Die-hard Microsoft fans may want to wait to see what Redmond has up its sleeve with the radical changes expected within the upcoming Microsoft Office 12. Overall, WordPerfect Office X3 is a solid upgrade for longtime users, particularly those who manage a lot of PDFs. This helps prevent any comments, undo/redo changes, and other sensitive information from reaching an unwanted audience when you share files-a similar feature is expected to ship within Office 12 later this year. A great new security feature is WordPerfect's ability to strip out the hidden metadata within documents. The interface of X3 has updated icons and toolbars that match Windows XP themes, and its new Yahoo toolbar lets you conduct Web searches from within WordPerfect.

While this import feature needs work, it's convenient for editing long, text-based PDFs used by legal and government workers. Not only can X3's three core applications-WordPerfect, Quattro Pro, and Presentations-save files in the ubiquitous Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format, its WordPerfect word processor can import and edit PDFs, too. Corel has a winner in WordPerfect Office X3, a feature-packed productivity suite that's just as easy to use-and in many ways more innovative than-industry-goliath Microsoft Office 2003.

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