Word vs WordPerfect for Larger Academic Papers

When I was on my Mac, I primarily transitioned to Nisus Writer Pro for all of my Academic papers over Word for Mac since it did a better job handling Hebrew fonts, as well as had overall better performance and flexibility.

Now that I'm on a Windows workstation as my primary machine, I've been using Word for Windows this past week in school, and it handled my documents OK in terms of performance and formatting, but they were shorter documents than I usually prepare, plus I'll be preparing much longer/larger academic papers in the future (such as when I go for my PhD).

For those documents, should I stick with Word for Windows or look into WordPerfect? How does WordPerfect compare to Word in terms of ease of formatting, performance, etc., and how well does it handle RTL languages such as Hebrew?

Thanks!

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DominicM

I have mutltiple documents over 600k words and over 225 pages in Word, I do backup - but haven't experienced any significant lag after opening - saving can take 45secs - so far have had no corruption in office365

George Somsel

Years ago I would use WordPerfect in DOS thinking it superior to Word, but I got the impression that it didn't keep up with developments. I wasn't even sure that WordPerfect was still in production. Use whichever seems best to you.

mab

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/830696#Comment_830696

WordPerfect was sold to Corel some time back. As far as I know, it's defunct.

You might want to see how LibreOffice works for you. Or look at Nota Bene which is made for academic, multi-lingual work.

I'm no fan of Word, but I'd test it through before ditching it. Nobody really cares what word processor you use if it is reliable.

Don

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/830698#Comment_830698

I prefer WordPerfect mainly because of Alt/F3 to reveal the embedded codes. It has been a long time since I used Hebrew fonts, so I am not sure how the current version of WordPerfect handles them. I have X7. The current version is X8.

JT (alabama24)

Do you submit print assignments? Is that still a thing? [:P]

If so, use what you like. In many cases students are required to submit assignments in Word format.

Rene Atchley

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/830706#Comment_830706

I should have used WordPerfect for my doctoral project but didn't. Almost didn't complete the document (and degree) on time because of formatting difficulties with Word. My advise? Stay with WordPerfect for completion of documents in a timely manner.

Greg Corbin

I did all of my doctoral work in Word and use it every day with no issues.

Nathan Parker

Thanks everyone for the feedback. Here's why I was asking...

On the Mac, I had nothing but trouble with Word. Performance was laggy, Hebrew support was almost non-existent until recently, etc. So on the Mac, I definitely had to switch to Nisus Writer Pro for all of my assignments just to get through them all.

On Windows, so far (which I've only used Word for Windows for one week for school) Word has been running excellent. It's Hebrew support is working, performance seems fine, and I was able to quickly put together an assignment, format it, and get it to my professors without any hassle.

Then again, this was a really small assignment, so I haven't had a chance to "battle test" Word for Windows more.

My biggest concern is when I need to start working on more extensive papers, is Word still going to hold up, or will it crack under pressure?

I've never used WordPerfect, so I'm not sure of a direct comparison between the two. Basically I'm looking for: 1. Good performance for large papers, 2. Stability and reliability, 3. The ability to quickly and flexibly make formatting changes to my documents (Nisus Writer Pro was fantastic at this, Word for Windows so far has been OK but then again, I've only scratched the surface with this assignment), and 4. Solid Hebrew support when I need it.

All of my assignments are electronic, and they'll take Word or PDF format, so the word processor I write on doesn't matter. I just want to know if those who have used Word vs WordPerfect vs other programs for academic use are still sticking with Word for everything or if it's worth the money to spend on WordPerfect of an alternative.

Thanks!

George Somsel

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/830714#Comment_830714

On the Mac, I had nothing but trouble with Word. Performance was laggy, Hebrew support was almost non-existent until recently, etc. So on the Mac, I definitely had to switch to Nisus Writer Pro for all of my assignments just to get through them all.

