Excel was the original Windows spreadsheet, and each new version takes spreadsheets to new levels. Version 5.0's worksheet outlining makes it easy to organize hierarchical information and display it at different levels of detail. Excel can filter a data table by hiding non-qualifying rows, and it creates subtotal formulas automatically.
Excel uses prebuilt templates and interactive tutors to make day-to-day operations efficient. To sort a range, there's no need to select it; Excel will automatically detect it.
The included Analysis ToolPak allows you to perform statistical tests, sampling, random-number generation and moving averages. The add-in also provides dozens of additional financial, statistical and engineering functions.
Excel makes it easy to manipulate database tables stored in a worksheet. Selecting the AutoFilter command transforms each field name into a drop-down list. Simply select the field values you want to display, and the non-qualifying records are hidden from view.
But the ultimate analysis tool is Excel's Pivot Table feature. It lets you create dynamic cross-tabulation summaries and multiple views of a database. The Pivot Table Wizard walks you through the steps required to create a Pivot Table. Once created, it's easy to manipulate.
Microsoft Excel 5.0
Price: $339; version upgrade, $129; competitive upgrade from Lotus 1-2-3 or Quattro Pro,
$129
Pros: Ease of use, functionality
Cons: Charting is somewhat inflexible
Platforms: Windows 95, NT 3.51
Disk Space: 9MB minimum, 20MB maximum
RAM: 4MB
Microsoft Corp.
800-426-9400
WinMag Box Score 4
ClarisWorks 4.0, the popular application suite designed for Windows 95, includes a word processor, spreadsheet, database manager, drawing tools and a presentation facility. This package brings new meaning to the phrase "ease of use."
The suite's word processor offers a spell checker, indents, tabs and font control-but with an elegantly simple interface. ClarisWorks sets the spacing before and after paragraphs. Additionally, it offers "smart" quotes and predefined styles for quickly formatting text, such as converting a list into bulleted items.
Version 4.0's enhanced mail merge lets you pick a database file, select fields and indicate their placement. ClarisWorks then lets you view any of the database records' data in your document.
The spreadsheet has some pretty slick features. Searches, sorts and reports can all be saved, modified and re-executed quickly. This version also adds cell shading and special fills (to fill a column with the date of every Monday in 1996, for example). The charting module, which is adequate for pie and bar charts, offers easy control of basic chart elements.
ClarisWorks is well integrated, so it's easy to merge components, such as an embedded spreadsheet or chart in a word processing document. Some basic functions of OLE are supported as well.
Assistants and a rich set of templates help you prepare newsletters, calendars, certificates, resumes, name-and-address lists and presentations. The package's built-in presentation feature lets you turn a word processing document into a slide show, complete with looping for continuous display.
ClarisWorks 4.0
Price: $49; upgrades, $39
Pros: Well designed; easy to use
Cons: Meager spreadsheet
Platforms: Windows 95
Disk Space: 12.5MB
RAM: 8MB
Claris Corp.
800-544-8554, 408-727-8227
WinMag Box Score 4.5
Every Member app of Microsoft Office for Windows 95 maintains a common look and feel. A shortcut bar provides one-click access to any of the applications. You can move the bar anywhere on the screen and customize it to include other applications, documents and folders.
Office adds a new file type, the Office Binder. Within a Binder, you'll find workbooks that include files created with any Office 95 or Windows 95 application supporting the feature. With the Binder open, an icon for each file identifies its application. Documents in the Binder are treated as a single unit so that they're opened and saved together. Binder documents can be printed together with cross-document page numbering, and they stay together when copied to another location. It's possible to uncouple any Binder component by removing it from the Binder.
The suite's Answer Wizard interprets your question and then displays the basic topic along with others that might apply. Another help feature, Interactive Answers, guides you through a process using your own document as the example.
The AutoCorrect feature and the spell checker, previously available only in Word, are now in Excel, PowerPoint and Access as well.
Any Office application file you save will, by default, be placed in the My Documents folder created by Windows 95. You can specify other folders, of course.
Microsoft Office for Windows 95
Price: $499; Professional (includes Access), $599
Pros: Unified interface; functionality
Cons: Large disk space; memory required
Platforms: Windows 95, NT 3.51
Disk Space: 87MB (typical)
RAM: 16MB recommended
Microsoft Corp.
800-426-9400
WinMag Box Score 4
OmniPage handles its four-step process of OCR with aplomb. First, you acquire the image, then view the document, select the area you want to convert to text and perform the conversion. After recognition, you can check for questionable text. With OmniPage, you use a series of buttons along the screen's top for setting options.
Bringing paper documents into OmniPage is a snap. For a PaperPort scanner for example, OmniPage automatically adds an icon to the PaperPort desktop. When you drag and drop the scanned document over the icon, OmniPage is launched, and you'll do all your work there.
The OmniPage desktop, with its new thumbnail panel, lets you see all the documents you've scanned.
OmniPage does a good job of auto-detection, making it much easier-and faster-to scan only selected areas.
OmniPage Pro 7.0
Price: $499; upgrade, $129
Pros: Interface; installation and setup
Cons: Output
Platforms: Windows 95
Disk Space: 12MB
RAM: 8MB
Caere Corp.
800-535-7226 x110, 408-395-7000
WinMag Box Score 3.5
OmniForm accepts paper-form images-either from your scanner or a fax machine-then analyzes the images' content and develops an electronic version, with live data for each form page. It adds data-entry fields and will build a database to store responses. It will also build calculations into the online form, automating the printed document with very little human intervention.
