WordPerfect 6.1 for Windows

Product Information

Due to release fourth quarter 1994.

Product Introduction

As the latest version in the WordPerfect word processing product line, WordPerfect 6.1 for Windows offers improvements that set the standard for word and document processing. From simple ease-of-use enhancements to sophisticated and intelligent automation tools, WordPerfect's new capabilities strengthen the product's position as the best word processor for Windows.

More documents are created worldwide using WordPerfect than with any other software. WordPerfect 6.1 for Windows is the perfect way to create better documents.

Product Development Goals and Results

WordPerfect 6.1 for Windows was designed based on product research and user feedback from four principal sources:

Usability research conducted at WordPerfect's industry-leading usability center with hundreds of subjects, studying a myriad of product design and implementation issues

On-location field research with customers in their own environments to better understand their work needs and patterns and how our software can help them to get their work done easier and faster

Customer feedback via Customer Support lines, electronic forums, and WordPerfect's own regional sales staff

Enhancement requests from users of WordPerfect products

The information from this research was carefully studied and analyzed and combined with market demands and corporate objectives. This resulted in the formulation of four principal goals for developing WordPerfect 6.1 for Windows, each to help customers:

Write Better

Work Smarter and Faster

Integrate Perfectly

Transition Easier

The overriding philosophy behind the design decisions made to meet these four goals was to "get the software out of the way of the work." This means that the software needs to work with users, not against them, to help them get their word processing work done faster and with less effort. In addition, all product changes were coordinated with the other applications of Novell's new suite of products, PerfectOffice 3.0, so there would be consistency and a high level of integration among the products. Finally, as part of the Novel family of products, WordPerfect made efforts to be even more network aware than ever before, offering network customers new advantages and opportunities to use the software in a workgroup environment.

Each of the four product goals are discussed below with examples of how they were met in WordPerfect 6.1 for Windows.

Write Better

Word processors have long provided tools to help you format text, but they had no idea what your words meant. But now WordPerfect's advanced PerfectSense™ technology can understand words within their context. Using PerfectSense, WordPerfect 6.1 can automatically fix your grammar, search for all forms of a word from the one that you supply, and replace words with the correct form. You save time and and your documents look better as the software does the work.

Grammatik 6

Grammar checking has traditionally been a process that checked your document for common errors and gave you advice based on proper grammar rules. The challenge was that you had to first understand the advice and then determine how to modify the text to make it better. Now with the new Grammatik 6 and PerfectSense built into WordPerfect 6.1, you can check your grammar as easily as you check your spelling. Grammatik 6 doesn't just offer advice that you need an English professor to understand, but will actually rewrite your sentences for you. All you have to do it click Replace and let it do all the work.

Find and Replace

The problem with find and replace has always been that it can only look for exactly what you type. What you told us you needed was a product that would let you specify a word and have it automatically find all forms of that word and even replace them with the correct forms of another word. Using PerfectSense technology, the new Find and Replace in WordPerfect 6.1 does exactly that. For example, you could find all forms of the word "fly" (fly, flew, flown, flying, etc.) then automatically replace them with the proper form of the word "drive" (drive, drove, driven, driving, etc.). This capability is perhaps even more significant in languages other than English where word forms can be spelled very differently from the root.

Speller and Thesaurus

In addition to the grammar checker, other WordPerfect writing tools use PerfectSense technology to offer you better writing assistance. Both Speller and Thesaurus use PerfectSense to look up and replace words in the proper forms. The Thesaurus allows you to look up words using any form, even if the form is not in its word list. All WordPerfect writing tools access your documents through our Writing Tools API (Application Programming Interface), an open standard documented in the WordPerfect SDK (Software Developer's Kit). WTAPI can be used by any Windows application to directly access your document's text without the use of the clipboard or other secondary transfer mechanisms that can alter document format or content.

QuickFinder

QuickFinder, WordPerfect's patented file indexing and searching program, lets you find files on your hard drive or network faster than standalone applications costing hundreds of dollars. This searching applies not only to WordPerfect documents, but to other word processing files, spreadsheet and database files, and more. You can search for filenames or types, or specific text in the files, using wildcards and Boolean operators. When searching with QuickFinder indexes, your results are instantaneous.

