Book an office suite - Microsoft's Office for Macintosh 4.2.1 and Office 97 Small Business Edition, Lotus's SmartSuite 97 and Corel's WordPerfect Suite 8 Professional - includes related articles summarizing results and on how to shop for an office suite - Software Review - Evaluation

Home Office Computing, July, 1997 by Rick Broida

Internet Explorer (IE) is one of the top Web browsers for Windows 95, and it's a welcome presence on the Mac. Although IE 2.1 is somewhat limited in its support for today's sophisticated Web features, Microsoft recently introduced version 3.0a for the Mac, which you can download from Microsoft's Web site for free. This update has all the features enjoyed by Windows 95 users, including Java, ActiveX, and other high-end plug-ins.

We loved the Internet Assistants for Excel and Word for producing content for the Web. The Word Internet Assistant not only converted our documents into HTML format for Web site publishing, it also acted as a rudimentary browser. The Excel Internet Assistant only created HTML pages, but it did a fine job. Unfortunately, there's no Mac version of the PowerPoint Internet Assistant yet.

MOM's 40-plus business templates for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are a welcome collection of cash flow projections, media releases, business plans, newsletters, and brochures. A companion reference tool, the Microsoft Business Guide, serves up more than 400 checklists and how-to guides, covering everything from advertising to loan applications to successful business tactics.

As for the core applications, just because they're not brand-new doesn't mean they're not powerful. Quite the contrary: We admired Word's automation, from highlighting and correcting spelling errors as we typed to wizards that walked us through creating brochures, fax cover sheets, and other documents. Likewise, we admired Excel's wizards for automatically formatting worksheets and implementing cell-formula functions. Its charting and graphing capabilities are without equal in the Mac arena. And PowerPoint, although limited in its support of varying types of media, churned out attractive business presentations.

We had no trouble sharing files created in MOM with the corresponding programs in Microsoft Office 97. Although we could pull any MOM file into Office 97 for Windows 95, we had to save our Office 97 files in older formats to open them in MOM. And we were underwhelmed by Office's lame help system. It relies on electronic documentation that requires the CD to be in the drive. A printed manual is available from Microsoft for the price of shipping.

If you need an effective office suite solution right away, MOM delivers. If you can hold out for a few months, you should wait for the 1997 version, which promises all the application firepower of the current Small Business Edition for Windows 95 version, complete with the Outlook e-mail/contact manager duo, Small Business Financial Manager, Automap Streets Plus, and more.

Office 97 Small Business Edition

RATING: ****

WIN 95

If you have a pulse, then seeing the words "Small Business Edition" tacked onto the Microsoft Office 97 box will make it quicken. Finally, there's an office suite that's tailored to the specific needs of most small-business owners.

Office 97 Small Business Edition is one of four new versions of Microsoft's revamped Office. Office 97 SBE includes the familiar heavyweights: Word 97, Excel 97. Publisher 97, Small Business Financial Manager 97, Automap Streets Plus, and Outlook 97, Microsoft's new contact manager and e-mail package. Unlike previous versions, the new Office 97 SBE doesn't include PowerPoint or Access for presentation and database chores. Frankly, we're bothered by that omission. If you absolutely need to create electronic slideshows as well as perform advanced recordkeeping, you'll need the Professional Edition of Office 97.