I’ve been trying to coerce Word 2003 into saving a bunch of documents in WordPerfect format.
I’ve been trying to coerce Word 2003 into saving a bunch of documents in WordPerfect format for my attorney. Yes, many lawyers still use WordPerfect – and they charge extra if they have to figure out a way to transform those %$#@! Word documents into a format they can understand.
I’ve come to the conclusion that it simply can’t be done. As far as I can tell, Microsoft’s latest and greatest word processor, Word 2003 – adorned with all the converters Microsoft has to offer – cannot produce a WordPerfect file. You can open a WordPerfect file in Word 2003. But save as WPD? No way.
Office Watch reader DH sent me a copy of a series of messages that reinforce that observation. DH notes that in the US, the First Circuit Court of Appeals *requires* WordPerfect format in electronically submitted documents. And you thought we were living in an XML world. HA!
Looks like I have two choices. I can save the Word 2003 document, open it in Word 2002, and then save it in WordPerfect format. (Word 2002 supports WPD, no sweat.) Or I can save the Word 2003 document in RTF format, which can be opened by many (but not all) versions of WordPerfect.
Law firms contemplating a switch to Office 2003 should certainly take this, uh, feature into consideration. Helluva note when you can’t use your word processor to produce a pleading in final form.
