When Bruce Bastian, the co-inventor of WordPerfect, died this weekit sent me back over 30 years, to a time when there were a legion of DOS-based word processing programs, and then there was WordPerfect – the only one that mattered.
Although I once traveled to WordPerfect in Utah (near their headquarters in Orem) for the launch of WordPerfect for OS/2, I don’t think I ever met Bastian. By 1994, he had sold the company and become an LGBTQ activist. Yet he built WordPerfect with Alan Ashton, whom I met in passing, and what they created became the script for virtually every word processing app that would come.
When I arrived at PC magazine In 1991, one of my first jobs was to review a DOS-based word processor called Textra. It’s long gone now, but I remember comparing its hackneyed features to the more powerful WordPerfects and Microsoft Word for DOSes of the world.
In the 80s and early 90s, Bruce Bastian and Alan Ashton were leaders in making computers more productive for everyday tasks. Years later, they became opponents in the legal battle over gay marriage. https://t.co/Sy7srTj4NMJuly 2, 2024
At the time, even Microsoft was already working on WordPerfect, but that would soon change thanks to Windows 3.1, the first widely deployable version of Windows, and the first X86 GUI that finally attracted software developers to Microsoft’s platform in droves.
Soon, every software company that visited my office was showing or promising versions of Windows, including WordPerfect. Microsoft released the first version of Word for Windows in 1989, but no one cared at the time. Until Windows 3.1, DOS was still the dominant word processing platform. WordPerfect’s shelving almost made sense—until it wasn’t.
When the PC world switched to Windows, people were also looking for word processors with a graphical user interface that could run on that platform. Microsoft was happy to help, first releasing Word and later Microsoft Office.
WordPerfect responded in kind, but always seemed to be two or more steps behind. It was always seemingly the better product. It had reveal codes that let you see the formatting and structure of documents at an almost programmatic level. It was the king of keyboard shortcuts, meaning you could use many of its features without touching a menu. It was a pioneer in “groupware” and e-mail integration. For years, the company offered unlimited, free product support. In PC Magazine’s Service and Reliability surveys, WordPerfect regularly beat Microsoft Word.
It is telling, however, that WordPerfect has invested so heavily in a IBM OS/2 version of its software suite. That moribund platform, considered by many to be more advanced and better than Windows, was doomed almost from the start. It never built a significant user base and quickly faded away. But WordPerfect had invested millions in developing software for it, even though it had already lost its pole position for word processing to Microsoft Word in 1993. I remember the excitement at the launch event for WordPerfect for OS/2. Most at the company believed they were on the cusp of something big, the moment when WordPerfect would regain its former glory,
It felt like I was at a funeral.
Two years later, Corel acquired WordPerfect. At the time, Corel made some of the most popular image editing and digital illustration software in the world. Ultimately, it didn’t do much better than WordPerfect.
WordPerfect, remarkably, still exists. It’s now owned by Alludo, and you can still buy the suite. The reality is that relatively few people know or remember WordPerfect, although you could argue that among the modern word processing platforms, none is as dominant as WordPerfect was in the late 80s and early 90s. Sure, Microsoft Word is popular, but maybe Google Docs is now, too. I’m not even sure people are as excited about word processing as we were in the 90s. Back then, your favorite word processor was like the Hogwarts house you were in. WordPerfect definitely felt like the place for Hufflepuffs. Microsoft Word had a little bit of Slytherin in it back then.
My point is that whatever word processor you use, it owes a lot to what Bastian and Ashton built decades ago. The modern word processor is a reflection of their early dream, and we should silently thank the memory of Mr. Bastian.
