WordPerfect To Office Conversion

I figure that this is a good topic to start talking about since in many ways it's the most complex project that I've undertaken.

The goal is to move all 40 people in our law firm from WordPerfect Suite to using Office 2003 as the standard. We are currently using WordPerfect Office 2000 and Microsoft Office 97 as well as WORLDOX 2000 for our document management system.

This is a huge task for good reason. Quite a few of the firm's personnel have years invested in using WordPerfect. The application works. They know how to use it and it gets the job done for them quite nicely.

The problem with getting them to use Word is that Word will NEVER be exactly like WordPerfect. So if you know one, the other seems much less than intuitive. I have some experience with working in Word and I oftentimes have problems doing the simplest things in WordPerfect simply because it's a different paradigm of doing things.

So the first issue is training. Getting everyone up to speed on how to properly use Word.

Second issue is features. We currently have macros and templates in WordPerfect, but none in Word. We also could gain a lot of benefit from purchasing a metadata scrubber, which is a whole other topic for another day. Some sort of app that converts cleanly from WordPerfect to Word would also be beneficial. So there are a few tools that we need to have in place before we can get people to standardize.

Third issue is getting everyone to build their documents to a set standard as much as possible. This goes hand in hand with training, but the standards have to be built before they can be taught.

Even if we do all of that, there will still be a modicum of resistance from the users who are comfortable with WordPerfect. Having said that though, I think that we are all willing to come to the table, discuss what we need to do and attempt to resolve the issues. If we can manage that, the project should go smoothly.

I will be talking more about this as it progresses.

Comments

[Brian Criscuolo]

Alex,

I found this post via your brother's weblog and your problem is one that our company has been dealing with for a very long time - document conversion.

We offer software (Conversions Plus for Windows, MacLinkPlus Deluxe for Macintosh) that will convert between the formats you are dealing with, retaining formatting, headers, footers, footnotes, graphics, tables etc. It will not support the macros and templates you are using, but will get the files into a useable form in Word.

I am an engineer here at DataViz and have worked on both products. If you are interested in a volume license or in trying the product to see if it would help your migration, please let me know and I will put you in touch with someone who can assist you.

Good luck,
Brian Criscuolo, DataViz, Inc.

[Jason]

Alex:

I highly recommend Conversions Plus. We recently switched from Word Perfect to Word at our small law firm (50 users) and this is a big help. The other thing we did which was hard for the user, but good at the same time is when we made the switch we took Wordperfect off of all the PCs. That way they were "forced" to use and learn Word.

Jason

[Kevin H. Devin]

Hey Alex,

Glad to see you blogging again. Excellent topic too. :-)

I was reading this post and noticed how you talk of all the folks in the law firm being comfortable and very productive using WordPerfect, but you don't mention your motivation for taking on such a large task.

-KHD

[KC Lemson]

Alex, in case you didn't know about them, Word has some built-in features to help people converting from wordperfect, see these pages:

Help | Wordperfect Help
Tools | Options | General
Tools | Options | Compatibility

There's also a list in the help file of the keyboard equivalents in wordperfect vs word, which can be a handy reference to print out.

[James E. Robinson, III]

I have the same question as Kevin Devin. Why the switch?

[Alex Scoble]

Good Question.

First reason is that Word is pretty much the de facto standard for word publishing. All of our clients work in Word and require that we send documents to them in Word.

We are starting to hire new people and most people have recent experience with Word and not WordPerfect.

We currently have most of the firm working in Word and maybe 25% working in WordPerfect. There are some secretaries who have to support a lawyer that uses Word and one that uses WordPerfect. This is a headache for them.

But basically, the goal is to standardize on one platform and get everybody to use a standard method of document creation (styles and templates) as well.

Then of course there is my own self motivated (read selfish :D ) reason in that I am much more conversant in Word than WordPerfect. Word is the devil I know and so I am much more effective at supporting my users on it than I am with WordPerfect.

But for the most part, the push is coming from the users and not from any bias on my part. If it was decided that WordPerfect would be the standard, I would have made my case against it and told to do it anyhow and that would be it.

Passion makes for good blogging and discussions, it isn't all that good for your career.

[Chris Kunicki]

Conversion is always hard. And you hit the big reason: its about what the user knows and is comfortable with. Both products have their strengths and both have their weaknesses.

In making this transition the business objectives have to be they key reason. For most companies it can be simplified too:

* Support costs
* compatibility with customers and partners
* 3rd party support (add-ins, templates, spelling libraries,etc)

In a previous life (about 5 years ago) I spent some time on large enterprise migration (Smallest customer was 7,000 seats and largest was about 25,000 seats). I've seen it all. Pardox/dbase to access. WordPerfect/Lotus to Word. QuatroPro/Lotus123 to Excel.

After the pain (probably the first year), and in every case the customer was able to see tangible returns on productivity and return on support costs.

One thing companies way underplay in value is the compatibility between the applictions (Between Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint and Outlook).

[Mike McBride]

"Passion makes for good blogging and discussions, it isn't all that good for your career."

Totally f'ing brilliant! :)

You just said in 15 words exactly what I've been trying to get people to understand about my job for years.

[Sean Brady]

I managed the conversion of an 800 attorney firm from WordPerfect to Word back in 2001. My one piece of advice for anyone still looking to start on that path is to go slow. Take the time to develop good styles, good tools, and great templates. If people can see in a template form how the styles can be applied to "their documents" it makes all the difference. I strongly recommend developing everything inhouse if time and talent allow it. Having that expertise inside is a wonderful asset to support.

[Alex Scoble]

Heh Sean. Believe me. I'd love to be able to do this all myself, but I really just don't have the time.

Between all of the upgrades that I'm going to be doing and my regular day to day support functions, I'm not going to have much of a personal life for the next 3-6 months.

[Raj]

Do you have a DMS system ?

I guess you can enforce style guides and template changes via this mechanism.

I find the PA's (is secretary un-PC?) to be the hardest to convert but often the best to train first - they're the true power users and they'll find the problems and shout the loudest when things don't work the way they'd like.

[Jeremy]

Hello,
Great insight. I see this topic has not been touched in a while. Was wondering how the conversion is going and what software or tools you used. I have a small Architectural Firm of about 40 users. I also need to switch and am currently looking at the different conversion apps and tools. Thanks.

[santiago]

Please Help i am currrently needing to convert wordperfect 9 to office 2000. I am able to find conversion programs but i am not able to bring across the templates. Does anyone know how to bring across wordperfect templates into word