, all with no user intervention.

Smart menus. Frankly, this is a feature we turned off right away. Microsoft figured you*d really be less confused if, when you pulled down a menu from the top, it showed you only those selections you used most frequently. There is a tab at the bottom to let you see more selections; the one you choose will appear magically as a frequently selected item thereafter ... for a while. We found disappearing menu items disconcerting. We want everything to appear in the same place all the time—even if the Billmeister wants it "his way."

Font previews. When you drop down the font selection menu, it shows you examples of what the various fonts look like. (Why hasn*t this always been done?) So if you just don*t remember off the top of your head whether Benquiat BK is a serif or sans serif font, it*ll show you. (The down side is that all those fonts that load by default really slow things down, while most of us use only one or two fonts most of the time.)

Numbered lists. Another weakness has been paragraph numbering and outlines. In the past, multilevel outline styles had to be selected specially, and inserting any non-numbered text would cause the numbering sequence to restart. Now, Word defaults to multilevel bulleted and numbered lists. You can insert some text and then just continue the list from where you left off And this is all automatic. So if you add or subtract points or items, Word automatically renumbers things. It offers a host of differing formats for numbering and bulleting—far more than you*ll ever use.

Shrinking to fit (Or alternately, think of it as "Shrinking Dinks meets Word Processing"). The folks in the Silicon Forest up in Redmond finally have added this useful feature—long available in WordPerfect where it is called "Make it Fit."

Biggest Microsoft Word 2000 gotcha? We call ‘em File Format Follies. Word 2000 uses the same file format as Word 97—which is different from Word 95. Word 97 and Word 2000 can read older file formats, but the older versions of Word have a hard time reading Word 97 and Word 2000 files, even with Microsoft*s add-in filter. Word 2000 will read WordPerfect 8 and WordPerfect 2000 documents, although some formatting may be lost. However, Word will not write to any WordPerfect file format newer than WordPerfect 5.1 . . . chalk it up to arrogance or too much Jolt Cola ingested by the development or just a Washington-ized version of a je ne sais quoi attitude . . .who knows, but it is irritating. WordPerfect 9 clearly makes the inroads into document compatibility that Microsoft merely pays virtual lip service to.

Oh wait, perhaps the bigger gotcha is Microsoft Office 2000 pricing. Aside from the labyrinthic maze of Microsoft volume pricing plans which even a Cray Supercomputer couldn’t figure out, this baby is tres EXPENSIVE. In its retail upgrade version, we’ve seen the full-bore Premium edition in an "upgrade" version going for around $425 (based on a price we saw at a Cleveland, Ohio OfficeMax in early October - don’t ask what why we were there - it was purely for entertainment purposes and the inescapable lure of the word "Clearance"). Combine this with non-concurrent licensing meaning that if you have 12 PCs, you need 12 copies and one can quickly see that your draws for the next few months are going to take a serious hit.

And the last Word 2000 gotcha was discovered by none other than that famous software testing organization, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7^th Circuit. In a Per Curiam opinion issues on July 21, 1999 located at http://www.kentlaw.edu/7circuit/1999/jul/99-1754A.html, the Court blasted Word 97 and lawyers who used it to file a brief for its inability to count words correctly. Specifically, here’s what the court said

The certificate under Fed. R. App. P. 32(a)(7)(C) represents that the brief contains 13,824 words, only 176 short of the maximum. Our check reveals that the certificate is false. The brief actually includes 15,056 words, substantially over the maximum. Appellants counted only the words in the text of the brief, although Rule 32 provides that '[h]eadings, footnotes, and quotations count toward the word and line limitations.' Fed. R. App. P. 32(a)(7)(B)(iii). Appellants' brief has 20 footnotes with a total of 1,232 words.

Appellants' brief was prepared with Microsoft Word 97, and an unfortunate interaction occurred between that software and the terms of Rule 32. All recent versions of Microsoft Word (Word 97 for Windows, Word 98 for Macintosh, and Word 2000 for Windows), and some older versions that we have tested, count words and characters in both text and footnotes when the cursor is placed anywhere in the document and no text is selected. In recent versions on both Windows and Macintosh platforms, choosing the Word Count function brings up a window listing the number of characters and words in the document. A checkbox at the bottom of the window reading "Include footnotes and endnotes," when selected, yields a word count for all text and notes. But if the user selects any text in the document this checkbox is dimmed, and the program counts only the characters and words in the selected text. Microsoft Word does not offer a way to count words in those footnotes attached to the selected text.

