A few of our favorite things: the editors point to 21 products that make their work easier

Home Office Computing, Dec, 1990 by Steve Chen, Crystal Waters, David Hallerman, Ted Stevenson, Lance Paavola, Bernadette Grey, Steve Morgenstern, Henry F. Beechhold, Edward P. Stevenson

--CRYSTAL WATERS

TURN MEGABYTES INTO KILOBYTES

Isogon FontSpace ($90)

(MS-DOS font-compression utility)

Isogon Corporation; (212) 967-2424

After printing out a few pages with the ho-hum negative typefaces in your new laser printer, you get the bug. You've got to have something better--something distinct, interesting, fun--to run out on this miracle machine. There's a world of downloadable fonts out there, but you soon discover that font files eat up large chunks of disk space. A single 24-point file, for example, may be as large as 320K. If you want a family of point sizes and effects (italics, bold, and so on) in a particular typeface, you're talking megabytes. So what's to be done besides being font-cheap? FontSpace, a font-compression software utility, is one solution--one that works supremely well for me in my lust for more and more fonts.

When you first install FontSpace, it searches your hard disk for LaserJet-compatible font files (for example, HP, Bitstream, AGFA Compugraphic, Glyphix) and compresses them up to 97 percent! That certainly saves space on my crowded hard-disk drive. FontSpace then loads itself into your AUTOEXEC.BAT file, and--as far as you're concerned--disappears from view. Afterward, every time you boot up your computer, FontSpace comes to life and will automatically decompress on the fly any font(s) you choose for a particular printing job. Since the magic happens off-camera, you needn't even think about it.

FontSpace is a permanent part of my computing life. It has allowed me to store megabytes of font files in kilobytes of disk space and has never misbehaved: a useful product at a modest cost.

--HENRY F. BEECHHOLD

ALMOST LIKE WRITING ON A MAC

World for Windows ($495)

(MS-DOS word processor)

Microsoft; (206) 882-8080

I like a word processor that shows me pages as I create them. That's why I like Windows-based word processors, such as Microsoft Word for Windows. I like being able to choose total formatting (the style-sheet concept) with a single menu choice. Deciding on formatting such as bold or italic and left-justified or centered with a single mouse click on a ruler or ribbon makes these basic word-processing tasks that much easier--which lets me concentrate on the writing itself.

On the Macintosh, I've always liked to double-click on any word to highlight it, then either type over it, delete it, or cut and paste it. Word for Windows gives me the same capability.

I especially like the advanced macro function built into Word for Windows. The function helps me to automate repetitive procedures. Since I can program (a BASIC-like language) Word macros, I can Automate even complex procedures, such as guiding a temporary worker through the prompts necessary to create a detailed from letter. For creating simple one-page fliers, four-pages newsletters, or illustrated 32-page proposals, I like Word for Windows. It's easier to use than most actual desktop-publishing programs, particularly for my main task--writing the text. I just plain like Windows, since it brings many of the benefits of the Macintosh to the PC.