NWA-PCUG 01/99 NewsLetter Article 18861 N. Hwy 112, Springdale, AR 72762-9303 MS Works 4.5: Making Computing Easier for Home Users by Gene Gould, Capital PC User Group From 9/98 CPCUG Monitor For a number of years I have toyed with the idea of writing an article qu estioning the necessity, or even the desirability of using full-featured office suites for ordinary home use. I am sure that my first experience with "full-featured" business software influenced me to a large degree. My first personal computer, an IBM 8088 with a 20-Mbyte hard drive and CGA graphics, was delivered to my office at Boeing in the late 1980s. The standard office software at Boeing then was WordPerfect 5.0, Lotus 1-2-3, and dBase III. After a few weeks with WordPerfect, I decided that there must be a better way. Learning all of the "shortcuts," "hot keys," and creating macros to perform "simple" tasks did not fit into my concept of what computer software was supposed to be like. I, perhaps foolishly, held the belief that the purpose of the computer and the applications software was to do a job simply, not to present me with a tool that would require massive amounts of time just to learn how to write letters and documents. I informed management, politely, of course, that if they expected me to use this new toy, while taking away my terminal connected to the biggest IBM mainframe built, they should consider furnishing me with something beside WordPerfect. Coming from an employee having about 30 years of service, Boeing did not consider the request to be unreasonable. So our resident computer expert, a young woman who could jerk a hard drive out of a Compaq (no small feat) and replace it, format the new drive, and install the operating system, which was MS-DOS 3.0 at the time, while you were taking a fast cigarette break, stopped by and installed Microsoft Word 5.0 for DOS. With a big smile she said, "Try that on for size." It was still not what I was hoping for, but we got along better. She also installed a card that permitted me to use my PC as a terminal. But, if I recall correctly, I never used the mainframe again. My next journey into the land of the software tripod, that is, the word processor, the spreadsheet, and the database, occurred when my wife informed me that with the amount of material she was writing for her various volunteer activities, she really was getting tired of going to our neighbor's house to use her no-hard-drive, double-floppy Leading Edge computer with a 13-inch RGB monitor. The instructor of the beginning computing course the neighbor had taken at the Loudoun Campus of Northern Virginia Community College had convinced class members that no one could possibly have any use for a hard drive on a home computer. Using the same method we still use today (that is, ask your guru friends for recommendations), we bought an Epson 286/12 with a 40-Mbyte hard drive and a 14-inch EGA monitor. I disappointed some of my Boeing friends, who had tried to convince me that anything less than an IBM 370/90 running parallel processing with a Cray supercomputer was totally inadequate for home use. The 286 wasn't the absolute state of the art at the time, and it cost $2500, but for home use it was an excellent machine. Like me, it is now retired, but still runs what is within its capacity. The big question then was what to do about applications. A word processor, a spreadsheet, and a database, approximately $400 each at the time, or 50 percent of the cost of the computer, seemed ludicrous. In fact, I think it still is. To my way of thinking, for the average home user, this type of purchase has a great deal in common with buying a $75,000 Mercedes to drive 10 miles in heavy traffic each way to work. In addition, studies have shown repeatedly that the average user does not use much more than about 10 percent of the capabilities of the professional office applications. There have been options to the full-featured business suites available for home use from the beginning of the PC. Just as I didn't feel compelled to buy the 370/90 Cray hardware for home use, neither did I feel compelled to fall into the WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3, dBase trap. Many of my co-workers used Symphony, which was an early integrated package. I never had the opportunity to use or learn it, and, perhaps, should have opted for it. I elected to go with PFS First Choice, primarily because it seemed to have everything we needed, it was less expensive, and it was reasonably "user friendly" for its day. It cost about $100, I think. Our neighbor was using a software package called Eight in One by Spinnaker. It had some extra features I liked, but its word processor and spreadsheet were not as good as those in First Choice. Meanwhile, in the spreadsheet category I had learned both Quattro and an early DOS version of Excel. About a year later I was given a demonstration copy of Microsoft Works for DOS, version 2.0, which I installed. I was hooked immediately, and I've never looked back. After suggesting some improvements to Microsoft for its manual and help screens in the section on mailing labels, I was invited to Beta test version 3.0 for DOS and given a final copy. This was the last DOS version. I used it until I bought a Gateway 486 computer in February 1993 that had Microsoft Works for Windows 2.0 installed. This article is not to suggest or imply that those who are using full office suites (such as Microsoft Office, Corel WordPerfect Suite 8, or Lotus SmartSuite) at work or at home should not have them on their home computers. If you know them and love them, I would never suggest that you change. I am suggesting that there are, however, alternatives for newer home users who have one of the full-featured office productivity software suites that they have not yet mastered, or for those who are contemplating buying one. My new Microsoft Works 4.5 for Windows 95 has conversion files to convert to 16 different formats, including all versions of Microsoft Works, all varieties of Microsoft Word and Corel WordPerfect for both DOS and Windows, ASCII text, and rich text format (RTF). In addition, it can now convert Microsoft Works files for the Macintosh. POSSIBLE LOCATION FOR SPLITTING IT UP (or split up 5 lines???) The total application, including word processor, spreadsheet, database, and communications software, uses 12.8 Mbytes of hard-drive space. It is c urrently selling for $43.90 complete, not as an update. For the average home user, you get the equivalent of Microsoft Word 97, Excel, and