Having been a New Zealand lawyer using W4W and coming to an academic
environment where the Computer Science gurus have shown me the differences
in using Wordperfect, I remain of the view that W4W is preferable in most
legal office situations. Where WordPerfect shines is if precise formatting
of documents, extensive importing of graphics or data from spread-sheets or
user-defined layout/indexing of long documents is required - although
defaults and options are provided, the user can create his/her own or edit
those provided. This is because all the "control codes" can be revealed
and changed.
In W4W, the control codes cannot be easily revealed nor changed without
programmimg at the source code level and so generally the user must use what
has been provided. Having said that, the layouts provided and level of
functionality will suit most needs and I certainly never felt the product to
be inadequate and W4W is a much easier product to learn and use - that may
not mean much to someone who has already mastered Wordperfect however.
It comes down to a choice between preferring enhanced ease of use or
enhanced configurability but if particular experience is available with one
or the other, there is little need to change, which would require the
conversion of existing documents with resulting risks of data/formayt losses.
Regards
Barry Allan
Assistant lecturer, Commercial law
Massey University, New Zealand
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