Laura Acklen

Laura Acklen obtained her B.B.A. at Southwest Texas State University in 1985. After learning WordPerfect 4.2 in early 1988, she developed custom courseware and trained law offices that were converting from Wang systems to Novell LANs. In 1990, she began teaching classes for the international training company, Productivity Point International (PPI), and progressed into courseware development for its corporate headquarters. Her student and instructor manuals were distributed internationally and used in all PPI training centers. In 1993, Laura wrote her first book for Que with Michael Miller called Oops! What to Do When Things Go Wrong with WordPerfect. Her second book, WordPerfect 6.0 SureSteps, was written that same year. Since that time, she has authored or co-authored seven other books for Que, including QueÕs First Look at Windows 95 and four editions of the Special Edition Using WordPerfect books (for versions 6, 6.1, 7, and 9).

Laura was a contributing editor for the WordPerfect for Windows Magazine for almost four years. She wrote the monthly "Basics" column for the first year before switching over to the "Troubleshooting" column, which also appeared in every issue.

Most recently, she has been writing academic courseware for DDC Publishing (www.ddcpub.com). She wrote the Internet Business Binder II and the Careers Binder, which teach high school and college students how to use the Internet as a research tool.

Laura enjoys scuba diving, cooking, reading, swimming, and biking. She lives in Austin, Texas with her husband, Jeff, and their three children. The WPWriter.com website was created after the release of Special Edition Using WordPerfect 9 and now boasts the largest collection of WordPerfect tips on the Web. There are also articles, links to other WP resources, and a page containing updates and patches for virtually every version of WordPerfect.