This complicates implementation of Fed. R. App. 32(a)(7), which limits the allowable length of a brief to 14,000 words, and of a reply brief to 7,000 words. Under Rule 32(a)(7) (B)(iii), footnotes count toward this limit, but the "corporate disclosure statement, table of contents, table of citations, statement with respect to oral argument, any addendum containing statutes, rules or regulations, and any certificates of counsel do not count toward the limitation." To determine the number of words that are included in the limit, counsel selects the "countable" body portions of the brief--which causes Microsoft Word to ignore countable footnotes. Counsel who do not notice that the count-footnotes box has been dimmed out may unintentionally file a false certificate and a brief that exceeds the word limits. That's what happened to appellants' lawyers. Older versions of Word have separate columns for text and footnote counts (plus a summation column), giving a visible cue that footnotes were not being counted when text had been elected, but current versions give only a consolidated count. When the count-footnotes checkbox is dimmed, even counsel who are aware that the brief contains footnotes may suppose that the software included these automatically.

Current versions of Corel WordPerfect (for both Windows and Macintosh platforms) do not have this problem. WordPerfect does what lawyers may suppose that Word does (or should do): it automatically includes footnotes in its word and character counts. If no text is selected, the word count feature includes all words anywhere in the document; if text is selected, then WordPerfect includes words in footnotes that are attached to the selected text. We have not tested other programs, because the vast majority of briefs filed with the court are prepared using either Word or WordPerfect, but law firms that use other programs must find out how their software treats footnotes attached to selected text.

Lawyers who produce their documents with WordPerfect software have an easy job of things under Rule 32. They select the "countable" portions of the brief, and the program tells them how many words are in both text and footnotes. Lawyers who use Word, by contrast, must infer from the dimmed checkbox that footnotes have been omitted from the count. They must open a separate footnote window, select the footnotes attached to "countable" body text, and have the program count the words in these notes. Then they must add the text and footnote counts manually in order to determine compliance with Rule 32(a)(7).

Long-run solutions to this problem must come either from Microsoft Corporation-- which ought to make it possible to obtain a count of words in footnotes attached to selected text--or from the national rulemaking process. We will send copies of this opinion to those responsible for such design decisions. In the meantime, we will flag this issue in the court's Practitioner's Guide and in materials distributed to counsel when an appeal is docketed. Law firms should alert their staffs to the issue pending a resolution at the software level. Our clerk's office will spot-check briefs that have been prepared on Microsoft Word, are close to the word limit, and contain footnotes. Noncomplying briefs will be returned, and if the problem persists after there has been ample time for news to reach the bar we will consider what else needs to be done. (Counsel who use Word are not entitled to a litigating advantage over those who use WordPerfect.) For now, however, sanctions are inappropriate, and the order to show cause is discharged.

Microsoft, ever responsive, quietly released a patch to address this "issue" shortly thereafter. You definitely need it if you are a Word 97 or 2000 user with any kind of appellate practice! It is located in both Word 97 and Word 2000 versions at:

http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/2000/downloadDetails/swcmacro.htm.

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The most emotional debate in legal technology today centers around the software system that is at the heart of a law firm’s work production capability: word processing. No other debate reaches the same level of zealous fervor, perhaps other than the time-honored squabbling between devotees of the Macintosh and the rest of us. And this makes sense. As lawyers we sell words. Advice and good counsel are certainly prerequisites, but when it comes down to the tangible, visible work product that most clients see, we’re wordsmiths and wordsellers. A law firm can survive for a time without its automated calendars, without its billing and accounting systems, without its litigation management programs and . . . (gasp) . . . even without Internet access. But take away the ability to get documents out and a firm is dead in the water.

Dispelling any misconceptions and unfounded myths, one must first understand that in the LEGAL MARKETPLACE, WordPerfect, in its various versions, still dominates with anywhere from 55% to 60% of the market share, depending on who gathers the statistics. In my own national consulting practice working with law firms and legal departments ranging in size from approximately 1-100 attorneys, I’m seeing a roughly 60-40 split between WordPerfect (all versions in use), Microsoft Word (all versions in use) and "Others" including the rare case of Lotus’ Ami Pro and its successor WordPro. With that said, the rumors of WordPerfect’s death, to paraphrase Mark Twain, have been greatly exaggerated.

In fact, I am noticing a very interesting trend in law firms I work with or come in contact with. To preface this, it is important to note that a very high percentage of all law firms and legal departments come from a long WordPerfect heritage, which in turn traces its ancestry on the document production family tree to dedicated word processing systems. When the Novell announcement of WordPerfect’s sale was made in late ‘95, there were clearly a significant number of law firms who made what I consider "panic transitions" to Microsoft Word. Fearing WordPerfect’s future had ended, some jumped ship (and please, don’t even think of getting me started on my "Microsoft Office New PC Pre-load" rant: it’s not a pretty sight ().

