Business software to the Macs

Nation's Business, Nov, 1991 by Jon Pepper

The Apple Macintosh has only about 10 percent of the personal-computer market, but the innovativeness of its software has made it influential beyond its sales numbers.

Because all programs operate with the same basic look and feel, Mac users are able to pick up a new program easily after they have learned any other one. Mac software also offers a variety of choices that seems almost out of proportion to the sales of $613.6 million in Mac software in 1990 (out of a total market of $4.6 billion).

Says Steve Fair, an editor at Christian Science Publishing in Boston: "We went to the Mac because the software had superior graphics capabilities, was easier to use than PC software, and was much easier for training."

Although he was an expert on IBM compatibles, Fair switched to a Mac for his home office. "I got so tired of all the technical stuff that I had to keep track of with the PC," he says. "The Mac gives me the same level of power without having to learn all sorts of software ins and outs."

The following quick survey includes some of the best-selling programs and some newcomers. In some categories, there are clear favorites, while in others--like general accounting--it is difficult to make a bad choice among the several first-rate products.

Besides listing some general business applications, we have also covered some areas where the Mac has particularly strong software. These include desktop publishing, multimedia, and utilities.

This year, Apple came out with an upgrade of the Mac operating system. The new one, System 7, brings many new capabilities to the Mac, but also, for the first time, it means that older software will have to be rewritten to work with it. Macintosh users have not have to face incompatibility problems before; we have noted below when programs will work with System 7.

(For an excellent introduction and guide to the new operating system, we recommend The System 7 Book, by Craig Danuloff, from Ventana Press, Chapel Hill, N.C.)

Word Processing

Still the top business application, word processing is more than writing and editing on the Mac. You treat the document as a whole, seeing the way it will appear, and you can bring in information directly from other program documents.

Microsoft Word (Microsoft Corp., 1-800-541-1261): Word is the Mac's most popular word processor, and with good reason. It is packed with features, is capable of producing advanced layouts, and integrates not only with other Mac applications but also with PC versions of Word.

Basic features include an accurate onscreen representation of final output, including graphics, "style sheets" to format the appearance attractively, a way to create tables easily, a spelling checker, and a thesaurus.

There is also an ample graphics program (SuperPaint) for creating and incorporating drawings. List price is $395.

WordPerfect 2.02 (WordPerfect Corp., 1-800-451-5151): WordPerfect, the bestselling PC word processor, had a rough first attempt that was criticized for not being "Mac" enough in its interface. Version 2.02 remedies that with admirable graphics handling, a robust set of drawing tools, great color control, and a very strong macro feature that automates frequent procedures.

Graphics can be easily sized, scaled, cropped, and moved to any location, and all text will automatically reformat around these changes. A unique feature, called Watermark, lets an image be placed so that text and graphics will print over it.

Other notable features include automatic hyphenation, first-rate spelling checker and thesaurus, and file compatibility with WordPerfect 5.0 and 5.1 for DOS.

WordPerfect 2.1, not yet being shipped at press time, will be compatible with System 7.$495.

Desktop Publishing

Probably no application is more closely identified with the Mac than desktop publishing. The Mac helped define and create the desktop-publishing phenomenon, which in turn helped to legitimate the Mac.

Although the PC is now (finally) a worthy platform for personal publishing, the Mac remains the perceived leader among publishing professionals.

Aldus PageMaker 4.0 (Aldus Corp., 206-622-5500): PageMaker 4.0 is far and away the leading desktop-publishing application on the Mac. It was first to market and has grown into a truly magnificent program.

Version 4.0 includes powerful word-processing capabilities, including a spelling checker and a search-and-replace feature that can find point sizes and styles as well as words and phrases.

Type controls let you rotate text, condence or expand type from 5 to 250 percent, and manually kern to one one-hundredth of an em. PageMaker will automatically generate a table of contents, create indexes, and combine multiple files with its Book feature, which handles chain-printing, page numbering, and so on.

PageMaker works seamlessly with Aldus PrePrint or other prepress color tools. $795.

Other notable desktop-publishing choices on the Mac:

QuarkXPress (Quark, 1-800-356-9363): QuarkXPress is not selling quite as briskly as PageMaker, but many publishing professionals feel that the program is better for professional designers than PageMaker. This is particularly true in the area of typography, where QuarkXPress has especially fine and sophisticated type tools built in. Color handling is also wonderful. $795.