Versions of WordPerfect for Linux other than 8.1

Revision 5.2

July 2022

WordPerfect for Linux 8.1 appears to be a development of WordPerfect for DOS rather than WordPerfect for Windows. Before version 8.1 for Linux, there had been version 6 for Unix (released in 1996), version 7 for Unix or Linux (released in 1997), and version 8.0 for Linux (released in 1998).

WordPerfect 6 and 7

WordPerfect 6 can be installed and run with iBCS on Caldera OpenLinux 1.3, but this is not an attractive option.

Although an RPM of the graphical version of WordPerfect 7 was released on the third CD for Redhat 5.1, passwords needed to run it beyond a short period are not now available.

There is also a character-based version of WordPerfect 7 for Unix, which resembles WordPerfect 5.1+ for MSDOS. Recent work by Tavis Ormandy has enabled this to be easily installed and successfully run on current versions of Linux. This is helpfully explained on the Unix page at Edward Mendelson's wpdos website.

WordPerfect 8.0

WordPerfect 8.0 was released by Corel in 1998. A version of WP 8.0 Download Edition was bundled with Caldera OpenLinux 2.2 and 23. It was packaged as an RPM, and can be installed when the appropriate support files are present. Its installation is discussed on the WordPerfect 8.0 page. Other available packages of WordPerfect 8.0 cannot be installed directly on a current distro.

Version 8.2 (as it may be called) appears to be a re-release in 2003 of version 8.1, with a new script-based installer and a new printing facility. It will not be considered in detail on this site. It had limited availability. It cannot be installed on a current distro using its installer script. But an installation on an earlier distro (such as Mepis 3.4-3) is possible, and from such an installation one can copy over the /usr/wplinux and ~/.wprc directories onto a current distro (such as Mint 18.3), on which one has installed the appropriate support packages. These are the same as for use in connection with WordPerfect 8.0 as contained in the Caldera rpm package. Installation in this way will enable WordPerfect 8.2 to run, and usefully to print with the automatically installed Passthru Postscript driver to a new WPSpool destination.

WordPerfect 9/2000

WordPerfect 9/2000 for Linux runs Windows-derived code on the Corelwine compatibility layer, but this is incompatible with Linux distros dating from 2003 or later, since they use libc6 2.3 or later. It can however be run on Slackware 8.1.

Emulations

For practical purposes, only WordPerfect 8.0 and 8.1, and the character-based version of WordPerfect 7, appear to have current significance for anyone wishing to install and run a native version of WordPerfect on a Linux distro.

Other available possibilities for running WordPerfect on a Linux installation include:

- installing a version of WordPerfect for Windows (such as WordPerfect 12) on a Linux distro via the Crossover or Wine compatibility layers;

- installing WordPerfect for MSDOS via the DOSemu or DOSBox packages; or

- installing Windows 3.1 and WordPerfect 6.1 via the DOSBox package.

These possibilities are addressed on the emulation page on this site.

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Last updated in July 2022.