If there were such a thing as a hospice for software, WordPerfect would have checked in a long time ago. Its fall from the summit to the cellar of the productivity-software market has few parallels in the business. But the program -- owned by Corel since 1996 and now sold mostly as part of an office suite -- has soldiered on. In the past two years it's even gained ground, thanks to aggressive bundling deals that put it on the hard drives of computers from Dell, Gateway, Hewlett-Packard and Sony.The new WordPerfect Office 11, however, isn't about to win any more converts. It offers few major changes (and fewer still that are relevant to home users) while leaving long-standing flaws. If you get a copy free on your next computer, you won't be terribly disappointed, but I can't recommend buying it over the competition.
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