The program's 32-bit OCR engine is trained to recognize underlines, check boxes, tables, data combs and labels (such as address) that usually indicate entry points on paper forms. OmniForm's new wizards organize the process and clearly explain your options, starting with the first scan or fax. They also help you incorporate tables such as those found in invoices or purchase orders, or change the heading of a column.
The new version of OmniForm makes it easier to set tab order for quicker navigation between fields. The fields are ordered from left to right and top to bottom by default, and those contained within a box are automatically given a sequential tab order-a logical solution. OmniForm provides a thumbnail sketch of the form with fields numbered in the tab order. The program also displays a hierarchical list of all the fields on the right side of the form. Simply drag the fields in the list to change the tab order.
Besides long filenames, OmniForm supports OLE 2.0 as client and server. OLE automation support may have far-reaching implications for using OmniForm in a workgroup. You can, for instance, use information written to another data format, such as an Excel spreadsheet, to populate invoice forms you've created in OmniForm.
OmniForm 2.0
Price: $199
Pros: Spell checker; calculations
Cons: Complex formulas
Platforms: Windows 95, NT
Disk Space: 10MB
RAM: 8MB (Win95), 12MB (NT)
Caere Corp.
800-535-SCAN, 408-395-7000
WinMag Box Score 4
WordPerfect 6.1 has an improved interface that matches those of the other apps in the Corel WordPerfect suite. The interface includes a toolbar with new, smaller icons; a power bar with formatting commands like fonts, alignment and styles; and a status bar at the bottom that lets you know the date, time, insertion mode, position and printer selected. Incidentally, WordPerfect is now an OLE 2.0 container and server, so you can drag and drop across applications and embed an Excel worksheet in your document.
Most of the improvements center on what Novell calls PerfectSense technology. WordPerfect's Find and Replace function and its Thesaurus feature, for example, know word forms. Tell the program to replace "buy'' with "purchase,'' and it will replace "bought'' and "buying'' with the appropriate replacements as well.
One of the program's best features is its QuickFormat with AutoUpdate. This lets you tie the paragraphs you copy to the formats of the original paragraph. When you change the formatting of the original paragraph, the changes ripple through the dependent paragraphs as well.
WordPerfect can copy, move, rename, delete or print files; change file attributes; and create, remove or rename a directory. You can print a list of the files in a directory. The QuickFinder function lets you search your entire hard disk (and network disks as well) for files containing a particular word or phrase.
WordPerfect 6.1
Price: $395; upgrade, $99; competitive upgrade, $129
Pros: Interface, file system
Cons: Available only as part of suite
Platforms: 3.x, 95, NT
Disk Space: 32MB (14MB minimum)
RAM: 6MB minimum, 8MB recommended
Corel Corp.
800-451-5151, 801-765-4000
WinMag Box Score 5
Microsoft Word for Windows 95 has long filenames, a File dialog box and extensive screen tips, along with some just nice-to-have features. For instance, if your touch-typing trips up and you press the Caps Lock key instead of the Shift key, Word will sense the error in the next sentence and will correct the mistakes and turn off Caps Lock.
Word 6.0's AutoCorrect has gotten smarter in Word 95. Instead of assuming that two capital letters in a row is a mistake, it now keeps its hands off legitimate occurrences such as plural acronyms (PCs, etc).
Word 95 analyzes what you type and makes intelligent substitutions. If you type a number followed by a period and some text, Word 95 automatically switches into numbering mode and neatly formats your typing as a numbered list. Similarly, it switches into bulleted list format when you type a few dashes followed by some text.
Microsoft Word for Windows 95
Price: $339
Pros: Feature set; intelligent input analysis
Cons: Slow loading; file system
Platforms: Windows 95, NT 3.51
Disk Space: 8MB (approx.)
RAM: 8MB
Microsoft Corp.
800-426-9400
WinMag Box Score 4
The ultimate killer app would glue everything-information, applications and the network-into a single, seamless package that's easy to learn, customize and use. Microsoft says it has one, and it's called Outlook. After spending a few days with an early Outlook beta, we have to admit Microsoft just might be right.
This product has so much to offer in so many categories that it's difficult to know where to begin. It makes use of, but does not require, Microsoft Exchange Server. Our experience shows it also supports NetWare 3.x networks equally well. Outlook sits on the client, which can be a network-connected desktop or a wandering notebook computer.
Outlook tracks e-mail, calendars, contacts, tasks, data files, system information, sticky notes, information routing/sharing and even a diary within a single customizable interface. You "live" in Outlook, managing information within workspaces you configure, and bring in other Microsoft Office components to use as needed.
Outlook shines as a contact manager. It offers most standard contact-management features, such as speed dial and last number redial, and an unlimited number of prestored autodial phone numbers. You can answer a call and bring up the appropriate contact record using Caller ID, then start a timer and record notes about your conversation.
Outlook offers dozens of e-mail shortcuts: name checks to make sure you're not using an ambiguous e-mail address, automatic completion of frequent correspondents' e-mail addresses, and the ability to redirect or copy someone else on your messages. Outlook even offers a new, gee-whiz e-mail type with voting buttons. AutoPreview is the most useful new feature in Outlook. It shows the first few lines of each message so you can delete irrelevant messages without opening them up.
Microsoft Outlook 97
Price: Not yet set
Pros: Integrated tools; customizability
Cons: User interface needs work
Platforms: Windows 95, NT
Microsoft Corp.
800-426-9400
WinMag Box Score 4