WordPerfect 8.1 for Linux - page 1
Revision 7.6
June 2026
Contents
The purpose and scope of this webpage
Released versions of WordPerfect 8.1 for Linux
Obtaining WordPerfect 8.1 for Linux
Obstacles to installation and solutions by extraction
The current installation scripts
Using the scripts
Other possibilities
Further assistance
The purpose and scope of this webpage
The present webpage is intended for owners of original CDs containing the Standard or Deluxe edition of Corel Linux OS, which respectively include the Light or Personal Edition of WordPerfect 8.1 for Linux, with a view to enabling them to continue using their paid-for software on current distros.
References to "current distros" should be read as referring to April 2026 and beyond.
It is assumed that the reader is moderately familiar with Linux, and moderately experienced in using the current distro on which he wishes to install WordPerfect 8.1.
This is the first of three pages dealing with installing WordPerfect 8.1 on a current distro.
This webpage deals with obtaining the WordPerfect 8.1 packages needed for installation, and with obtaining the scripts, written by the author of this website, designed to enable the installation of WordPerfect 8.1 on many current distros. It also explains the need for, the course of development of, and the current status of, these scripts.
Another page on this website deals with installing WordPerfect 8.1 by means of these scripts.
A further page deals with attempting to install WordPerfect 8.1 manually on distros for which a suitable script is not available.
Released versions of WordPerfect 8.1 for Linux
WordPerfect for Linux 8.1 was released by Corel Corp in 1999 and 2000 on boxed CDs as part of Corel Linux OS (which may be referred to as "CLOS"), versions 1.0 and 1.2. WordPerfect 8.1 for Linux was released only as part of Corel Linux OS, and never by itself on other media. Corel Linux OS uses debian packaging.
There is no difference between the versions of WordPerfect contained in versions 1.0 and 1.2 of CLOS.
Corel Linux OS was released in a Standard Edition and a Deluxe Edition. The Standard Edition of CLOS includes the Light Edition of WordPerfect 8.1. The Deluxe Edition of CLOS includes the Personal Edition of WordPerfect 8.1.
The Personal Edition of WordPerfect 8.1 differs from the Light Edition only in the provision by the Deluxe Edition of CLOS of more fonts designed to support WordPerfect. Thus the Personal Edition of WordPerfect 8.1 benefits from three font packages, named "fonts-16", "fonts-69", and "fonts-115", while the Light Edition only benefits from the "font-16" package.
The WordPerfect 8.1 package contained in both the Standard and Deluxe Editions of CLOS, and in both the 1.0 and 1.2 versions of CLOS, is named wp-full. Neither the Personal Edition nor the Light Edition of WordPerfect 8.1 requires a password.
There is also a Starter Edition of Corel Linux OS 1.0. This was included on a CD provided with a book entitled "Corel LINUX OS Starter Kit: The Official Guide", by Joseph Merlino and Katherine Wrightson, published by Osborne/Corel Press in 2000. This CD contains a Free Edition of WordPerfect 8.1, with only basic fonts. Its WordPerfect package is named wpx-free. It requires a password.
All released editions of WordPerfect 8.1 are presented in the form of debian packages. But there are obstacles to installing them on current, even debian-based, systems.
On the CDs of Corel Linux, the core WordPerfect 8.1 code is contained in a deb package named wp-full in the case of the Personal Edition and the Light Edition, or wpx-free in the case of the Free Edition.
There are three accompanying font packages, designed to support WordPerfect, named fonts-16 (included with the Personal Edition and the Light Edition; but not the Free Edition), and fonts-69 and fonts-115 (both included with the Full Edition only). The Free Edition only uses basic fonts.
There is also a repackaged version of WordPerfect, which was issued by Corel on a CD in 2003. This may conveniently be referred to as WordPerfect 8.2. Apart from the repackaging, it differs little from WordPerfect 8.1. WordPerfect 8.2 installs its own support library and a pre-configured printer destination. It is designed to be installed via a script, but this script no longer runs in current distros. No script designed to install WordPerfect 8.2 on a distro current in 2026 is known to exist.
