Novell announced today that Internet publishing and editing capabilities, better automation tools, and a new talkative bent will highlight the planned August release of WordPerfect 3.5 for Macintosh. The package will carry a suggested retail price of $189 for floppy or CD-ROM version, and upgrades will be available next month for $89.

The new Mac version of WordPerfect won't quite put buyers on the Internet, but it will include a copy of Netscape Navigator and built-in HTML exporting capabilities. The WYSIWYG Web-building feature should allow users to generate attractive, if straightforward, Web pages without much fuss.

More innovative is a new "Make It Fit" feature, which will automatically adjust a document's margins, font size, line height, and spacing to force the text to fit or fill a given number of pages. An Easy Envelope function and 85 new document templates will also make quick-and-easy document publishing simpler for those without the time or talent for their own creative design.

We're not sure it's crucial to most users, but the new version's integration of Apple's PlainTalk technology will allow WordPerfect to speak all or part of a document's text, "for easy proofreading, or to bring presentations or demonstrations to life." Even if we don't expect to use PlainTalk for the next live demo, we applaud Novell's thoroughness in implementing Mac OS technology.

Look for a crowded booth in Boston next month, but hope for a more intriguing demo focus than HTML editing and talking Macs.

Information from:
Novell propaganda