Now though, more than two years later, I am seeing a number of those "panic transitioners" either rethinking their decisions or actually moving back to WordPerfect, in this case to WordPerfect 8 or WordPerfect 2000. I have also seen several very large law firms vote in favor of WordPerfect 8 and now 2000 as well--even while they might use primarily Microsoft products for e-mail, spreadsheets and their databases. What would motivate them to do so?

In a word, it can be simplified, probably oversimplified, to one key distinguishing feature between the two word processors . . . WordPerfect’s "Reveal Codes." This is the ability to "look under the hood" of one’s documents and see the text appearance and text layout codes that determine how documents look. With a severely screwed up document, a WordPerfect user pops the electronic document hood, sees the "virtual oil leak" and with a couple of mouse clicks, or God forbid (, keystrokes, fixes the problem. I have personally experienced and also personally have seen experienced Word users pull out whatever hair they had left trying to fix the same kinds of problems. While there is a feature in Word called "Reveal Codes", it is merely the counterpart to the "Show" feature in WordPerfect that shows paragraph break symbols, space symbols, etc. With apologies to Senator Lloyd Bentsen "I’ve met Reveal Codes in WordPerfect and Word does NOT have Reveal Codes." With Word’s fundamentally different, "Styles" oriented architecture, it would appear that this key feature could not be easily added. Our panelists will undoubtedly shed light on many other distinguishing characteristics between the two word processing giants and their Suite-mates.

Ultimately, the question really should be, "must own choose?" I think most law firms assume that they need to pick one Suite versus the other and then live with their decision. I think the reality today, though, is different. While some firms might say, "we need Word because a couple of our big clients want to exchange documents with us," this in and of itself really does not present a compelling reason to switch if the firm is already using WordPerfect. And I think a firm does in fact need to apply my "Compelling Reason Test" to justify a WordPerfect-to-Word transition. Such a transition cannot be considered lightly--a strong case of business justification and a sound needs analysis must be made.

A switch from WordPerfect to Word entails complete retraining of people who have years of instinctive and ingrained WordPerfect habits and knowledge. It means lots of time cleaning up WordPerfect-formatted documents retrieved into Word. It means throwing out all of one’s macros and rewriting their counterparts in Word. It means acknowledging that the firm will expose itself to the risks associated with the Word Macro Viruses, a non-issue for WordPerfect users. Those are real issues; real BIG issues (or for my relatives in Texas, "big ‘ole issues" ().

It has become the norm that when I visit a consulting client initially and the question of word processing choice arises as it always does, the dialogue has become virtually scripted. It always goes something like this:

Ross: So where is your thinking regarding the Word v. WordPerfect question?

Client: Well even though we’ve always used WordPerfect, most of our clients are using Word so we’re thinking about switching.

Ross: Great. So which version of Word are your clients using?

Client: We don’t know what versions of Word they’re using. Why does that make any difference?

Ross: It makes all the difference in the world if you want to be compatible with them. If you send a client who is using Word 6.0 or even Word 95 a Word 97 document, they won’t be able to retrieve it and view it. In fact, they would have an easier time reading an "old" WordPerfect 5.1 document.

Client: We’ll just ask them before we send them a document then - we’ll find what Word version they have. That should solve the problem. If they have Word 97 and we have Word 97, everything should be fine, right?

Ross: ‘Fraid not. You print on HP Laserjet 5 printers. What default printer driver do your clients have? After all, even if you send them a Word 97 document and they have Word 97, if you send a document created on your system using your Laserjet 5 as the default printer and they pull it up on their PCs where IBM Lexmark laser printers as the default, you’ve got compatibility trouble. The pagination will change slightly--enough to cause a problem when layout and pagination are critical to the document format.

Client: We didn’t realize that compatibility was such a complicated issue . . .

The reality is that if a firm switches to Word primarily to facilitate the electronic exchange of documents with clients and other firms, it is deluding itself through a serious oversimplification. If a firm uses Word 97 and the client uses Word 6.0 for Windows 3.x, the client will not be able to read the document. In fact, the client might have an easier time reading a WORDPERFECT document than the Word 97 document. Word is extremely format-specific and without coordination between the sender and receiver, in spite of everyone’s good intentions in using "Word", smooth document interchange still may not happen. In fact, more and more recipients of electronic text would prefer to have completely UNFORMATTED text--either embedded in the body of an e-mail message or attached as an ASCII, RTF or even HTML-formatted file. These end up being easier for most companies to digest and assimilate into their internal systems. There is a strong argument in favor of indoctrinating one’s electronic document interchange counterparts to use the Adobe PDF format--the closest thing we have to a universal document format (read-only) today. One day we might see a truly universal document format based on the XML superset of HTML--but that’s beyond the horizon at this point.

