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Other Features

The typical wordprocessing features that deal with fonts, attributes, page characteristics, etc., are all accessed via the right-click-activated pop-up menu. The first two entries on this menu are "Text Properties" and "Page Properties". Left-clicking on either of these opens up standard tabbed notebooks filled with options. If I have one complaint with this arrangement, it is that many of the tabs are labelled with an often cryptic symbol, and I am left guessing what the symbol means. However if bubble help is not disabled and the pointer is left over the tab for more than a second, a help bubble will appear giving a brief explanation of what the tab means. Many of the other options on the pop-up menu are context-sensitive and depend on whether the pointer is in the main body, in a header, a frame, etc.

What's New?

Let's look now at what's new in this upgrade. In my limited testing I didn't encounter anything. Although I'm not a regular WordPro user, I made a point of looking for changes. I have SmartSuite 1.1 installed on my ThinkPad, while testing the upgrade on my Desktop so I could easily compare the two versions. According to Lotus there are three areas in which changes were made to WordPro:

1. Updated import/export filters for greater compatibility with Microsoft Excel and Word 97 file formats

2. Enhanced HTML and Internet support

3. Enhancements in LotusScript Y2K support and in Installation to WorkSpace on Demand.

There is little question in this reviewer's mind that Wordpro is a heavy-duty commercial-grade product with the power and stability to meet the most demanding environment. Personally, I prefer it over StarOffice not only because of its traditional character-based approached as mentioned before, but also because I don't feel comfortable with StarOffice's everything-in-one pot, or "stew" approach to business software. I am used to, and therefore "at home" with, dividing software up according to function. But I emphasize that is just my personal preference, not a commentary on StarOffice.

Is it worth it?

There is another issue regarding this release of SmartSuite WordPro I'm more concerned about. When the original SmartSuite was released, if you're like me you paid the full price for the product, plus the nominal price of a maintenance upgrade a year or so later. Now Lotus wants us to pay an additional $159 U.S. List for a product with only minimal improvement over its predecessor. I'm going to suspend judgement until all components of the package have been reviewed. I'll wait and see if the other components will be enough of an improvement for me to be able to recommend that you spend the money for the upgrade. Stay tuned!¹

—Walter Metcalf

Next week: Setting up and Configuring a SOHO Peer Network