I'm tempted to ask whether the problem was with Word or with the MAC, but I'll refrain since I had some negative experience with Word and Hebrew; however, that was quite some time ago. I had been a beta tester for the Office 2000 suite and continued to use Word 2000 for some time thereafter until I tried doing some work on Hebrew involving longer portions of the language. I then found that the order of the letters did not remain stable, and I was becoming extremely frustrated. It was only after I switched to Word 2003 that I had success with Word and Hebrew (This was a Windows machine). Today I think Word for Windows should work fine.

Allen Browne

Word is fine for large documents (hundreds of thousands of words).

Make sure you use the built-in heading styles.

Use the Navigation Map.

Sean

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/830698#Comment_830698

You might want to see how LibreOffice works for you. Or look at Nota Bene which is made for academic, multi-lingual work.

I use these two. I used Nota Bene for my post-grad theses, and while I don't like some of the directions its development has taken the past few years (they struggled a lot with getting out a 64-bit-compatible version for Windows), it's designed specifically for academic work. IME Greek & Hebrew paste perfectly from Logos, and you can go into its code view to have complete control over any formatting you bring over. Its user interface, however, looks about 15 years behind the rest of the world.

There is a free 30-day trial version. You'd want the Lingua Workstation version for the language work.

I use NB only for academic writing. I use LibreOffice for everything else because I refuse to pay for more than one word processor.

Rich DeRuiter

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/830714#Comment_830714

Nathan, I used to use WordPerfect and was a dedicated WP user. Once it was sold to Corel, they did almost nothing with it, except a few cosmetic enhancements (for which they charged, of course).

The biggest reason I switched to MS Word, is that WP doesn't work with unicode fonts. Back in the day, the WordPerfect corporation developed some innovations that made it cutting edge for foreign language work. But those innovations are incompatible with unicode. That means that typing in Hebrew or Greek requires a special language fonts for those languages. It also means you can't copy/paste from Logos (which uses unicode).

Word is very stable. However you may still wish to divide very large projects into multiple files simply for convenience. You can fairly easily reassemble them later into a single document. The caveat is that you need to use the same formatting template for all documents, otherwise copy/pasting them into a single document later (if required) could be problematic.

One final thing to think about is that some institutions require papers to be submitted in electronic format. If so, the industry standard is MS Word. While WP can export to MS Word, the results are less than stellar. Check with your institution for its requirements, as these have changed in the last few years, and are still changing in some places.

Libre Office can read/write both formats, though not perfectly either (IMHO). I don't find Libre Office to be very easy to work with. As a student, you should be able to get a pretty good discount on a Student/Home Edition for MS Office or for Office 365.

Nathan Parker

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/830720#Comment_830720

On the Mac, I had nothing but trouble with Word. Performance was laggy, Hebrew support was almost non-existent until recently, etc. So on the Mac, I definitely had to switch to Nisus Writer Pro for all of my assignments just to get through them all.

I'm tempted to ask whether the problem was with Word or with the MAC, but I'll refrain since I had some negative experience with Word and Hebrew; however, that was quite some time ago. I had been a beta tester for the Office 2000 suite and continued to use Word 2000 for some time thereafter until I tried doing some work on Hebrew involving longer portions of the language. I then found that the order of the letters did not remain stable, and I was becoming extremely frustrated. It was only after I switched to Word 2003 that I had success with Word and Hebrew (This was a Windows machine). Today I think Word for Windows should work fine.

In terms of Hebrew, Word for Windows has supposed Hebrew well at least since 2003, but on the Mac, full RTL/Hebrew support was flat nonexistent until very very recently. It was a feature Microsoft really dragged their feet on.

In terms of my other performance issues with Word for Mac, it was probably my Mac partially at fault, plus El Capitan really caused grief for Office for Mac when I upgraded to it (I was told El Capitan would solve all my issues with Yosemite and be more stable...not quite).

Hence why I gave up and used Nisus Writer Pro (I have a copy of Mellel as well but NWP seemed to export formatting cleaner than Mellel).

On Word for Windows, Hebrew has been very clean and "just works" without any grief.

Nathan Parker

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/830728#Comment_830728

You might want to see how LibreOffice works for you. Or look at Nota Bene which is made for academic, multi-lingual work.

