My copy of WordPerfect 9 behaved itself admirably for a year or more and then suddenly developed the habit of giving me a black screen when first opened. Any text is unreadable (as it is black-on-black). I can rectify the problem by going into ‘File’ menu and then selecting ‘Close’ after which everything proceeds normally until the next time WordPerfect is opened. I tried uninstalling WordPerfect Office and then reinstalling software but it makes no difference. I have also explored every option that is on offer in the various menus without finding any cure. Can you offer help?

I have found two possible causes/fixes for this problem. Firstly, it can occur if you are using a keyboard layout other than the default for WordPerfect 9. Go to the ‘Tools’ menu > ‘Settings’ and in the window that appears, click ‘Customize’ (under the keyboard icon). In the next window that appears, click the ‘Keyboards’ tab to identify which keyboard is selected. This will be the name next to ‘Current keyboard’ at the bottom of the screen. If this is other than the ‘‘, click ‘‘ in the list of ‘Available Keyboards’ and then press the ‘Select’ button. This should now be the active keyboard. Click the ‘Close’ button and then ‘Close’ again in the other window. Now see if the problem persists. If it does, then you may need to get the WordPerfect 9 Service Pack 4 that I understand will fix this particular problem. Unfortunately, you will have to pay for this release. Before paying your money, I strongly suggest that you check with Corel if the problem would be fixed by this service pack You can find more information at www.corel.com/support/wordperfect/sp4.htm. The Australian contact details for Corel can be found at a link on the above mentioned page.