WordPerfect Lightning is a free tool available for download from Corel, designed to bridge the company's own WordPerfect application with Microsoft's Office 2007 System and with Adobe Acrobat. Corel describes WordPerfect Lightning as a hybrid piece of software delivering note-taking and Web collaboration capabilities. The premium Word Processing Module for WordPerfect Lightning will be showcased at the Office 2.0 Conference in San Francisco and will permit the seamless integration of WordPerfect Lightning into both the Office 2003 Suite and the Office 2007 System. Itself a direct competitor of both Microsoft and Adobe, Corel makes an excellent example of interoperability with the offering of WordPerfect Lightning.

"To date more than 60,000 users have downloaded WordPerfect Lightning and their feedback consistently validates the value of our hybrid approach to productivity," said Nick Davies, Vice President and General Manager, Graphics and Productivity at Corel. "Adapting WordPerfect Lightning to work with Microsoft Office is an important development for Corel and for the millions of Microsoft Office users worldwide who can now benefit from WordPerfect Lightning within their existing workflows."

Of course that by offering WordPerfect Lightning as a free download, even if the tool is currently only in beta stage, Corel is in fact advertising WordPerfect Office X3, its alternative to the Office 2007 System. The only downside of the application is the limited support it offers. Currently Lightning will only deal with Office 2003 and 2007, WordPerfect and Adobe PDF file formats.

"The new Word Processing Module for WordPerfect Lightning enables users to aggregate information from Microsoft Word, WordPerfect and PDF files, as well as from photos, images and Web-based content, into simple and versatile Lightning Notes. This content can then be sent seamlessly to Microsoft Office 2003 and Microsoft Office 2007 to create formatted, professional-looking documents. The new Word Processing Module also allows WordPerfect Lightning users to save directly to the Microsoft Word (.doc) file format, making WordPerfect Lightning an ideal choice for those seeking an inexpensive alternative to Microsoft Word for simple word processing tasks," Corel added.