I use these two. I used Nota Bene for my post-grad theses, and while I don't like some of the directions its development has taken the past few years (they struggled a lot with getting out a 64-bit-compatible version for Windows), it's designed specifically for academic work. IME Greek & Hebrew paste perfectly from Logos, and you can go into its code view to have complete control over any formatting you bring over. Its user interface, however, looks about 15 years behind the rest of the world.

There is a free 30-day trial version. You'd want the Lingua Workstation version for the language work.

I use NB only for academic writing. I use LibreOffice for everything else because I refuse to pay for more than one word processor.

Thanks for the info. Do you feel that Nota Bene is worth the investment for academic work, or if I get into a solid workflow with Word for Windows, would I be better off with it. Do you feel that Nota Bene has anything solid to offer for academic work that Word doesn't have?

Nathan Parker

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/830729#Comment_830729

Nathan, I used to use WordPerfect and was a dedicated WP user. Once it was sold to Corel, they did almost nothing with it, except a few cosmetic enhancements (for which they charged, of course).

The biggest reason I switched to MS Word, is that WP doesn't work with unicode fonts. Back in the day, the WordPerfect corporation developed some innovations that made it cutting edge for foreign language work. But those innovations are incompatible with unicode. That means that typing in Hebrew or Greek requires a special language fonts for those languages. It also means you can't copy/paste from Logos (which uses unicode).

Word is very stable. However you may still wish to divide very large projects into multiple files simply for convenience. You can fairly easily reassemble them later into a single document. The caveat is that you need to use the same formatting template for all documents, otherwise copy/pasting them into a single document later (if required) could be problematic.

One final thing to think about is that some institutions require papers to be submitted in electronic format. If so, the industry standard is MS Word. While WP can export to MS Word, the results are less than stellar. Check with your institution for its requirements, as these have changed in the last few years, and are still changing in some places.

Libre Office can read/write both formats, though not perfectly either (IMHO). I don't find Libre Office to be very easy to work with. As a student, you should be able to get a pretty good discount on a Student/Home Edition for MS Office or for Office 365.

Thanks for the info. Since I pretty much exclusively work with Unicode when it comes to Biblical Language fonts, that alone is a deal breaker to even consider it. I definitely need full Unicode support in my word processor.

I do have access to Word for Windows through my school as part of Office 365, and it's working great for me so far, so I guess I just need to stick with it and keep running with it. :-)

Thanks again everyone for the info!

Sean

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/830732#Comment_830732

Thanks for the info. Do you feel that Nota Bene is worth the investment for academic work, or if I get into a solid workflow with Word for Windows, would I be better off with it. Do you feel that Nota Bene has anything solid to offer for academic work that Word doesn't have?

I've not used a more recent version of MS Word than 2007 (?), so it's difficult for me to make a comparison. The biggest advantage of NB is its bibliography management; I don't know what all Word offers in that area. NB has a database that you enter all your works into once, then you make a citation from them with a click of a button. It comes with many preformatted style manuals (e.g., Turabian, Chicago), and dozens of ready-made citation formations. Again you can change them with a few clicks--go from Turabian to MLA, parenthetical notation to footnotes to endnotes, etc.--and the program handles all of it for you. It does have a few quirks but seems to handle these functions well enough. N.T. Wright uses it for all of his books.

Again, I don't know how well Word compares in those areas. Since I already have my NB database built up with hundreds of works, I'd be very reluctant to switch over to try it out. Someone without that investment may find it easier just to stick with Word.

Wikipedia has some a useful overview, though it hasn't been updated in a year and a half.

Nathan Parker

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/830737#Comment_830737

Thanks for the info. Do you feel that Nota Bene is worth the investment for academic work, or if I get into a solid workflow with Word for Windows, would I be better off with it. Do you feel that Nota Bene has anything solid to offer for academic work that Word doesn't have?

