Corel Debuts Free WordPerfect Beta
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 27th Feb 2007 22:27 UTC
Features, Office Corel made a play for a piece of the Web 2.0 pie on Tuesday, releasing WordPerfect Lightning in beta, a free, compact version of its standard word processing suite that combines both online and offline functionality. The company is referring to the product as a Google Writely, Adobe Reader, and Microsoft OneNote competitor rolled into one. At 16MB, the entire program can be placed on a USB stick or burned to CD to allow for maximum portability.
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I only hope...
by fretinator on Tue 27th Feb 2007 22:57 UTC
fretinator
Member since:
2005-07-06

...that this breathes some life back into WordPerfect. I only wish I could use portable apps like this. I have a flash drive with OOO, Firefox, Xamp, etc. However, my environment at work will not allow this.

Many of my portable apps run well under Wine and Linux. I wonder if WP Lighting does? I think that would be another feature to distinguish this product.

Reply Score: 2

Link
by MamiyaOtaru on Tue 27th Feb 2007 23:34 UTC
MamiyaOtaru
Member since:
2005-11-11

I couldn't find a link to the beta in the betanews article linked here. It can be found on Corel's homepage, and is http://www.wordperfect.com/lightning

Unfortunately "to download a trial product you need an account." I'll check it out later. Don't feel like visiting mailinator right now.

Reply Score: 3

RE: Link
by Constantine XVI on Tue 27th Feb 2007 23:46 UTC in reply to "Link"
Constantine XVI Member since:
2006-11-02

To save everyone the trouble:
http://www.bugmenot.com/view/corel.com
I've yet to test in wine, I'll come back and say in a few mins

EDIT: installer broken in Wine

Edited 2007-02-27 23:48

Reply Score: 2

v RE[2]: Link
by Joe User on Wed 28th Feb 2007 00:18 UTC in reply to "RE: Link"
RE[3]: Link
by Constantine XVI on Wed 28th Feb 2007 00:31 UTC in reply to "RE[2]: Link"
Constantine XVI Member since:
2006-11-02

Where in Sam Hell did you get the idea that I need Windows Vista? I have a perfectly servicable WinXP Pro box sitting in the room over, which this works on. If I wanted Vista, I would get it over MSDN-AA. And I most certainly don't need the Ultimate edition
Given that this site is called OSnews, you might figure that not everyone on it uses Windows. I just figure that the non-Windows population might want to know what happens if they want to use it without Windows

Reply Score: 3

Too little, too late
by porcel on Wed 28th Feb 2007 00:31 UTC
porcel
Member since:
2006-01-28

Desperation is the name of the game.

With Google Writely, Openoffice and Koffice saving to ODF, anything else that doesn't is useless to me and my colleagues.

Thanks, but no thanks.

Reply Score: 1

RE: Too little, too late
by Moochman on Wed 28th Feb 2007 07:44 UTC in reply to "Too little, too late"
Moochman Member since:
2005-07-06

Supposedly they're adding ODF support into the next full version of WordPerfect... so maybe the final version of Lightning will also support it.

Edited 2007-02-28 07:46

Reply Score: 2

RE[2]: Too little, too late
by porcel on Wed 28th Feb 2007 18:07 UTC in reply to "RE: Too little, too late"
porcel Member since:
2006-01-28

If they do, they will then become viable to me. My customers and I have really seen how valuable our data is to have it at the mercy of anyone vendor.

Reply Score: 2

Joe User
Member since:
2005-06-29

"To send a note or document to WordPerfect, you will need to download a trial copy of Corel WordPerfect Office X3. Click Download Now to continue."

Alright, I'll stay with good old OpenOffice.org + WebDrive. It's better.

