One of the most unique features in MS Word's drawing facility is the ability to incorporate the graphics directly into the document. In other words, graphics can be drawn directly over or behind text in a document. This technique can be useful for accessorizing the text in a document and integrating the text and graphics into a uniform whole. It is also wonderful for editing documents, allowing problem areas to be circled with the "pencil" as you would on paper.
Overall the MS Word drawing facility is useful and straightforward, providing basic line, shape and color rendering capabilities, with an emphasis on drawing diagrams such as for business reports.
The WordPerfect drawing facilities, WP Presentations 3.0, are geared towards more visually flamboyant productions. Included in this vast array of features are the basic drawing functions found in the MS Word drawing package, but WordPerfect goes beyond this. WP provides more shapes such as polygons, for which you can specify the number of sides, and arrows for which you specify the direction and length. When the arrow appears you can adjust it to be curved and stretched in a visually pleasing way. The line styles that can be drawn are also more varied, allowing for arcs to be shaped as partial ellipses or partial circles, and a line of continuous Bezier curves can be drawn by having the user specify the shape of each new connected curve by manipulating two control points. There are also several more fill colors and line colors than in MS Word, and WP allows the user to choose from various fill patterns. All of these features give users greater flexibility and allow much more sophisticated images to be created easily.
After drawing an image the WP Presentations 3.0 drawing facility also allows the user to apply effects to sections of the image such as blurring, embossing, simulating rain or wind on the object, creating a stereogram, and so on. Additionally, WordPerfect provides TextArt in which text can be mapped to certain shapes to make the text form itself around a circle or increase in size from left to right.
Ultimately the WP Presentations drawing application is more flexible and thorough than the MS Word drawing facilities. WP is especially suited for advertising and stylish image creation, giving the user more visually intriguing techniques for creating complex and eye-catching graphics. However, though MS Word appears to be much more limited, it is more geared towards the creation of diagrams that might appear in reports and business documents as it allows graphics to be incorporated within the textual area of the document and facilitates better diagram labeling via callout boxes. MS Word also allows easier switching between drawing and writing since its drawing toolbar is accessible even when editing text, whereas WPs drawing application must be invoked specially whenever an image is to be adjusted and must then be closed in order to alter text.
It is clear that WordPerfect has the upper hand with respect to multimedia capabilities, and these features are becoming increasingly more important as the professional world is shifting towards a paperless office. WP is focusing much more on the quickly developing world of the internet and is bound to excel because of this.