Microsoft Office '95: The usability war rages on<\/p>\n
By Zatni Arbi<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): The dust has not really settled yet, but in the
\nwake of the much-publicized launch of Windows 95 over the past
\ntwo weeks or so, we've already seen a lot of activity at software
\nhouses around the world, particularly in North America. The
\npeople at Novell-WordPerfect and Lotus, among others, definitely
\nhave a lot of homework to do. Microsoft Office 95, which was
\nlaunched here in Jakarta last Monday at the same time as Windows
\n95, sets a new standard in usability that they will all have to
\nstrive for.<\/p>\n
To take advantage of the new 32-bit operating system, we need
\n32-bit application software, too. Hence the rush to get 32-bit
\nversions of popular software programs onto the market as soon as
\npossible. Programmers at Novell-WordPerfect, for instance, are
\nworking hard to meet the software maker's schedule of releasing
\nPerfect Office 7.0 -- its 32-bit version -- by the end of this
\nyear. Needless to say, it won't be long until Lotus also launches
\nits 32-bit version of SmartSuite.<\/p>\n
The best office<\/p>\n
Courtesy of Microsoft, I was able to test drive Office 95 on
\nmy PC. The box in which the suite came was just half the size of
\nthe box for the previous version of MS Office. I like this
\nsmaller size, as it saves some space on my shelf. There was only
\none 600+ page manual in it, as opposed to the five manuals in MS
\nOffice. The manual is very well organized and very useful. The
\nstandard version came in 23 diskettes. Of course, you can, and
\nhad better, buy the CD version. The latter contains other goodies
\nas well.<\/p>\n
All programs in the Office suite now carry 7.0 as their
\nversion number. The standard version consists of Winword 7.0,
\nExcel 7.0, PowerPoint 7.0 (where were Excel 6.0 and PowerPoint
\n5.0 and 6.0?), and Schedule+ 7.0.<\/p>\n
One of the most significant innovations found in Office 95, in
\nmy opinion, is the Answer Wizard that understands plain English.
\nWhile it's still far from being a truly natural language
\ninterface, at least it's a step toward closer human-computer
\ninteraction. A novice user who'd like to find out how to justify
\nthe entire document, for example, can simply type in: How do I
\njustify text? Answer Wizard will respond by giving her a list
\nwith which she has to stipulate more precisely what she wants to
\ndo. Then Answer Wizard will lead her, step by step, until she has
\nachieved the desired result. In some cases, Answer Wizard even
\ndoes it for her using her own document.<\/p>\n
Another neat feature is Office Binder. Like ordinary office
\nbinders, we can put files created in different applications into
\nthe binder, and each of the pages can be given a page number. So,
\nfor instance, we can have a compound document containing five
\npages of a Winword document, three pages of Excel worksheets, two
\npages of Access reports, and ten pages of PowerPoint presentation
\nslides, all combined in one Binder. When we copy a binder file,
\nwe'll be copying all the files contained in it.<\/p>\n
Meet Mr. Groovy<\/p>\n
There's no denying that, when they appeared less than two
\nyears ago, Winword 6.0 and Microsoft Office 4.2 set a new
\nstandard of usability. Among all of the innovative features they
\nprovided, we heartily applauded AutoCorrect and Wizards. Then
\nWordPerfect came out with its Perfect Office, and suddenly we had
\na new pinnacle in usability. Winword 7.0 of Office 95 is
\ndefinitely the most usable word processor now on the market --
\nfor the next few months, at least.<\/p>\n
To start with, let's see what improvements have been made to
\nAutoCorrect. First, unlike Winword 6.0, we can type \"PCs\" without
\nbeing corrected by AutoCorrect to \"Pcs\" automatically.
\nAutoCorrect can now sense whether two capital letters should be
\ncorrected or left capitalized.<\/p>\n
Those of you who have been using PCs long enough will probably
\nremember one of the popular TSRs from Borland International back
\nin late 1980s called Turbo Lightning. When activated, this TSR
\nchecked the spelling of everything we typed, and the PC would
\nbeep each time we typed in something it didn't recognize. It was
\nspell-checking on the fly. I just can't figure out why it is only
\nnow that we have this feature built into our word processor. Yes,
\nWinword 7.0's spell-checker checks our spelling as we type. When
\nit finds something that doesn't match anything in its lexicon, it
\nunderlines the word with a wavy red line for us. You can see the
\nline under the word \"difference\" in the accompanying picture. If
\nwe place the cursor on that unrecognized word and click the right
\nbutton of the mouse, AutoCorrect will give us a list of
\nalternative words to correct our incorrectly-spelled word. Handy.<\/p>\n
Typing common fractions has been another of our problems in
\nword processing, with the result that we usually resort to using
\ndecimal fractions. Now, with the help of AutoCorrect, we can type
\nin 1\/2 and it will be automatically reformatted into what you can
\nsee in the accompanying illustration. However, the feature does
\nnot work with other fractions, such as 3\/5.<\/p>\n
Electronic mail can bring unexpected results and can cause
\nunnecessary hassles because of its terse and straightforward
\nnature. You joke in your letter, for instance, but the person who
\nreceives your mail fails to understand it and gets offended
\ninstead. To avoid such misunderstandings, you usually add a
\nsideways happy face : ). In Winword 7.0, when you type a colon
\nand a close bracket, you'll get the happy face of Mr. Groovy, and
\nthe recipient of your e-mail will know that you're just joking.