Access. Compare the current price for Microsoft Office 97 Standard at about $450 2E Microsoft Works does not include anything comparable to PowerPoint, h owever, so if you need to make professional-quality presentations at home, you'll need more than Microsoft Works. I suspect that the majority of h ome users do not have such requirements. I object to the practice of computer manufacturers (assemblers) installing the large office suites on computers directed toward the home market. Several years ago the most commonly installed application was Microsoft Works. In recent years the installation of Microsoft Office has become increasingly common, and the price has been adjusted accordingly. When a person is asked why he or she has Microsoft Office 97 on a computer used for writing letters to sister Susie and, maybe, keeping an address list, the response is usually, "It came with it." Do they think it didn't cost them anything, that Gateway, Dell, Micron, or whoever gave them the software out of the goodness of their hearts? I occasionally ask, "Do you know how to use the spreadsheet or the database?' The answer frequently is, "What 's that?" Illustrated examples are useful in making a point. My wife and I are finally getting around to doing some estate planning and getting our affairs in order. Like most people our age, we have accumulated quite a lot of family-heirloom-type junk over the years. So that our children know what the junk is, where it came from, who it belonged to, and a bit of its history, I am preparing a notebook. Figure 1 shows a typical page that will be in this notebook: an inventory page. Please note the format and the color photo of the child's oak rocking chair. This is a database form. How many of you home users of either the Microsoft Office or Corel WordPerfect suites you were convinced you had to have can whip up a little page like this by merely clicking on a template, deleting a couple of the fields that are not applicable, and then pulling in a scanned photo? You can do the same thing in Microsoft Publisher, Broderbund's Print Shop, or any other publishing software. I have both, but if I build it in one of those applications, it becomes a single document, not a database. For those not quite sure of the advantages of the database choice, when the database is complete, with all of the items and their descriptions and photos, I can: *Print the entire series in the form view with photos *Print the list view without the pictures *Sort the records by any field, such as all of the items each child gets *Copy the entire file onto a floppy and put it in the safe deposit box If you would like multiple columns with inserted photos or artwork, look at figure 2. Works has had a few task wizards for a long time. The primary wizard that was useful in the earlier versions was the Address Book. I skipped Microsoft Works versions 3.0 and 4.0 for Windows, but in the new version 4.5, 39 task wizards with more than 100 templates to provide you with already designed forms are included. I have already adopted a number of them, including an Auto Maintenance Record. It includes templates for things you didn't even know you needed to do. The preparation of form letters and labels has always presented a challenge for the home user. You may remember my article, "Mailing Labels and Form Letters Made Easy" in the December 1996 Monitor. They just got a lot easier. In the new Works 4.5, in the Tools menu on the top toolbar there are a number of new tools. These include Envelopes, Form Letters, and Labels. Figure 3 shows you step by step how to prepare labels. You can make multiple copies of a single label as you would if you were making return address labels, or labels for each item in a database. The same sort of a menu is presented for preparing form letters and printing envelopes. For all of the 46 years we have been married, my wife has maintained a greeting card register in a book that provides space to check the cards sent and received for each year. She also codes the kind of card we send so that people do not receive the same one in consecutive years. Look at figure 4. Greeting Card Register is one of the new templates. It is already done and ready to use. Can you make your own on a spreadsheet? Possibly, if your spreadsheet has the ability to mix fonts, use colored clipart, borders, shading, and a few other minor items. How about a grocery list? Figure 5, Grocery List, is another example. Per haps I should state that you can customize any of these templates to suit your particular needs. Remember that there are more than 100 of these te mplates. The Home Inventory template that I used to create figure 1 was c ustomized for this purpose. This is what home software should look like, and this is what makes a home computer useful to the average person. Let's take one more look at Works in terms of its word processor capabilities. The Format Menu includes Easy Formats. With this feature you can easily use a variety of formats in a single document by merely highlighting the section of the document you wish to format, going to Easy Formats, and clicking the format you wish to select from its list of available form ats. Hanging indent is one example. The Easy Formats dialog box also prov ides a miniature visual so you can see what any format on the list will l ook like. The screen shot at the beginning of this article shows part of the list of formats available. A large number of users, particularly those whose early computer experiences were with applications software before the use of a mouse became common, prefer to use keyboard shortcuts to perform tasks such as formatting, editing, and moving. This version of Microsoft Works has an extensive number of shortcut keys available. It does not, however, have macro capability. You can link a chart or graph to the word processor. If you update or change the data from which the graph or chart is produced, the linked chart in the word processor is updated. You cannot link two separate spreadsheets together and share data. Microsoft Works does not include a grammar checker, nor does it have "autosave." If you wish to learn more about the product, it has its own Web address on the Microsoft Web site at http://microsoft.com/works/default/htm. Gene Gould, a member of the Capital PC User Group since April 1993, retired from the Boeing Company in 1991. He was the manager in charge of office leasing and facilities management of leased offices for BCS in the eastern half of the United States from 1979 until his retirement.