Obtaining WordPerfect 8.1 for Linux
As mentioned above, the WordPerfect 8.1 core package ("wp-full" or "wpx-free"), and the associated font packages ("fonts-16", "fonts-69", and "fonts-115"), are contained in the Corel Linux OS CDs.
The packages intended to be installed should be copied from the Corel Linux CD to a directory on your hard-drive.
In order to enable a script supplied on this site to be used for installation, the packages must be copied into the directory which is to serve as the working directory used by the scripts. In most cases this must be a directory named "/home/[username]/Downloads/wp-inst". But in the case of Slackware or PCLinuxOS, it must be a directory named "/root/Downloads/wp-inst".
The Debian packages are located in the following folders:
/dists/corellinux-1.0/corel/binary-i386 in CLOS 1.0; or
/dists/corellinux-1.2/corel/binary-i386/editors and
/dists/corellinux-1.2/corel/binary-i386/text in CLOS 1.2.
You should copy such of the following Debian packages as are available to you from a Corel Linux CD to the working directory used by the scripts.
The relevant font packages are:
fonts-16_1.0-5.deb (included in the CLOS Standard and Deluxe Editions, but not the Starter Edition);
fonts-69_1.0-4.deb (only included in the CLOS Deluxe Edition); and
fonts-115_1.0-4.deb (only included in the CLOS Deluxe Edition).
The relevant packages containing the main WordPerfect code are:
wp-full_8.1-12_i386.deb (included in the CLOS Standard and Deluxe Editions, but not the Starter Edition); or
wpx-free_8.0-78_i386.deb (included only in the CLOS Starter Edition).
If you only have the Standard Edition of Corel Linux OS and thus the Light Edition of WordPerfect 8.1, only a limited range of extra fonts (from the fonts-16 package) will be available.
If you only have the Starter Edition of Corel Linux OS and thus the Free Edition of WordPerfect 8.1, only the basic fonts (included in the Free version of the main WordPerfect package itself) will be available.
Obstacles to installation and solutions by extraction
(1) Obstacles
It was possible to install WordPerfect 8.1 in the normal way via a package manager on a debian-based distro current in 2006 (such as Mepis 3.4-3), but various obstacles have subsequently arisen which prevent such a conventional installation. These include:
- changes made in later distros as to the location of the "locale" directory;
- their failure to include libc5 libraries in their repositories; and
- complications arising from the introduction of 64-bit distros.
So another method is now essential.
The main aim of this website is to provide a method of installing WordPerfect 8.1, which will work successfully in current distros, and especially in 64-bit versions of such distros. This method provided involves the extraction of the WordPerfect code from a "wp-full" or "wpx-free" deb package. It was originally devised by Leon Goldstein, after his method of installing WordPerfect 8.1 on later versions of OpenSUSE, using packages converted to RPM by “alien”, had ceased to be reliable.
Much still useful information about WordPerfect for Linux may be gained from Rick Moen's WordPerfect FAQ, published in 2005. Also still useful, although they deal directly with WordPerfect 8.0 for Linux, are volumes entitled "WordPerfect for Linux Bible", by Stephen E. Harris and Erwin Zijleman, and "Using WordPerfect 8 for Linux Special Edition", by Roderick W. Smith, both published in 1999.
(2) Extraction
The present site was reconstructed in July 2019, when a method of installing WordPerfect by extraction on 64-bit debian-based distros was discovered, and a wrapper, enabling the restoration of the broken WP Print Manager was created.
Testing in 2019 of the installation procedure by the manual method of extraction was carried out by Peter Stone and Leon Goldstein. Distros used in this testing were Linux Mint 17.3, 18.3, 19.1, 19.3 and 20-beta; KDE neon 5.16 to 5.19; Kubuntu 19.04 and 20.04; MX-18; Antix 17.4; and OpenSuse 13.1, 15.1 and Tumbleweed. No testing was done on distros which were neither debian-based nor rpm-based - such as Slackware or Manjaro.