In WordPerfect 6.1, QuickFinder also offers new capabilities, such as an interactive browser to speed directory selection; UNC (Universal Naming Convention) support for network and device-independent indexing; the Concept Builder that uses PerfectSense technology to help you construct searches on word forms, sounds, and even common misspellings; and Relevance Ranking that sorts files in search results by the likelihood of significance.

QuickCorrect

QuickCorrect, first introduced in WordPerfect 6.0a, now has several additional capabilities to automatically fix errors and improve your documents as you type. Not only can it correct hundreds of spelling errors on the fly, but QuickCorrect will also automatically correct capitalization, delete extra spaces, put in typeset-quality quotation marks, and more. You can also use QuickCorrect entries to expand text, such as having your initials become your full name when you press the spacebar. QuickCorrect makes you a better writer; all you have to do is turn it on.

Work Smarter and Faster

Your word processor should work with you and for you, being smart enough to take care of common and complex tasks without extra effort on your part. It should also provide quick tools that will save you time and effort. WordPerfect 6.1 does this with a host of enhancements, only some of which are listed below, that let you work smarter and faster than

ever before.

Templates and Document Experts

Our research showed that most people were not using document templates in WordPerfect or other products, for two principal reasons: 1) they didn't know how to use them or even that they were there; and, 2) if they did find them, they didn't think the supplied templates were relevant to their personal work. To address these concerns, WordPerfect 6.1 now ships with over 50 document templates all easily accessed each time you select File, New to create a new document. These templates can be used for common tasks such as letter writing, fax cover sheets, memos, and much more, making them immediately useful. They are based on accepted standards for formatting and content, so you can use them with confidence. They are also fully automated, so they prompt you for the information they need to be accurate and complete. In addition, you can easily create your own templates with our new Template Coach and Prompts builder, letting you make custom solutions for specific tasks in your environment.

Document Experts supplement the templates by providing an additional level of automation in creating some of your most common documents. For example, the Letter Expert will help you build your letters as you work on them, complete with openings, closings, enclosures, and content assistance. The Calendar Expert can help you build calendars in any of four formats, portrait or landscape, and for as many months as you would like. Other document experts are available for newsletters, faxes, and memos.

Table Expert

Formatting a table to look just right can be a time-consuming task, often with many selections to make using borders, lines, fills, and text styles. WordPerfect 6.1 makes this easy by providing the Table Expert, a simple way to choose from a large number of pre-created table styles for instantly improving a table's appearance. But WordPerfect 6.1 doesn't stop there—if one of the styles in the Expert doesn't meet your needs, you can easily create your own and add them to the list. And because these are styles, you can modify the table, such as adding rows and columns, and it will still retain the look you have chosen.

Another change in WordPerfect 6.1 is that table columns can be sized automatically to their content. This makes it a one-click operation to get table column widths matched up exactly with your data and is another example of how WordPerfect saves you time and effort. Combine that with nearly 100 table formulas, named ranges, and automatic data fill for numbers, days of the week, months, and more, and you have the most powerful table feature in any word processor.

Make It Fit Expert

If you have ever spent time changing fonts and other settings to make a document fit on a certain number of pages, you'll appreciate WordPerfect's new Make It Fit Expert. This step- saver can, for example, take your letter that is just slightly more than one page and shrink it down to fit on one. But Make It Fit doesn't just shrink a document. It can also take your 9- page report or newsletter and automatically expand it out to 12 pages or more. The best part is that you decide what settings can be changed—fonts, spacing, or margins. You write the text, and WordPerfect 6.1's Expert will Make It Fit the number of pages you need.

Multiple Level Undo/Redo

In order to give you the freedom to safely explore document editing and formatting options, WordPerfect 6.1 offers you up to 300 levels of Undo/Redo. Anything you do in your document can be undone, and then redone if needed. To make your shared documents secure, Undo/Redo gives you the ability to erase the changes from the document when you save it.

