Powerful Pencil-and-Paper Program
Most of the programs that include the name “works” are the Swiss Army knives of computer software.
Like the blades, scissors, screwdrivers and other implements of the pocket knife, they include a series of modules for word processing, spreadsheet, database, graphics and communications. You switch from one to the other according to the job you want to do.
Claris Works for the Macintosh is different. There are no modules to switch. It works just like a pencil and sheet of paper. You can put words or pictures or charts or spreadsheet tables anywhere you want on the page.
Published by Apple Computer subsidiary Claris Corp. with a suggested price of $299, Claris Works is as powerful as it is easy to use.
The pencil-and-paper concept is so simple and so obvious that it seems ridiculous to call it revolutionary. But compared to the way task integration is done in other programs, it is revolutionary.
For instance, if you want to put a picture or a chart on the page of a typical word-processing document, you first have to create a special kind of space for it, usually marked by a frame of some sort. With Claris Works, you put a picture on the page by placing the cursor where you want it to go, and using the insert command in the pull-down menus at the top of the screen.
For a spreadsheet table, click on a special symbol in the “toolbox” displayed along the left side of the screen and drag the size of spreadsheet you wish into place on the page. It is a true spreadsheet, complete with 96 math, financial and statistical functions and a theoretical limit of 4 million cells. If you don’t get it wide enough or long enough on the first try, simply stretch it when you need more room. Or squeeze it down if you end up with empty rows or columns of cells.
You can even point at a series of cells and automatically create a chart of the numbers they contain. There are seven varieties of pie, bar, line and scatter-plot charts to choose from, each of which can be customized in a number of ways.
Databases are created in a special kind of document all their own where you can define the various fields in which individual elements of data will be stored, such as name, address and telephone number. Among the uses of the database feature is creation of a customer list from which invoices and mailings can be prepared.
Another activity that does not fit into the pencil-and-paper metaphor for graphics, text and spreadsheets is communications. You establish a telephone link with another computer by opening a special communications document that defines the necessary parameters.
Programs in the “works” genre exist for both the Macintosh and DOS-compatible computers. They are targeted at individuals and small businesses that are new to personal computing. They offer both easier use and lower cost compared to buying separate programs to perform the same tasks.
You don’t give up much in the way of capability by using such programs, especially with Claris Works. For instance, the word-processing function has a good thesaurus and spelling dictionary and it handles footnotes just fine. But it won’t create a table of contents or an index as more powerful stand-alone programs will do.
If you don’t already own a collection of single-purpose software programs, it makes a lot of sense to get one of the integrated “works” packages. The truth is that many people never use many of the complicated features contained in their software. It is often cheaper both in effort and money to start out with a more basic program such as Claris Works and then add other programs only when you really need the extra features. You’ll find that the documents created in Claris Works are compatible with other Claris software as well as with nearly all other Macintosh software.
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