I've not used a more recent version of MS Word than 2007 (?), so it's difficult for me to make a comparison. The biggest advantage of NB is its bibliography management; I don't know what all Word offers in that area. NB has a database that you enter all your works into once, then you make a citation from them with a click of a button. It comes with many preformatted style manuals (e.g., Turabian, Chicago), and dozens of ready-made citation formations. Again you can change them with a few clicks--go from Turabian to MLA, parenthetical notation to footnotes to endnotes, etc.--and the program handles all of it for you. It does have a few quirks but seems to handle these functions well enough. N.T. Wright uses it for all of his books.

Again, I don't know how well Word compares in those areas. Since I already have my NB database built up with hundreds of works, I'd be very reluctant to switch over to try it out. Someone without that investment may find it easier just to stick with Word.

Wikipedia has some a useful overview, though it hasn't been updated in a year and a half.

Sounds good. Usually for my bibliography I use Logos then export to my word processor, and for non-Logos stuff, my seminary is recommending I check into Zotero since it's cross-platform. I'll also check out the NB website and compare it to Word and see if I feel it'd be worth the money for my workflow. If I can do just about all of that on Word, then I'll stick with Word, but it doesn't hurt to compare for sure. Thanks for the info. My biggest thing I want out of a word processor is good performance, good reliability, good Biblical Language support, and flexible formatting so when I have to do big time work, it'll handle it. If Word can handle all of that, fantastic. If I need something else, I'm open to it. I've used enough different word processors now to get comfortable with just about anything. :-)

DominicM

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/830749#Comment_830749

If you ever go bark to the Darkside (Mac) or even Linux, then Docx is a standard format, read by many applications, the notabene might not be

George Somsel

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/830992#Comment_830992

If you ever go bark to the Darkside (Mac)

I like that — well said. [:D]

Nathan Parker

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/830992#Comment_830992

If you ever go bark to the Darkside (Mac) or even Linux, then Docx is a standard format, read by many applications, the notabene might not be

True. NB runs on a Mac, but I've never tried it. My last remaining Mac is getting old and worn out, and when it goes, I'm likely to be running 100% Windows.

Main reason I switched back to Windows was for better hardware service. Our lack of a solid way to get Macs repaired in Arkansas is what drove me to a Dell workstation. I have 24/7 support with next business day on site service in the event I need it. With Apple it's drive to a crime infested city for minor repairs or ship the Mac off to a repair facility that totally butchered my MacBook Pro. I just can't trust Apple's hardware repair service for mission-critical needs. In GA, we had a great Apple repair facility at the store, but alas, not here in Arkansas.

I love Linux, but it'll never be practical enough for my needs. I will be running it in a VM on my workstation so I can run AWIPS II. At least I can have fun with that and geek out. :-)

Nathan Parker

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/831023#Comment_831023

Well tonight Word became very unstable tonight around page 11 on a Hebrew assignment I was working on. It kept crashing when I tried opening my document. I finally got it running again after a reboot, but now I'm getting leery about Word's stability again. I might need to trial NB.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/831176#Comment_831176

I've not had trouble with Word other than it becoming slow as I reach book length documents unless I split them - a feature Logos does not handle.

Sean

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/831176#Comment_831176

Well tonight Word became very unstable tonight around page 11 on a Hebrew assignment I was working on. It kept crashing when I tried opening my document. I finally got it running again after a reboot, but now I'm getting leery about Word's stability again. I might need to trial NB.

I have had crashes in NB before, but that was several versions ago and never anything that a reboot couldn't fix. I've never tried such extensive work in Hebrew though (*shudder*). It does have good backup and recovery options; I have mine set to autosave every two minutes.

It does support export files to Word, but only as RTFs. I've submitted an article for publication that way, but I wouldn't recommend it for group projects where back-and-forth collaboration is necessary.

Rich DeRuiter

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/831176#Comment_831176

Well tonight Word became very unstable tonight around page 11 on a Hebrew assignment I was working on. It kept crashing when I tried opening my document. I finally got it running again after a reboot, but now I'm getting leery about Word's stability again. I might need to trial NB.

Are you sure it's Word and not OneDrive? I've had issues with OneDrive's updating causing Word to crash. Does this happen when you move your file to a non-OneDrive directory and work on it from there?