QuickFormat with AutoUpdate

If you already use QuickFormat in WordPerfect for Windows, you know how easy it is to "load" formatting from one section of text and "paint" it to other locations. Now with WordPerfect 6.1, QuickFormat lets you tie text together so that if you make formatting changes in one location, all other text you painted is automatically and dynamically updated to match. This is especially useful for headings and titles that might be scattered throughout your document but need to look the same. QuickFormat is the easist way to automatically to make and keep your documents looking great.

QuickSelect

After typing, selecting text is the most common editing task performed, so it makes sense to build as much intelligence into that process as possible. WordPerfect 6.1 does a number of things with selection, such as automatically selecting entire words as you extend your selection to multiple words; applying attributes, such as bold or italic, to an entire word if nothing is selected; and giving you easy access to selection options, such as sentence, paragraph, page, and the entire document by clicking the right mouse button in the left margin.

Intelligent Cut and Paste

Whenever you move text using cut and paste or drag and drop, there are many cases where you have to go back and manually add or delete space characters, often in both the old and new locations. WordPerfect 6.1 is intelligent enough to automatically perform these steps after copying or moving text, letting the software work for you.

Open As Copy

Our research showed that one of the most common things people do is open existing documents and reuse them for new tasks, but their concern is always accidentally overwriting the old file with the changes. So WordPerfect 6.1 made this common task easy with an Open As Copy option in the Open dialog. Simply check this option when opening a file, and it will appear in WordPerfect 6.1 without a name but with all the content and formatting of the original. You can then edit it as needed without worrying about losing the original document. A simple thing perhaps, but one that we know will save you steps, because you told us that's how you like to work.

Drop Cap

A great way to add a professional touch to documents is to use a drop cap at the start of a paragraph. In WordPerfect 6.1, this is done easily by making one menu selection. You can choose from any of 14 pre-defined styles, or customize your drop caps with line size, margin positioning, borders, and fills. Not only will your documents look nice, but when you use a drop cap in WordPerfect 6.1, your paragraphs will still function correctly with all other features, such as the spell and grammar checkers.

Drag to Create

WordPerfect for Windows has for years had great graphics handling abilities, including graphic styles that let you pre-determine where images and text in boxes should be and how they should look. But if you wanted to pre-determine a location for images or make them a size different from the default, you had to change them after the fact. Now with WordPerfect 6.1, you can place a graphics image or text box in just the right place by drawing it exactly where you want it at insertion time. Once you select Drag to Create, you can continue to use it for graphics, text boxes, equations—any kind of box you might use to enhance the look and functionality of your documents.

Transition Easier

WordPerfect 6.1 for Windows provides a host of tools, in the form of conversions, Experts, Coaches, Tutorials, and more, to make the transition from DOS or other environments to WordPerfect 6.1 as smooth as possible.

Document Conversion

WordPerfect 6.1 provides the best conversions from the WordPerfect 5.x file format. Not only do your documents come in with the same appearance, but the structure also matches up, making it easy to edit those documents. In addition, WordPerfect 6.1 supports conversions for many other major application formats, such as Word 6.0 and Ami Pro 3.01, and converts WP 5.x macros, something no other product offers.

QuickStart Tutorial

To get you up and running quickly on WordPerfect 6.1, the QuickStart tutorial will launch the first time you use the product. This brief tour will familiarize you with the product interface and let you immediately feel at home in WordPerfect 6.1. If you ever need to, you can come back to QuickStart tutorial any time through the Coaches dialog.

Upgrade Expert

WordPerfect 6.1 makes it easy to upgrade from a previous version of WordPerfect or from other competing products with the Upgrade Expert. Providing "Show Me" and "Do It" buttons, as well as access to related Coaches and Help file information, the Upgrade Expert is the place to start to make your transition to WordPerfect smooth and pleasant.

New Coaches

Coaches have proven to be a popular tool not only for getting things done, but for learning more about WordPerfect in the process. New Coaches for WordPerfect 6.1 cover topics such as templates and styles, letting you easily take advantage of some of the most powerful product features the product has to offer.