So back to the Compelling Reason Test--can the firm find a compelling reason to switch? Probably not. Today I am recommending that law firms be "word processing multilingual" (and in our acronym-infested times, let’s just call it "WPM"). In other words, that they select one program to be their "Primary Word Processor" and fully license all their users. Let’s assume for the moment that that is the latest version of WordPerfect. Then, under this scenario, they would select Word 97 or Word 2000 as their "Secondary Word Processor" buying perhaps a couple of inexpensive licenses of either Word by itself or the whole Microsoft Office 2000 Suite.

If a client asks you for a document in ANY format, your answer should be "no problem." If you work in what is arguably the better LEGAL word processor: WordPerfect, save the document in "Word 97/2000" or "Word 6/95" format, then pull it up in Word to make sure it looks okay before you ship a mis-formatted document to a key client. If the client specifies some other format altogether, you need to be equally prepared. Consider having a document conversion tool like Dataviz’s "Conversions Plus" (visit http://www.dataviz. com/Products/ CPW/CPW_Home.html for information) available for your lawyers and staff to save in, and read from, just about any document format in the known universe.

The name of the game for lawyers in both public and private practice today is "better, faster, cheaper." Clients want top-quality work product--immediately--for less money. For firms, the challenge is to make a profit while satisfying increasingly demanding clients in a marketplace for legal services that has become viciously competitive. The law firms that can say "no problem" to any client document generation request are those that will thrive, irrespective of what word processor or Suite they use to do it.

Bruce Dorner is a New Hampshire solo practicing in Londonderry. He is well known to legal technology enthusiasts through his long-time involvement in the ABA LPM Section, ABA TECHSHOW and ABA Solo and Small Firm-oriented activities. He is a frequent national author and speaker on legal techno.topics and is co-columnist with Dan Coolidge and Ross Kodner for "The Circuit Court" in Law Office Computing magazine. He can be reached at callmylawyer@ibm.net.

Ross Kodner is a Milwaukee lawyer who some say "saw the light" way back in 1985 when he founded his international legal technology consultancy and legal-only systems integration firm, MicroLaw, Inc. (www.microlaw.com). Like Bruce he is heavily involved in ABA LPM Section activities including chairing its Computer & Technology Division and serving on the ABA TECHSHOW and ABA/Legaltech Executive Planning Boards. He is also a frequent national author and speaker on legal techno.topics and is co-columnist with Dan Coolidge and Bruce Dorner for "The Circuit Court" in Law Office Computing magazine. He can be reached at rkodner@microlaw.com.

Dan Coolidge is a partner at Manchester, New Hampshire’s Sheehan, Phinney, Bass & Green where he heads the Intellectual Property team. Born in a 34 room slate-roofed shack in Greenwich, Connecticut’s only mobile mansion park, Dan overcame his humble beginnings to become one of the most sought after speakers and authors on legal technology topics. He co-authored the best-selling ABA Law Practice Management Section publication, "A Road Warrior’s Survival Guide" with Michael Jimmerson. Dan is a co-columnist with Ross Kodner and Bruce Dorner for "The Circuit Court" in Law Office Computing magazine. He can be reached at dcoolidge@sheehan.com.

Sheryn Bruehl is a partner at Bruehl & Chapman, P.C. in Norman, Oklahoma and legal techno.goddess of the first order. She received her Juris Doctorate with honors from the University of Oklahoma College of Law, where she was an assistant instructor of Legal Research and Writing, and is a member of the Oklahoma Chapter of the Order of the Coif. She practices primarily in Workers’ Compensation. Sheryn, known among her closest circle of friends as "Sheena, Queen of the USB Port" is a managing partner of a small firm committed to leveraging law office technology for maximum productivity, efficiency and quality of life. She administers an eight-computer network for four attorneys and two support staff, and has practical experience with WordPerfect versions 4.2 through 9; WordPerfect Legal Suite 7.1; Amicus Attorney Pro, III, and IV (standalone and Team versions); TimeMatters; Dragon Dictate voice recognition system, Textbridge Pro OCR, peer-to-peer networking in Windows 3.xx, Windows 95 and Win98, and Palm Pilot in a general practice environment. As a small firm owner, her primary focus is "budget" computing–from the best values in computers, to do-it-yourself system and software upgrades. Ms. Bruehl is a member of the Oklahoma Bar Association’s Solo & Small Firm Conference Committee, Management Assistance Program Committee, Law Office Management and Technology Section, and Workers’ Compensation Section; and serves as an assistant sysop on the OBA-NET (a members-only, web-based forum for Oklahoma lawyers). She is also a member of the American Bar Association’s Law Practice Management Section and General Practice, Solo and Small Firm Section. She can be reached at: Bruehl & Chapman, P.C., 309 West Main Street, Norman, Oklahoma 73069-1312; by e-mail at sbruehl@mmcable.com; or by telephone at (405) 573-2001.