New versions of WordPerfect draw big crowds in DOS and Windows PC circles. In the Macintosh world, however, Microsoft Word rules, and other word processors are left to fight over the crumbs. WordPerfect wants a bigger slice of the pie, and with WordPerfect for Macintosh 3.0 (WP 3.0) the company hopes to chip away at Word’s dominant position. No matter how good its intentions — or its features — WordPerfect fights an uphill battle against Word. Fortunately, WP 3.0 lends a strong back to the fight.
WP 3.0 is one of the first applications to support System 7 Pro, Apple’s latest version of its operating system. In fact, at the Apple System 7 Pro rollout in early October 1993, attendees walked away with a copy of System 7 Pro in one hand and a copy of WP 3.0 in the other. WP 3.0 features early implementations of AOCE (Apple Open Collaboration Environment), including PowerTalk (the client portion of its mail-enabling technology), AppleScript (its system-level scripting language), and WorldScript (for multiple-language documents)...
While WP 3.0’s support for System 7 Pro shows that WordPerfect is serious about Macintosh — something that has not always been obvious in the past — its innovative interface with context-sensitive button bars and expandable rulers is the heart and soul of the product. It convinced me that yes, there is life after Word. WP 3.0’s interface reform also adds several new features, including table and equation editors, drag-and-drop editing, an integrated grammar checker, and more.
Most of WP 3.0’s innumerable features are now accessible with a single click of the mouse. The button bar approach is unique and at first glance may give you pause. But while WP 3.0 offers a different look, it’s designed to make features easily available.
The main button bar (which runs along the left-hand side of the screen) provides access to many often-used features — such as indents, headers and footers, time and date stamps, print preview, a spelling checker, and more. In addition to the document editor, WP 3.0 includes a graphics editor and an equation editor. As you switch modes, the button bar changes to reflect the modes.
You can also add or edit button bars to reflect your work style. For example, you can have one group of buttons for writing documents, another for editing them, another for formatting them, and so on. You can save new or edited button bars in your library, making them available in any of your WP 3.0 documents, or save them for use in only the active document. A pop-up menu at the top of the bar lets you select the button bars you want to display.
Some people don’t like lots of icons and buttons crowding their screen real estate. Others hate dealing with several levels of pull-down menus and dialog boxes or memorizing keyboard commands. WP 3.0’s rulers offer an approach that lets you have the best of both worlds. The seven rulers in WP 3.0 — Ruler, Layout, Font, Styles, Table, List, Merge — offer access to a variety of commands. Some commands you probably use every day; others you may use, for example, only when you’re creating an index or table of contents or merging a form letter with a data file of names and addresses. The beauty of this system is that you can have any or all of the rulers available at once. Clicking on the appropriate box at the top of screen toggles between an expanded and collapsed view of the ruler.
With so many options available in the form of small icons and buttons, you’ll appreciate WP 3.0’s status bar. If you choose Show Help from the status-bar options menu (the small arrow located at the bottom left of the screen), you’ll see what each element on the interface means as you move the mouse pointer over it. The status bar is customizable. You can display time, date, location in the document, battery status (for PowerBook and Duo users), and other status indicators. A pop-up menu in the lower left of the screen lets you add and delete items from the status bar.
The table and equation editors are notable new features in WP 3.0. The table editor makes it a snap to create tables in your document. You can even perform basic calculations such as sum and average. You can add color and tints to your rows and columns to make them both more attractive and easier to read. The equation editor will be a big hit with users who need to add scientific and mathematical equations and notations to their documents.
The previous version of WordPerfect for the Mac bundled WordPerfect’s Grammatik 5. WP 3.0 integrates the grammar checker into the Tools menu.
Cross-platform compatibility between Macs and Windows PCs is an important issue for major applications. WP 3.0 has taken a step forward by allowing you to open WP 3.0 files directly in the DOS and Windows versions of WordPerfect 6.0. Unfortunately, it’s not a two-way street. You must import Windows and DOS documents into WP 3.0.
WP 3.0 is an accomplishment in ease of use. Features that might otherwise be hard to fine now stare you in the eye. When it comes to accessible features and overall ease of use, WP 3.0 stands out from other word processors.
Muse, Dan. (March 1994). WordPerfect for Macintosh 3.0. Macworld. (pg. 55).
WordPerfect Corporation
Applications
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WordPerfect3.0a.sit_.bin
Emulating this? It could probably run under: 
Basilisk II