Customer Support

WordPerfect, the Novell Applications Group, has the most renowned customer support effort in the industry. In fact, WordPerfect recently won PC World's World Class Award for the best support—for the fifth year in a row. WordPerfect, the Novell Applications Group, is still the only major software vendor to offer toll free support. That means to get all your technical questions answered, you can use free, toll-free support for 180 days after your first phone call.

Integrate Perfectly

WordPerfect 6.1 plays a key role in Novell's new suite of applications, PerfectOffice 3.0. Many enhancements have been made to make the applications in PerfectOffice work well together. In addition, WordPerfect 6.1 supports key integration technologies that let it work with all other Windows applications so you can get your work done in the way that is best for you.

Common Interface

The products in PerfectOffice 3.0 share a common interface; the menus, toolbars, and general appearance are decidedly similar, making them easy to learn and use. This standardization and simplification of interface benefits all users of WordPerfect 6.1, but especially those who use more than one application from PerfectOffice 3.0.

PerfectFit Technology

PerfectFit Technology allows WordPerfect applications under Windows to share a number of features and capabilities, as well as a common macro language. PerfectFit not only reduces the amount of memory and disk space required by the applications by letting them share common code, but it further enhances the common look and feel of all PerfectOffice programs. For example, with PerfectFit, all PerfectOffice 3.0 applications, including WordPerfect 6.1, have a common spell checker and the same file management tools in the Open and Save dialogs.

PerfectScript

As part of PerfectFit technology, PerfectOffice 3.0 is the first suite of applications to offer cross-product macro recording, called PerfectScript. Just like recording a simple macro in WordPerfect itself, PerfectScript makes it easy to create custom automated solutions that use one or a combination of PerfectOffice applications.

OLE 2

OLE is a powerful way to build compound documents and let applications work together.WordPerfect 6.1 supports OLE 2 as both a container and a server, allowing for in- place editing of objects in WordPerfect documents, drag-and-drop across programs and documents windows, and linking or embedding of any OLE object such as graphics, data, sound, or other multimedia elements.

Network Support

If you're working on a network, WordPerfect 6.1 is designed to make it easy. From powerful network installation and configuration abilities to full Universal Naming Convention support at install time, the product runs very well on a network right out of the box and offers you the ability to set it up as freely or as tightly controlled as you like for your business and environment.

Object Exchange (OBEX)

OBEX provides the ability to easily share data across a network, phone line, or other method of communication, something other standards do not offer today. WordPerfect 6.1 supports OBEX publish and subscribe, allowing you to easily exchange data with other OBEX enabled applications such as Quattro Pro and Paradox.

ODBC and IDAPI

WordPerfect has long provided the ability to directly access spreadsheet data in documents. WordPerfect 6.0 added database access for dBase, Paradox, SQL, and other formats, making it simple to import or link data from any of these sources. Now with ODBC and IDAPI support, WordPerfect 6.1 supports the latest database programs, including Microsoft Access and Borland dBase for Windows. You can access all data tables and fields and perform queries on the data before importing it into your documents.

TWAIN

TWAIN support in WordPerfect 6.1 allows you to easily include scanned images with your work. Just select the menu option in WordPerfect, scan the image, and bring it right back into your document. WordPerfect is the first and only word processor to support TWAIN, the industry standard for scanning created by major vendors such as Hewlett-Packard and Logitech.

Open Document Management API (ODMA)

WordPerfect 6.1 supports ODMA for document management which provides tight integration with products such as Novell SoftSolutions. Support for ODMA, the industry standard, allows WordPerfect and SoftSolutions to work together seamlessly to provide users with the best combination of word processing and document management services.

© 1994 Novell, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.

This information is accurate to the best knowledge of Novell, Inc. based on product comparisons completed by Novell, Inc. on August 4, 1994. These comparison results are subject to change as products are updated or modified. Novell, Inc. makes no warranties, express or implied, in this comparison. Purchasers are encouraged to personally evaluate all products.

WordPerfect, WPWin, Grammatik, and QuickList are registered trademarks of Novell, Inc. within the United States and other countries. TextArt, WordPerfect Draw, QuickFinder, and QuickMenu are trademarks of Novell, Inc. worldwide. All other brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.