EastTN

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/831178#Comment_831178

The only time I've had Word become unstable is with very long documents with multiple embedded charts and spreadsheets (I was working as a consulting actuary at the time). Sometimes the formatting on these documents would become unstable.

SineNomine

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/831176#Comment_831176

That crashing may not be a problem with Word.

Al Het

I know I'm late to the game on this thread (I'm often not on this forum for days or weeks at a time), but I'm assuming you still want more people's experiences...

I'm surprised you've had problems with Word, while on a Windows machine. Having issues with Microsoft software when using on a Mac doesn't surprise me. However, I haven't had stability problems on Word for perhaps a decade or more. That said, I don't upgrade each time new software comes out, so I can't speak to any versions of Word made in the last 5 years or so.

I used Word Perfect for many years, until around 2005. I never had any problems with it, either. Used it all the way through Seminary, writing papers using both Greek and Hebrew, and wrote hundreds of sermon outlines, where I also imported Greek and Hebrew from Logos. The only problems I had with it was when I was opening one version of WP document with Greek or Hebrew, with another, newer version of WP. I liked it, and would not have switched, except that I began exchanging documents with others on my staff, all of whom were on MS Word. Converting documents didn't do that well for me at the time. I was also uncertain of how long WP would be around, as we were pretty much the only ones I knew who used it. So, I made the switch.

Someone on this thread mentioned being able to bring up the formatting codes for a document (Alt+f3, I think). That was awesome. If you had a formatting issue, you could bring up the formatting, and literally just delete or change what you couldn't see on the regular document. It was great. Outside of that, they worked pretty much the same.

As far as Word's stability, I've written documents of hundreds of pages. These did not have significant quantities of Greek or Hebrew, but in each of them, I included some Greek and/or Hebrew words. Outside of times that it was saving, I never even noticed any lag time.

I would agree with those who say, go with what you have and you like, but DO back up at reasonable intervals. You should be just fine.

Last thing - Someone suggested LibreOffice. I've used it as well, hoping it might be stable enough that I wouldn't have to buy newer versions of Word over time. I have had some freezing issues with it (only a couple of times) but have never lost information. I'm still alittle skittish with it, though. I'd like to hear of some mid to large sized businesses using it exclusively, with good effect, for me to be confident. Those are the places that bugs often get best wrung out of software. That said, I do know of many people, including a couple of small businesses, that use it exclusively. It is legitimate software, and you can't beat the price...

Hope this helps.

Nathan Parker

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/831257#Comment_831257

Thanks everyone for the feedback. In terms of saving, I was saving locally vs to OneDrive. I typically save all my documents locally while they're "in progress", then upload them to OneDrive for Business (aka a glorified SharePoint library; different backend from consumer OneDrive) when I'm finished with them so if a tornado wipes me out, I can still retrieve my documents. :-)

The issue with Word "might" have been font related from another document I brought over from my Mac. I had that document open while I was working in the main paper. For the rest of the semester, I'll be creating all my documents from scratch on my Windows machine, so that might help.

I'm comparing WordPerfect vs Nota Bene as a possible "back up" in case I still have stability issues with Word. Not sure which one would be better for my use for academic purposes. I may trial both then decide.

I've also wondered if I could try installing "Word Mobile" on my machine as a backup before investing in another word processor, so if desktop Word started throwing fits, I could quickly transition into "Word Mobile" while I finish an assignment. It wouldn't be as powerful as desktop Word but could get me through an assignment then worry about what's bugging desktop Word later.

As for LibreOffice, I've used it in the past, but I find Word's performance better, and I've had a few compatibility issues with it, and also just the fact that I've had to bang my head against the wall to get it to do what I need. For the typical average person, I'd recommend it even over Word if all one does is light stuff. For academic use, it's a little weak for my needs.

Nathan Parker

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/831339#Comment_831339

I've been giving Nota Bene a trial run, and especially with the sale going on with it at the moment, I will probably go for it. The more I interact with it, the more powerful and flexible and "luxurious" it is for academic use. I love how everything integrates together. The interface is a little daunting and dated at first glance, but once one gets the hang of it, boy is it a academic's dream. The program can export to RTF and PDF, and my college (and other colleges I know) are beginning to recommend PDF for submissions to preserve formatting, so I "should" be OK if I moved everything over to it. It can run on a Mac (and possibly Linux) under WINE if I ever needed to do it, plus with RTF exporting, I can take my documents anywhere I needed to if need be.

