Claris Spruces Up Its Jack-of-all-trades Business Software with Enhanced Style and Database Features.
Joseph Holmes
Reviews Integrated Software/
AS THE UNDISPUTED KING of the integrated-software category, ClarisWorks has long delivered a Swiss-army knife of features in an impressively well-integrated and compact package. The latest release isn't a major rewrite, but the addition of key style-sheet and database features, plus a good number of minor enhancements, makes ClarisWorks 4.0 even more of a joy to use than previous versions. Although you won't find sophisticated features such as customizable menus and indexing in ClarisWorks' word processor, it's nearly on a par with stand-alone applications. Without a doubt, it's powerful enough to serve many users as their one and only word processor. And ClarisWorks' small footprint (it requires only about 1 MB of RAM and 10 MB of disk space for a normal install), paired with its snappy performance, offers obvious advantages over gargantuan Microsoft Word and other beefy programs, especially for users watching their RAM and disk weight.
Rightly so, then, the most-ambitious enhancements to ClarisWorks 4.0 are in the word processor. ExpressStyle, Claris' slick implementation of universal style sheets, lets you quickly and easily format text, outlines, and paragraphs (finally!) -- as well as spreadsheets and graphics -- using a floating palette or a pop-up menu in the ruler. The software has several default styles, and of course, you can create your own and add them to the palette.
In addition, you can now divide documents into sections and specify different formatting for each section -- a great feature if you're preparing a report or thesis. You can change the number of columns, the page numbering, and header and footer text on a section-by-section basis. You can even choose to place headers and footers on either left or right facing pages.
In version 4.0, ClarisWorks' outliner has been integrated with the word processor rather than appearing as a separate mode. For a quick way to create bulleted or numbered lists, you can apply an outline style to text selections. Also, you can finally get a word count for a selection of text, as well for an entire document, although this feature worked as slow as molasses for us. One feature inexplicably omitted and sorely missed, however, is drag-and-drop editing.
In addition to the word processor, two other modules boast welcome improvements. The database module now includes a FileMaker-like list view, called FastReport, that creates and saves custom searches, sorts, and reports. Several new field types have been added, including a flexible name field that holds first and last name in a single field. The program automatically sorts by the first letter in the last name, but you can also opt to sort by the first word in the field.
The spreadsheet module now sports a Fill Special option, which automatically fills cells in date, time, or number sequences. Here, too, however, drag-and-drop editing was conspicuous by its absence. For finer control over graphics, ClarisWorks' graphics module now supports free rotation of objects by 1-degree increments.
Other noteworthy additions include basic instructions for creating HTML documents for the World Wide Web, a 500-image clip-art library, and three new ClarisWorks Assistants -- the Home Finance Assistant, the Certificate Assistant, and the handy Mail Label Assistant (50 Avery-label formats are included).
ClarisWorks is an elegantly designed program. Its modules are so well integrated that you can open and edit a word-processing, spreadsheet, database, or graphics frame from within any type of document (except telecommunications, of course). There's still room for improvement, though.
Simply changing the default font in the word processor, for example, is a multistep operation that requires you to create a stationery document in the System Folder. It's surprising that you can't directly import FileMaker Pro files, Excel 5 spreadsheets, and Word 6 documents. Perhaps worst of all, ClarisWorks 4.0 can't save in version 3.0 format (Claris promises backward compatibility with version 3.0, plus filters for Excel 5 and Word 6, by the end of this year). AppleScript support is finally included, but only in a basic way. Last, the telecommunications module, the weakest component of ClarisWorks since the beginning, remains essentially unchanged. Continuing to lack Zmodem support, it's appropriate only for rudimentary telecom tasks.
One caveat for owners of 68000-based Macs -- ClarisWorks 4.0 requires at least a 68020 processor and System 7.0 or later.
The Bottom Line
With version 4.0, ClarisWorks further solidifies its lead in the integrated-software category. Although none of its modules can do everything a corresponding stand-alone application, such as Excel or FileMaker Pro, can do, ClarisWorks 4.0 does most things very well. Except for the telecommunications module, it's probably all the application most folks will ever need.
ClarisWorks 4.0
Rating: (4.5 out of 5 mice) Very Good/Outstanding
Price: $129 (list).
Pros: Elegantly integrated modules. Full-featured but simple-to-use word processor. Small RAM and disk footprint. Snappy performance.
Cons: Lacks drag-and-drop editing. No backward compatibility with ClarisWorks 3.0.
Company: Claris, Santa Clara, CA; 800-544-8554 or 408-727-8227.
Reader Service: Circle #405.
Enhanced word-processing features in ClarisWorks 4.0 include a quick and easy way to format just about anything -- including paragraphs and graphics -- by using floating palettes.