Thereafter, this site has undergone major updating in 2020 and further updating in March 2021, October 2024, August 2025, and April-June 2026.
(3) Installation scripts
This site underwent major revision in 2020, to introduce a simplified method of installing WordPerfect 8.1 for Linux by extraction on various current distros. The new method involves use of an installation script, written by Peter Stone (the operator of this site) and tested with the help of Leon Goldstein. Also in 2020, the wrapper for the WP Print Manager was further refined.
Testing in 2020 of the original version of installation scripts provided on this site was carried out by Peter Stone and Leon Goldstein. Distros used in this testing were Linux Mint 20, MX 19.2 32-bit, OpenSuse 15.2, Mageia 7.1, and Slackware 14.2.
The scripts have subsequently been updated, most recently in June 2026.
(4) Further development in 2021
Further development of the installation scripts in 2021 was carried out by Peter Stone and Leon Goldstein, mainly using Linux Mint 20.1. This involved the use of a single package, "wp-utils", created by the author of this site, to satisfy all necessary dependencies, including the requirement of a libc5 library. The package was made available in deb format (for debian-based systems), and in tgz (tarball) format (for other distros).
In addition the 2021 development sought to revive the utility of WordPerfect 8.0, and enabled WordPerfect 8.0 and 8.1 to coexist better in the same system.
(5) Further development in 2024
Further development in October 2024 reflected the trend in recent distros towards the use of "/lib" as a symbolic link to the "/usr/lib" directory.
(6) Further development in 2025
Further development in 2025 was carried out in the context of Mint 22.1 MATE, Debian 13 KDE, Fedora 42 KDE, OpenSuse 15.6 KDE, and Slackware 15 KDE, Manjaro 25 KDE, EndeavourOS Mercury Neo 2025.03.19 KDE, and PCLinuxOS 25.07 KDE. In particular, “/usr/bin/xwp” was made to respect the usual location of the WordPerfect settings.
In addition, in 2025 a script was provided for installing WordPerfect 8.1 on Manjaro and EndeavourOS. This used a special version of the support package named "wp-utils-arch" (instead of the normal "wp-utils" package). Also in 2025, a script was provided for installing WordPerfect 8.1 on PCLinuxOS.
(7) Further development in 2026
In April-June 2026, some changes to the scripts were made after further testing on Mint 22.3 MATE, Ubuntu 26.04, MX 25.1, Fedora 44, OpenSuse Leap 15.6, Manjaro 26.0.4, CachyOS 260426, and PCLinuxOS 2026.06.30.
All the scripts (except scripts for Slackware) are now at version 2.4.
All the scripts now extract the WordPerfect code by means of the ar utility, contained in the "binutiis" package, rather than by conversion using the "alien" utility.
They all now utilise a single wp-utils package, devised by the present author and now at version 5.1, to satisfy dependencies. (A separate "wp-utils-arch" package, designed for arch-based distros, is no longer needed nor provided).
All the scripts (except scripts for Slackware) the scripts now install the cups-pdf package, to enable printing to a PDF file.
All the scripts (except scripts for Slackware) now install the pandoc package, to facilitate importation of DOCX documents.
But the current scripts are not designed to work on OpenSUSE Leap 16, nor on EndeavourOS.
The current installation scripts
Currently there are six versions of the script for installation of WordPerfect 8.1. All are now at version 2.3. They are named:
(1) wp81in.sh (for debian-based distros);
(2) wp81in-fed.sh (for Fedora or Mageia);
(3) wp81in-suse15.sh (for OpenSuse Leap 15);
(4) wp81in-slack.sh (for Slackware);
(5) wp81in-manjaro.sh (for Manjaro or CachyOS); and
(6) wp81in-pclos.sh (for PCLinuxOS).