\nThis is possible in Winword 7.0 because the program can be used
\nto edit e-mail letters.<\/p>\n
If you like highlighting important parts of a document with a
\nfluorescent marker, you can do it in Winword 7.0, too. The
\nprogram has a marker function, and you can select the color of
\nyour preference -- just like selecting the color of your marker.<\/p>\n
Like Mr. Groovy's happy face, (R) and (tm) will automatically
\nbe converted into the standard \"Registered\" and \"Trade Mark\"
\nsymbols. More useful perhaps is the new way of entering bullet
\nlists: We start our list with an asterisk, or with a number \"1\"
\nfollowed by a period. When we hit Enter, Winword 7.0 will
\nautomatically add another bullet or \"2\". When we reach the end of
\nour list and Winword 7.0 still gives us another bullet, all we
\nhave to do is hit Backspace once and the program will revert to
\nnormal text.<\/p>\n
Other good stuff<\/p>\n
The data mapping capability in a spreadsheet program was first
\nfound in Lotus 1-2-3 Release 5.0 for Windows. But now we can also
\nplot our data geographically in Excel, as long as we have Excel
\n7.0. Also in Excel 7.0, we can now see the sum, average, maximum,
\nminimum, etc., of a range of values if we turn on its
\nAutoCalculate. PowerPoint now comes with snazzy, although
\nlimited, animation capability. We can animate text in our slides
\nto keep the attention of our audience. To enhance the look of our
\nslides, we can add textures. PowerPoint 7.0 comes with twelve
\ntextures, and we can create or add more.<\/p>\n
Schedule+, a PIM program, can also work with a Sharp Wizard or
\nTimex watch, so that if you have one of those gadgets you can
\ntransfer appointment schedules, anniversary dates and phone
\nnumbers to it and you'll always have them available when you need
\nthem.<\/p>\n
Should you get it?<\/p>\n
You shouldn't hesitate to grab Office 95 if you meet the
\nfollowing requirements: First, you have a 486DX 33-or-better
\nmachine. Second, you have 16 MB of RAM. Third, you've been using
\nOffice 4.2 or Office 4.3. And, fourth, you've already moved to
\nWindows 95.<\/p>\n
Like Perfect Office, Microsoft Office 95 is also more task-
\noriented than ever. From the shortcut bar you can start your task
\nwithout really paying attention to which application you should
\nuse. This, plus all the enhancements, the ability to run programs
\nin the background, and much better integration, will justify the
\ncost of upgrading to Office 95. On top of all that, for the first
\ntime, registered users in Indonesia can now call (021) 572-1060
\nfor technical support every working day between 9 a.m. and 5:30
\np.m.<\/p>\n
But if your 486 or Pentium PC has only 8 MB of RAM or less,
\nyou should definitely upgrade your system first. All the reports
\nthat I've been reading consistently suggest that, if we have less
\nthan 16 MB RAM on our system, we should just forget about Office
\n95. Also, with all the toolbars and taskbars, life will be
\nextremely hard if you're still using a 14\" VGA monitor. Even a
\n15\" one leaves you with a crowded workspace. Seventeen- or 20-
\ninch monitors are definitely more suitable for the new work
\nenvironment.<\/p>\n
Given the level of automation and the hefty hardware
\nrequirements of Windows 95 and Office 95, I'm beginning to have
\ndoubts whether all these niceties are meaningful to the majority
\nof us computer users. For sure, power users will love them.
\nThose who have been using Office 4.2 or Office 4.3 will love them
\nas well. But the rest of us will perhaps find them too intriguing
\nand too intimidating to use. Besides, at about Rp 100,000 per MB,
\nnot everybody can afford the necessary RAM. In other bad news,
\nthere's no end in sight to the worldwide shortage of RAM chips,
\nwhich means that their price is not going to go down in the
\nforeseeable future.<\/p>\n
Therefore, I believe that, for now, the biggest breakthrough
\nwe all hope for is the one that makes similarly nice features
\navailable on some Windows programs that run smoothly on a 386DX
\nwith only 4 MB of RAM. That's the kind of innovation I truly long
\nfor.<\/p>",
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