How do I go back and forth between Word and WordPerfect?

[Guest]

Is the .rtf extension the best way to go back and forth between Word and
WordPerfect with a minimum of imcompatibility? I am not yet familiar with
Word but I'm very familiar with WordPerfect. I'm revising Word documents
sent to me but I'm doing the revisions in WordPerfect. Thanks in advance.

 

[Tom Ferguson]

Microsoft Word and Corel Word Perfect use different file formats. That
simple statement hides a problem of great complexity. Word and Word
Perfect use totally different models of document structure. In short,
there is no simple answer to your question. So, it is not to avoid your
question that I must ask; what do you mean by "a minimum of
incompatibility?"

If you mean to ask what format to use so thet the resulting file can be
opened in either programme without causing a system error, rtf will do.
If you mean, what format to use that will accurately maintain all
formatting, nothing shall-especially with round-trip conversions. And, in
the end, you will simply have to try a variety of combinations with
typical document formatting.

Microsoft has gone to great lengths and expended a lot of resources
producing a good WP to Word filter. It works very well with a variety of
documents in one direction; WP to Word. Alas, the Word to WP conversion
ability was dropped from the most recent filter mostly because of
security converns. So, that takes us to the option of using the older
Microsoft filter. It also works well for most documents but can fail
spectacularly with complex formatting. e.g. two snakeing columns followed
by one followed by two with each section containing complexly-formatted
tables which in turn have MS Graph objects and imported Excel tables.

For many not-too-complex documents, the WP import filter works well.
However, you will find that formatting has to be "touched up". e.g. WP
has no concept of a continuous section break and inserts a page break.
And you still have the problem of convereting to Word when you have
completed the editing. If you save as word, and you have used any of WP's
more recent features, they might not survive the conversion to Word. And
if you save in WP, the formatting is preserved only to be lost in opening
using the Word converter to open.


Tom
MSMVP
Windows Shell/User




| Is the .rtf extension the best way to go back and forth between Word
and
| WordPerfect with a minimum of imcompatibility? I am not yet familiar
with
| Word but I'm very familiar with WordPerfect. I'm revising Word
documents
| sent to me but I'm doing the revisions in WordPerfect. Thanks in
advance.

 

[Charles Kenyon]

Tom's answer is thorough. If someone wants to use a Word Perfect document as
the basis for new Word documents, I advise saving a copy of the WP document
as plain text and pasting that text into a Word template that is set up
properly. Then format the text using styles in Word to make it look like the
original. Save as a new template and use that for Word documents.

If you look at a converted document, it is _very_ complex at the file level
even though it may look the same. It can make for a great deal of difficulty
editing.

If this is going to be much of your work in the future, I would advise
getting and learning Word. It will not be a painless process, but will be
worthwhile. You'll end up with more satisfied clients and less hair-pulling
on your part. I have a whole page of advice / links that I send people
making this transition; let me know if you want it.
--
Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide


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[aalaan]

I second Charles' remarks. I used to be a devoted WP user (in pre-windows
times) and I have still got extensive WP documents archived. Initially I
resisted Word because of the perceived arrogance of Microsoft. But when I took
the plunge, I realised how much better Word actually is. There appear to be the
odd bugs but what you can do with it is simply marvellous (eg comments and track
revision), as well as Word being probably the acceptable standard. It's well
worth the transition. Occasionally I look at my WP documents via Word, and note
that it is quite erratic with font conversions. So what I do now is use my old
WP (from a DOS window) for all casual inspections. If I want to go further, I
convert to Word and manually clean up the result. I am using W98, Word 2000.