WordPerfect - WordPerfect For Linux

WordPerfect For Linux

In 1995, WordPerfect 6.0 was made available for Linux as part of Caldera's internet office package. In late 1997, a newer version was made available for download, but had to be purchased to be activated.

In 1998 Corel released WordPerfect 8.0 for Linux. The full version was sold as a package. A cut-down version was made available for downloading.

Hoping to establish themselves in the nascent commercial Linux market, Corel also developed their own distribution of Linux. This included WordPerfect 8.1 for Linux. Although the Linux distribution was fairly well-received, the response to WordPerfect for Linux varied. Some Linux promoters appreciated the availability of a well-known, mainstream application for the operating system.

Once OpenOffice.org appeared in 1999, there was little demand for a proprietary, closed-source project like WordPerfect. On top of this, WordPerfect 9.0, which was released as part of the WordPerfect Office 2000 for Linux package, was not a native Linux application like WP 6-8, but derived from the Windows version using Corel's own version of the Wine compatibility library, and hence had performance problems.

WordPerfect failed to gain a large user base, and as part of Corel's change of strategic direction following a (non-voting) investment by Microsoft, WordPerfect for Linux was discontinued and their Linux distribution was sold to Xandros. In April 2004, Corel re-released WordPerfect 8.1 (the last Linux-native version) with some updates, as a "proof of concept" and to test the Linux market. As of 2011, WordPerfect for Linux is not available for purchase.

Linux applications may use the libwpd library to convert Word Perfect documents.

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