Make a small mistake and there's help available at hand. The PerfectExpert explains as to how to go about the various features. There's even a topic on Microsoft Word Help in HTML format that explains the basic how-to's in making the suite design on par with MS Office. Sound effects also liven up the environment. If you don't have a soundcard then the PC speaker occasionally beeps itself.

The entire package comes with 2 CD-ROMS, a recovery floppy and two manuals. The second manual shows the entire clipart collection on paper while the first one explains on how to install and use Corel WordPerfect. However the manual leaves much to be desired. Dependancy problems are not even mentioned in the book. The basic part of installing the suite is itself wrong. The manual mentions that one needs to type "setup" to install while the real way to install is to type "./setup". Depend on the manual only to know the basic features of Corel but for troubleshooting, this book is a piece of junk. Email-id's written in the book took a fairly long time to respond and some of them did not care to follow up after a couple of replies.

Star Office is yet another player in this office warfare. Both Corel and Star Office offer same functionality with different appearances. Star Office scores a lot better over Corel when it comes to installing. The Setup screen shows the amount of disk space required and also gives the option of installing in a different directory. Plus the suite can be started with zero reboots. Like previous versions, one still cannot import Corel Documents into Star Office and vice-versa. This is quite confusing since both the software run on Linux and yet compatibility issues keep popping up. Documents saved in MS Word Format can be imported without much hassle. A full Star Office Install consumes around 270MB space. Comparing on a one to one basis, the absence of a wide variety of clip art gallery and slow loading time gives Corel the upper hand. To start Star Office the usual "./soffice" command needs to be typed. This might bug some users as Corel makes it's own icons in the "Applications" menu making it simpler to start and use.

To summarize, both the suites are similar to MS Office and are leaves of the same tree. Each one is winner in its own way. When it comes to choosing between the two suites if you don't mind the installation hassles, Corel WordPerfect 2000 is a smart choice.

Product Reviewed: Corel Word Perfect Office 2000.

Developed by : Corel

Package Contents: Two CD's. One contains WordPerfect 2000 and the other contains more than 12000+ cliparts.