WordPerfect Office

What works

Quattro Pro works perfectly. I can save files, print files, open files.

Edit fields

What does not

Wordperfect

still has OLE2.REG dependancy. I saw some help about where to find the file and how to get it to initialize. I have been unable to initialize the OLE2 or regedit. Of course, I took regedit32 from winxp. That may be the problem
Paradox had an issue at startup with a divide by 0 problem. The program stayed open after going through the motions, but I didn't try to make any database files.

DAD did not work.

Presentations9 worked as far as typing in information but crashed upon modification attempts.

Workarounds

What was not tested

Corel Central, Address book and various other extras.

Hardware tested

Graphics:

• GPU:
• Driver:

Additional Comments

Upon doing some research, OLE2.REG is a throw back to 16-bit computing. Since there is no determinable reason for this, it appears that the coders of WordPerfect were too lazy to get rid of the dependancies of Win3.x. After all, if it still works for a crashing system why change it. I wonder though if XDOSEMU might work for getting the wordperfect part to work.

WordPerfect Office comes in a number of editions aimed at different market segments. A click-this-click-that HowTo would very likely be inaccurate for most users. Besides, you already know how to install WordPerfect Office under Microsoft Windows. These notes cover Wine specifics. They are based on installation from an OEM edition CD.  Except where indicated otherwise, all notes are valid for Wine 1.0.0 and later.

Installation Prerequisites

winetricks vcrun6

Starting the Installer on CD

wine 'd:\setup.exe'

Select WordPerfect Office 2000 Setup

Installation Options

The installer offers 'typical' and 'custom' setup. If you choose 'custom' ensure that WordPerfect 9 > Trellix 2.1is unchecked. If this option is checked, the installer either exits abruptly and prematurely without backtrace or it hangs when �Self Registering� �C:\Program Files\...\TlxCtrl.dll�. The hang may also lock up your desktop. Find a console and kill the defunct setup32.exe process.

If you go the 'custom' route and include Utilities > Visual Basic for Applications, the installation will report failure. When you click OK, the installation will then start copying files from the CD. The failure, presumably, only refers to the installation of Visual Basic for Applications and not WordPerfect Office 2000.

The filters for Microsoft Office document formats are in Conversion Filters/Set 2, which is included in the typical install. 

Install Phases

The install is in two phases. Essential dlls are copied to the system32 folder and you are asked to reboot. Just run the installer again. It will detect that an installation is in progress. Accept the offer to do a 'recovery setup'. The install proper now begins.

You can cut out the first phase by putting a copy of actxprxy.dll in the system32 folder beforehand.

Install Hang

During the install proper a succession of small progress widows appear on a full-screen splash-screen. After a while there will be no progress window and the installer will appear to have hung. This is not so, just another case of a message box hidden behind a splash screen.

Maximise and minimise some other (non-Wine) window on your desktop. This should reveal a message box asking you to register. After dismissing this and the next two messages boxes, there will be a pause (ten seconds or so) before another message box appears. This message box will read:

DDE AddItemFailed

The message box after this really is the last.

Installation End Game

After leaving the installer, you may find Wine is still running. If you ran the installer from the command line you may not get the command line prompt back.

This is because a registration reminder process is running. Checkmate this from a console with:

killall remind32.exe

Installation of WordPerfect Office will never be 'platinum': the installer assumes the presence of additional Microsoft software, essentially Internet Explorer and all that implies.

Fortunately, the missing software can generally be installed simply and quickly using winetricks. See http://wiki.winehq.org/winetricks for a description of winetricks and how to get it.

Unless stated otherwise, winetricks prerequisites used for installing WordPerfect Office do not involve overriding 'built in' Wine dlls with 'native' Windows dlls so the scope for requesting support and submitting bug reports should not be affected but always be open about any 'extras' you have installed whether that be using winetricks or not.

WordPerfect Office comes with a great many fonts from Corel but still assumes the presence of the 'core' fonts from Microsoft (Arial, Courier, Times Roman etc.) that Wine cannot provide. The core fonts may be installed using winetricks before or after installing WordPerfect Office.

If you do not install the core fonts, Wine will substitute some other font as necessary. This substitution may give unexpected and unsatisfactory results by selecting an inappropriate Corel font.

The author has seen a test report complaining that font rendering did not work properly when, most probably, a narrow font was substituted. The substitution of a non-alphabet font has also been observed.

This substitution issue may affect any application installed under the same installation of Wine, not just WordPerfect Office applications. It does affect Presentations � it affects the tabs on the right hand side and bottom of the main window.

By default, WordPerfect Office applications use (Explorer-like) 'enhanced' file dialogues. These do not work under Wine. This has led to test and bug reports complaining that it is not possible to open or save files (with inferences that that trial and beta versions have been crippled deliberately).

Fortunately this is not the case. It is generally sufficient to disable the use of enhanced dialogues so the application uses standard dialogues. See the individual application guidance notes for specific details.

Note that disabling enhanced file dialogues in WordPerfect also disables them for Presentations (and vice versa).

As a last resort, the enhanced file dialogues may be disabled using the Wine regedit tool.

When first started, Word Perfect Office applications display a splash screen. In certain circumstances (not all of which are bad news) the application may also display a message box that requires user response. This message box may be hidden behind the splash screen.

The application appears to have hung. There may or may not be a new entry on the desktop 'task bar' with a Wine icon. If there is an icon it should, but may not, show the name of the application.

If there is a task bar entry, right click on it, select 'move' and drag the message box from behind splash screen. If there is no task bar entry, maximise some other window (so the splash screen is hidden) and then minimise that window again. The message box should now be visible.

As a last resort, try starting the application again. The second copy should abort and hopefully take the splash screen with it leaving the original message box visible.

Warning: Auto backup

WordPerfect Office applications backup open documents at regular intervals. At best this feature will work as well under Wine as it ever did under Microsoft Windows.

When an WordPerfect Office application is started again after a crash, it may detect the presence of one or more document backups. This may give the 'apparent hang with only splash screen displayed' behaviour.

A corrupt backup file may crash the application. When this occurs the corrupt backup file must be deleted the hard way before the application can be used again. Under Wine, user profiles are stored under ${WINEPREFIX}/drive_c/windows/profiles/${USER}. Look under Application\ Data/Corel for a Backup subfolder under a folder (or folder pair) that name(s) the application and version.

Auto backup may be disabled the same way enhanced file dialogues may be disabled.

The implementation of OLE under Wine is still a work in progress. This reduces the functionality available with WordPerfect Office applications.

Specifically, 'copy/paste special' between applications, references or links between documents, insert object (embedded or from file) functions are affected.

Proceed with extreme caution when you need any of these.

A good result is you will be told when the function is not available (by a message box suggesting the registry or installation is incomplete).

A bad result is the application crashing (leaving a backtrace when using a console).

The ugly result is X terminating both source and destination application without a backtrace (not a major bug as it does not affect other Wine and non-Wine applications).