Indexing WordPerfect files with SharePoint

On a recent MOSS 2007 project, our client wanted to index WordPerfect documents stored both in SharePoint and a file share. After some searching on the web, no official solution/approach for this seemed to be available from either Microsoft or Corel!

Further searching yielded these blog posts which appeared to offer the best hope of a solution:

• Shane Young http://msmvps.com/blogs/shane/archive/2005/11/29/77181.aspx
• Dwight Bragdon http://blogs.pointbridge.com/Blogs/bragdon_dwight/Pages/Post.aspx?_ID=8 (update: link broken but cached snapshot available on Google)

We tried out both approaches but unfortunately couldn’t get either to work for us and so it was back to the drawing board! We then stumbled across this WordPerfect iFilter from Corel – http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite/us/en/Content/1153321224268?pid=1216666073390. The Corel website is light on information about the iFilter but it seemed to be worth a shot and I’m glad to report that it worked a treat!

Here is an overview of the installation method used:

1. Download the PDF IFilter from the Corel website

• Corel WPF IFilter http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite/us/en/Content/1153321224268?pid=1216666073390
• wpd icon (here is a link to one)

2. Stop IIS on all WFE and Index servers

• Start> Run> Services.msc and stop the IIS Admin service

3.    Install the IFilter on the Index server. By the way, we noticed that this iFilter installation automatically makes the Registry key modification referred to in one of the above posts.

4.    Copy the wpd icon file to Drive:/Program Files\Common files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\Template\Images on front-end servers

5.    Edit the Docicon.xml file on front-end servers to include the .wpd extension

• Browse to Drive:/Program Files\Common files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\Template\Xml
• Open the Docicon.xml file and add an entry for the .wpd extension <Mapping Key=”wpd” Value=”NameofIconFile.gif”/>

6.    Restart all servers

7.    Browse to Central Administration > SharedServices > Search Settings > File Types. Click on New File Type, enter wpd as the file extension and click ok.

8.    Run a full crawl of the Content Source where the WordPerfect documents are stored.

Hopefully, this alternative approach might be of use to someone if either of the above mentioned methods don’t work out. If so, please post a comment to let us know.