Sales and Support have been excellent so far. They understand biblical scholar's needs and know exactly what I'm referring to when I ask them questions. I don't even have to bring in my templates from my seminary into NB. Turabian 8 is already built in and formats papers better than I do myself. When I called Corel about WordPerfect, I got someone from outside the US who had no idea what I was asking and knew practically nothing about the program.

Sean

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/832986#Comment_832986

Glad to hear it! It's nice to see a smaller company win every once in a while. I've not used NB's RTF export too often but haven't had any problems when I have.

(Ironically, two hours ago I just subscribed to Office 365, not to replace NB but LibreOffice. I'm just having too many problems with Presentations and other churchy things I have to share.)

Nathan Parker

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/832996#Comment_832996

Glad to hear it! It's nice to see a smaller company win every once in a while. I've not used NB's RTF export too often but haven't had any problems when I have.

(Ironically, two hours ago I just subscribed to Office 365, not to replace NB but LibreOffice. I'm just having too many problems with Presentations and other churchy things I have to share.)

NB seems like it's going to be rock solid for my academic needs and a tool I will use for the rest of my life for sure.

I'm keeping my Office 365 subscription as well and not totally tossing MS Office. I still need Word for "business documents" (even my General Counsel's office uses Word), plus occasionally I use Excel, and now that I'm away from a Mac, PowerPoint will be used more now that I don't have access to Keynote (except in a web browser). I also use Outlook as my primary mail client, OneNote for my to-do list (although that is free now), and occasionally I may need Publisher for the real estate clients I consult with. So I still have plenty of reasons to keep Office around and am not totally parting with it, but for academic papers, I need a dedicated program that won't crack under pressure. Word is fine for my light "business documents", but after already having it crack under not too heavy of a paper, I know I need to dedicate my academic work elsewhere. It's just another tool in my toolbox for getting the job done.

Nathan Parker

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/833085#Comment_833085

One more thing to throw into the discussion...

Since my workstation is having to be clean installed with Windows next week due to a Dell rep remoting into my system and corrupting the OS (it still boots, it's just a little unstable), I decided to throw the WordPerfect trial on my machine just to see how it compares with Word and Nota Bene which I just purchased.

Short answer: It is NOT a good choice for biblical students.

Longer Answer: It horribly butchers Hebrew and has zero R-T-L support. Field Codes are interesting for fine-tuning formatting, but not enough to move away from Word for business-documents for. The rest of the tools included in the suite are vastly inferior to Microsoft Office and just a bunch of "fluff" I'd never use.

Summary: For business documents, stick with Word. For an office suite, stick with Microsoft Office. For academic research and writing, stick with Nota Bene. The suite of tools in Nota Bene, unlike WordPerfect, are actually tools I as a student will use (Orbis will be a dream for searching research files, Ibidem will be a dream for citing papers, and Archiva will be great for bringing in citation information into Ibidem, and Lingua handles languages beautifully). Nota Bene is definitely the solid academic choice, and Word is perfectly adequate for business documents, and WordPerfect struggles heavily with biblical fonts and isn't vastly superior to Word for business documents to warrant purchasing it.

depdad

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/830698#Comment_830698

I used to use WordPerfect, and it was great. But I don't see any recent versions that would be compatible with Windows 10, etc. Microsoft Word is very good. I'd stay away from LibreOffice. Our agency (Sheriff's Office) went to LibreOffice TO SAVE MONEY. It does not work very well at all. I stick with Microsoft Word.

Robert Harner

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/837261#Comment_837261

I used to use WordPerfect, and it was great. But I don't see any recent versions that would be compatible with Windows 10

I have WordPerfect X4 on one Win10 machine and WordPerfect X8 (the latest) on 2 Win10 machines. They work fine.