WordPerfect is an intimidating title for a program. It sounds like the sort of word processor that only Shakespearian types should be using; those who can craft perfect sentences and paragraphs. As opposed to journalistic monkeys bashing randomly on keyboards in the hope that something printable emerges.

But WordPerfect is anything but demanding or intimidating; it's actually a very novice-friendly suite. As well as the namesake word processor, this Office package includes Quattro Pro which deals with spreadsheets and Presentations which, unsurprisingly, can be used to create multimedia presentations. The standard edition of WP Office provides all this anyway; also included with the Student and Teacher edition is Paradox, which we'll talk about in a moment.

WordPerfect is not only a powerful word processor, but a very intuitive one, as befits its long lineage. Want to construct a table in the middle of your document? Point the cursor, drag a box outline, specify the number of rows and columns, and "viola" as Del-boy might say: one table created. It really is easy to use and the streamlined interface can be run in Microsoft Word mode, so if you're overly familiar with Microsoft's product you'll still feel very much at home.

There are similar modes for Quattro Pro and Presentations (aping Excel and PowerPoint respectively), plus full compatibility with Microsoft files. Impressive extra touches include the ability to export to PDF or HTML files and measures like CARM. This is the Corel Application Recovery Manager which kicks in if the program crashes, attempting to revert to before the accident, or at least save your data before it's lost. CARM doesn't always function properly, unfortunately, but it's very welcome when it does, and it's a measure of exactly how user-friendly Corel has tried to make WP Office.

The Student and Teacher edition of Office 12 also contains Paradox, which deals with databases; it's the effective equivalent to Microsoft Access. Paradox allows you to construct full relational databases using its Visual Database Designer. This is a graphical tool which helps to make the database design process that much more intuitive, keeping up the high level of user-friendliness which runs throughout this Corel suite.

Aside from the occasional CARM failure, the only problem we encountered with Office 12 was the odd blip when importing Microsoft files, as it doesn't always maintain the formatting correctly. These instances are definitely the exception rather than the rule, however, and the overall Microsoft file compatibility is very impressive.

It's worth mentioning that the Student & Teacher Edition comes with a license for installation on three PCs and, most importantly, the end user agreement stipulates that only schools and full- or part-time students (or members of their households) may use the product, for non-commercial purposes only.

This is an excellent package, particularly given the reasonable price point which will appeal to students on a budget. The interface is intuitive on all fronts and this high level of user-friendliness makes WordPerfect Office 12 a solid alternative to Microsoft's offering.