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It comes on two CD’s the first has all the applications and the second has a great deal of clipart all browseable from Acrobat but not installed. The installation took 20 minutes and 1200MB of hard disc space. I installed everything and the installer was clever enough not to try to install Acrobat Reader 6, Internet Explorer 6 and Visual Basic for Applications 6.3 all of which were already on the PC. I think at least half the installation time was taken by Norton Internet Security (90 day version). The full packages you get are Word Perfect 12, Quattro Pro 12, Presentations 12, Paint Shop Pro 9, WordPerfect Mail,  OfficeReady, Business Essentials, Business Plans and Task Manager.

You end up with five icons on the Desktop but everything can be run from Task Manager. For the novice this is probably the easiest way as it has a short description of what each program does to help you decide what program you need for what task.

See also: Productivity

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Like all integrated packages it is a little overwhelming in the first instance. However for the younger members who have had Microsoft rammed down their throats from first contact with a Word Processor they will find a mode that is almost identical and be able to do most things without any scratching of the head.

Quattro Pro the spreadsheet module is not 100% Excel compatible but the differences are slight and a little practice should find little difficulties.

Presentations the Power Point type package is perfectly acceptable and anyone who makes presentations should be able to adjust without too many headaches.

Business Essentials and Business Plans are almost self explanatory and can be of used without a lot of preparations.

Paint Shop Pro is something that came Corel’s way quite recently and was a product that retailed for almost the cost of this whole package. For anyone who needs to manipulate graphics - and a whole lot more - but cannot justify the price or the effort in learning Adobe Photo Shop then Paint Shop Pro is a good second and has a far less steep learning curve.

While this will run on Windows 98SE should you run Windows XP I note it will only work for those having upgraded to SP2, all the specifications I am pleased to say are shown on the rear of the DVD case and while it is stated to run in 128MB it does recommend 512MB.

In the 80's Word Perfect was ‘king’ then through several owners it was neglected now Corel are promoting it again and such statements as ‘Microsoft Office Compatible’ are required and will continue to be for at least a generation if the ‘king’ is to regain his throne again. From my point of view I am sad not to see the manual in paper form as certainly they used to be an excellent reference work. Now even the clipart is only browseable through Acrobat Reader.

The stated price is £149, this product is still very new any apart from buying from Corel direct (link below) I could only currently find it at www.amazon.co.uk

http://www.corel.co.uk/servlet/Satellite?pagename=Corel3Uk/Products/Display&pfid=1047024671338&pid=1047025046655