They are available for download via the above links. To download such a linked file in Firefox, you may right-click on the link, and then select "Save Link As..." from the resulting menu.
The first-mentioned version is designed for debian-based distros (whether 64-bit or 32-bit). It was developed on Linux Mint 20.1, and tested also on Kubuntu 20.04.1, Feren 2020.11, MX 19.2 32-bit, and Q4OS Trinity 3.12. It was updated in 2025 after testing on Linux Mint 22.1 MATE and Debian 13 KDE, and has been again updated in April-June 2026 after testing on Mint 22.3, Ubuntu 26.04, and MX 25.1. It should work on most current debian-based distros.
It has been reported that WordPerfect 8.1 for Linux can be successfully installed and run on the debian subsystem in a version of Chrome OS current in 2022 on a Chromebook laptop. For such installation, one should use the wp81in.sh script, in the same way as on a normal debian-based Linux distro. But in this case, to enable the installed WordPerfect 8.1 to run, one must also install the debian package named lib32z1 from the normal repository.
The second-mentioned version is designed for rpm-based distros which use the "dnf" utility for installation of packages. It was updated in 2024, to take into account a change in these distros since 2021, whereby the "/lib" structure ceased to be a normal directory, and became a symbolic link to the "/usr/lib" directory. The 2024 script was tested on Fedora 40 and Mageia 9. In August 2025 the script was further updated after testing on Fedora 42 KDE and Mageia 9 KDE. In April-June 2026 it was again updated, after testing on Fedora 44.
The third version is designed for OpenSuse Leap 15. It was most recently updated in April and May 2026 after testing on OpenSuse Leap 15.6 KDE. It is NOT designed to work on OpenSUSE Leap 16.
The fourth version is designed for and has been tested on Slackware 15. It was most recently updated in April-May 2026.
The fifth version was created in 2025. It is designed for Manjaro and CachyOS. It was originally tested on Manjaro 25 KDE and EndeavourOS Mercury Neo 2025.03.19 KDE. It has been updated in 2026 after testing on Manjaro 2026.0.4 and CachyOS 260426. The current version 2.4 works on these distros. It no longer works on EndeavourOS. It may also work on some other arch-based distros.
The current version of the script for Manjaro and CachyOS uses the same wp-utils (version 5.1) package as the other scripts. A separate "wp-utils-arch" package, designed for arch-based distros, is no longer needed nor provided. But earlier versions of the "wp-utils" package (as distinct from the formerly available "wp-utils-arch" package) should NOT be used in arch-based distros, as in such cases conflicts between libc5 32-bit files provided by my package with libc6 64-bit files already installed in the "/usr/lib" folder will proably destabilise the whole system.
The sixth version was created in 2025. It is designed for PCLinuxOS. It has been tested most recently on PCLinuxOS 26.06.30 KDE.
A second page, wp81script, deals specifically and in detail with the installation of WordPerfect 8.1 for Linux, by means of a script provided on this site. It also deals with the running of WordPerfect 8.1 after installation.
A third page, wp81else, retains the information about a manual method of installation, given in earlier versions of this site. In principle this might be useful to users seeking to install WordPerfect 8.1 in distros which no available script is designed to support. But the manual method of proceeding should be regarded as deprecated in cases where a script could be used.
In any event the manual method should be used with great caution on an arch-based distro, and older (pre-5.1) versions of the "wp-utils" package, formerly available at this site, should NOT be installed on an arch-based distro.
Other versions of WordPerfect for Linux are considered on the versions page. More specifically, version 8.0 is considered on the WordPerfect 8.0 page.
The use on Linux of a version of WordPerfect for Windows, or WordPerfect for MSDOS, through a compatibility layer, is considered on the emulation page.
The author of this site, Peter Stone, may be contacted by email as "peter@xwp8users.com".
Last updated in June 2026.
(c) Peter Stone, 2026.