How much does Word perfect cost?

[JPinMaryland]

I have never bought a word processing program. Do people buy this or rip it off from friends and neighbors? Do I go to Best buy? or to ebay? or what? seriously I think I might want to use it for future what do you suggest?

[GameTheory]

Get OpenOffice. Entire office suite for free, just as good (and compatible with) MS Office.

openoffice.org

(install Java first if you haven't already)

[njcurveball]

Sounds like you dont need the latest/greatest. Do you have any friends who work in an office where they have this? When new versions come out, our dumpsters fill with old and legitimate copies.

This is the "intellectual license" that Microsoft talks about. Come up with ONE product and sell it to people over and over.

For a "newbie", Office 95 works just as well as the newer stuff. To be honest, I cannot think of one thing I am doing in Word now that I could not have done with the software from 10 years ago.

Jim

[Bala]

JP,

You don't have to pay an extortion tax to Microsoft.
GameTheory is right on!

Open Office http://www.openoffice.org/product/

and/or

602 pc suite http://www.software602.com/products/pcs/

are excellent free alternatives.




______________________________________
"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” ~ Albert Camus

“All good things are wild, and free.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

[JPinMaryland]

Thanks for all the help guys. I know these are basic questions, that are better left on some technical discussion board, but you know when you have a question, you always wind up asking the virtual community you hang out in.

Or your friends, if you have any.

Thx.

[JPinMaryland]

okay I'm looking at the openoffice stuff, but what if people send me docs. that are in wordperfect format and they want me to send them back in same? Will openoffice work for that?

[tupper]

I have OpenOffice 2.0, and it can import Word Perfect files (.wpd) but it looks like it cannot export the same format. It can export several other formats that Word Perfect might be able to import.

If the document doesn't have any fancy formatting, perhaps you can work on it and share it in Rich Test Format (.rtf), and make the final formatting touches in Word Perfect.

The free, Google word processor (which I mentioned in the other thread http://www.google.com/google-d-s/tour1.html ) is designed for collaborative work on the web, and one doesn't need to install software on one's computer -- one merely works on the document through a web browser.

[JPinMaryland]

oh is that what is going on with that google thing? That looks interesting