Reply Score: 2

Subject (Required)
by teki on Wed 28th Feb 2007 01:07 UTC
teki
Member since:
2006-03-29

Yep, it's not possible to create or edit documents.
It's only a note taking app like: http://keynote.sourceforge.net/

Reply Score: 1

RE: Subject (Required)
by Constantine XVI on Wed 28th Feb 2007 17:24 UTC in reply to "Subject (Required)"
Constantine XVI Member since:
2006-11-02

I have to say this is an poor clone of Tomboy. For twice*, us Linux users get something better than on Windows.

* See AmaroK

Reply Score: 1

this app is so sad...
by jasutton on Wed 28th Feb 2007 01:42 UTC
jasutton
Member since:
2006-03-28

It doesn't even deserve the WordPerfect name. I'm sorry, but Corel may have already struck out before even releasing the product this time.

I've been using versions of WordPerfect from the 5.1 days (yep, that would be the DOS version), and this product wasn't worth the bandwidth I spent downloading it ;)

Reply Score: 1

RE: this app is so sad...
by Javert on Wed 28th Feb 2007 14:43 UTC in reply to "this app is so sad..."
Javert Member since:
2007-02-28

Exactly. I have been using WP for just as long, and it took me a grand total of 50 seconds to uninstall it.

Reply Score: 1

Subject (Required)
by teki on Wed 28th Feb 2007 02:31 UTC
teki
Member since:
2006-03-29

Yep, it's even more interesting to release this level of functionality when something exists like this:
http://www.stikkit.com/
It's a web application which make me feel that "WordPerfect Ligthning" is just a joke.

Reply Score: 1

Erm..
by kaiwai on Wed 28th Feb 2007 03:18 UTC
kaiwai
Member since:
2005-07-06

It would be nice if Corel worked with wine developers to improve compatibility - not necessarily providing man power, but atleast when there are issues which wine stumbles accross when running Wordperfect Suite or Graphics Suite, Corel can come back and give a reason why it crashed or not working properly so that a given API call is implemented correctly.

I don't see Corel porting their software soon given that bad moves in the past almost bankrupted the company but at the same time, however, it would be nice if more companies worked with wine to make their Windows applications work seemlessly with wine as to allow those of us who wish to move, do so withthe knowledge that it works just as well on Wine as if we were running it on Windows natively.

Reply Score: 2

RE: Erm..
by Moochman on Wed 28th Feb 2007 07:53 UTC in reply to "Erm.."
Moochman Member since:
2005-07-06

Eh, I'm guessing their abandonment of Linux (and WordPerfect for Linux, and Mac versions of CorelDraw and WordPerfect) had more to do with Microsoft paying them off to focus on Windows exclusively than it had to do with them losing money on the Linux products.

On another note, if anyone recalls, Corel released a version of WordPerfect for Java (!) in 1997. I wonder what ever happened to that code?

Reply Score: 4

RE[2]: Erm..
by midoriconcept on Wed 28th Feb 2007 08:32 UTC in reply to "RE: Erm.."
midoriconcept Member since:
2006-12-01

Dunno, while I still remember Wordperfect for java.
Tried once on a P75 with 8 megs of ram...
I remember it took 20 minutes (!) just to load..

Reply Score: 2

RE[2]: Erm..
by lopisaur on Wed 28th Feb 2007 08:34 UTC in reply to "RE: Erm.."
lopisaur Member since:
2006-02-27

Hmm, I have to have a copy of WordPerfect 8 for Linux somewhere... wonder if it runs under Edgy.

Reply Score: 1

System Requirements
by Umbra on Wed 28th Feb 2007 06:49 UTC
Umbra
Member since:
2006-03-06

This is a Microsoft Windows only app, - just ins case you wondered :/

http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite/us/en/Product/1171405162480

Reply Score: 1

fancy notepad
by Robocoastie on Thu 1st Mar 2007 15:43 UTC
Robocoastie
Member since:
2005-09-15

It's a more portable version of Notepad or MSFT OneNote is all it is and is far from being a word processor. It's also windows only (though it might work in wine, I dunno). I've found it useful though for my college work already.

Reply Score: 1

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