7. Documentation

7.1. What books are available concerning WP for Linux?

"Special Edition Using Corel WordPerfect 8 for Linux" by Roderick W. Smith (Que, ASIN 0789720329, US $4 on Amazon.com) and "WordPerfect for Linux Bible" by Stephen E. Harris and Erwin Zijleman (IDG Books, ISBN 0764533746, US $40 on Amazon.com). The latter includes a copy of WP 8.0 (non-download) Personal Edition. This differs from WP 8.0 DPE in inclusion of 140 fonts, a font-installer utility, and support for grammar / spelling checkers and thesaurus lookups in multiple languages. The CD-ROM includes a text file containing a registration key, and the licence doesn't bar commercial usage. Be aware that the electronic-format WP manual included is for character-mode WP, not the graphical X11 version.

The Smith book is valuable for its highly-comprehensive coverage of Linux topics; the Harris and Zijleman one for its bundled software. Both are recommended.

Author Rod Smith has a Web page describing both of them, plus reviewing all other known books on WP for Linux (and ones for Star Office and The GIMP): http://www.rodsbooks.com/books/books-wp.html

7.2. WP 8.x's access to on-line docs doesn't work any more, saying "document not found (404 error)". Where did they go?

At the same time Corel removed WP 8.0 DPE from http://linux.corel.com/products/linuxproducts_wp8_downloadlinks.htm, it also removed the on-line HTML-format manual (http://linux.corel.com/wp8manual), knowledgebase (http://linux.corel.com/wpkb), and support page (http://linux.corel.com/wpsupport) that all WP 8.x for Linux programs referenced via hyperlink. Finally, on Feb. 26, 2003, Corel decommissioned that entire site, ending access to the remaining knowledgebase, FAQ, and support pages. (However, those can be still browsed, courtesy of the Internet Archive, at http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://linux.corel.com/.)

7.3. What happened to all the many years of older postings in the Corel NNTP newsgroups?

On Oct. 29, 2004, Corel staff reorganised the newsgroups on the cnews.corel.com NNTP news server. The five corel.linux.* newsgroups (for users of Corel Linux OS) and contents were deleted completely. Postings from the corel.wpoffice.wordperfect8-linux and corel.wpoffice.office2000-linux groups were merged into a new, omnibus "corel.WordPerfect_older_versions" group along with, unfortunately, some 1800+ threads by users of pre-WP11 versions for MS-Windows. Thus, although the Linux-relevant threads are preserved in the new group, they're in practice unfindable.

After hearing of the problem, Corel staff graciously created a new "corel.WordPerfect_Linux" group for the convenience of Linux users, but, unfortunately, were not able to restore the previous two WP for Linux groups' contents to it.

Fortunately, Google Groups (formerly DejaNews) had been Web-archiving both of the WP for Linux groups and three of the five CLOS ones:

WP for Linux groups:

Corel Linux OS groups: