Microsoft Office for Windows 95

By Paul D. Warner

Microsoft has revised its office suite to take advantage of the new capabilities of Windows 95. Other features and enhancements were also made. Here are the improvements and the author's assessment.

This review of Microsoft's latest version of its office suite, Office 95 was based on a prerelease version of the product. This version is a replacement for Office Professional 4.3. The new version is designed to run on Windows 95 and now, for the first time, includes time management for individuals and workgroups.

Office 95 is available in two versions, Office 95 standard version and Office 95 professional version. The standard version consists of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Schedule+. The professional version contains all of the items in the standard version plus Access. If the professional version is purchased in CD-ROM form, it also includes Bookshelf. The system requirements for Office 95 are included in the Exhibit.

In case you are not familiar with these programs, the following is a brief description of each:

* Word is a full-featured word processor that can create tables and graphics.

* Excel is a comprehensive electronic spreadsheet that can manage, format, chart, and analyze data.

* PowerPoint is a presentations graphics package capable of creating fully for matted slides and presentations.

* Access is a relational database management system.

* Schedule+ is a personal information manager (PIM) and scheduler.

* Bookshelf provides a multimedia encyclopedia together with a dictionary, thesaurus, book of quotations, atlas, chronology, and almanac.

Windows 95 Capabilities

Office 95 is designed to take advantage of the new interface, the 32-bit architecture, and technology enhancements in Windows 95, some of which include‹

* multithreading which enables a user to do multiple actions within the same application simultaneously;

* faster recalculations in Excel (Microsoft claims 30 to 50% on average),

* consistent user interface,

* long file names (Caveat: Older applications will not be able to handle the longer file names),

* ability to move files between a desktop/network PC and notebook PC and maintain the most up-to-date files on the computer being used at the moment. This feature allows multiple users to share files, and

* plug and play support (I stayed away from this one).

Automated Tasks

Tasks, such as spelling, formatting, filtering, and data entry have been automated. Some examples are as follows:

Spell-It. Word 95 automatically spell-checks documents as you type. Although this eliminates spell-checking of a document after it's completed, it does slow down response to keyboard entries, though not significantly. Clicking the right mouse button provides access to suggestions for the correct spellings.

AutoFormat. Word 95 and Access 95 automatically format documents with bulleted lists, borders, symbols, fractions, and headings as you type. Such formatting is automatically created as follows:

* Numbered lists--type a number followed by a blank space and text.

* Bulleted lists--type in a symbol such as *,*, or >, followed by a blank space and text.

* Headings--type a short line with-out punctuation followed by two carriage returns.

Enhanced AutoCorrect. The AutoCorrect feature of Word 6.0 is now available throughout Office 95. AutoCorrect will fix common typos or common misspellings as you type, such as forgetting to capitalize the first letter of a sentence.

AutoComplete. With AutoComplete, after typing the first few letters of an entry into a cell, Excel for Windows 95 automatically completes the entry based on an intelligent evaluation of other entries already made in that column.

AutoCalculate. AutoCalculate calculates the sum of selected cells. The selection can be a single cell, a whole column, or even multiple, noncontiguous ranges. AutoCalculate can be switched to show the sum, average, minimum, maximum, count of selection, or count of numeric selection. The AutoCalculate result is displayed on the status bar.

Filter by Selection. Access 95 includes an easier and faster way to locate database information. For the simple finds, you need only highlight a selection in a data sheet or on a form and click "Filter" to locate the underlying data based on that selection. For example, if you wanted to see all customers in North Carolina, you simply highlight North Carolina from any entry and click Filter. This is great for ad hoc queries.

Meeting Minder. PowerPoint's new Meeting Minder helps automate the task of tracking notes and action items during the course of a meeting. Presenters can capture discussion notes or action items simply by clicking the right mouse button during a presentation. PowerPoint automatically creates an Action Item Slide for review at the end of the presentation. In addition, presenters can export the meeting minutes and action items to a Word document.

Style Checker. PowerPoint's new Style Checker will scan presentations and check for common presentation design problems, such as inconsistent or improper use of capitalization, spelling errors, font size problems, and other stylistic issues. It can be customized to reflect a specific organization's style rules.

Slide Navigator. PowerPoint 95's new Slide Navigator enables presenters to view a list of slides, complete with slide number and title, during their presentation. The Slide Navigator allows the presenter to jump quickly to a different slide to address an unexpected question. The Slide Navigator also remembers the slide the presenter was on so that presenters can easily jump right back again.

Office Binders. Office 95 includes a new tool for assembling and distributing documents, the Office Binder. The Binder is an electronic 'paper clip' which allows you to store documents from Excel, Word, PowerPoint, etc., in one file. The documents in a binder are processed as a single file, whether copied to network or floppy disks, or even sent through electronic mail. This file can be printed in one step with consecutive page numbering, and the enclosed documents can be reordered and renamed for easy identification. If needed, a binder can be broken apart into separate documents, as is the case with a physical three-ring binder. However, the appropriate application (e.g., Word) will be selected when you click on a document in the binder file. Office binders may, indeed, be one of the more useful innovations of Office 95.

Simplifying Complex Tasks with Wizards

Below are some samples of the new Wizards available in Office 95:

Template Wizard with Data Tracking. Excel 95's data tracking through the Template Wizard automates the entire process of creating a template and automatically importing fields to the template from a database. For example, you can create a template from an existing document, such as an expense report or inventory tracking spreadsheet, and link that data to other spreadsheets or another database. This essentially allows you to create a simple, custom solution without writing a single line of code.

Database Wizard. Access 95 includes more than 20 customizable templates that can be used to create full-featured applications from scratch. You can choose the information you want the application to track, and the wizard will build a custom application based on those needs.

Simple Query Wizard. Access 95 contains a new query wizard that allows you to locate desired information quickly, regardless of the underlying data structure. You simply choose the data you want to look for from a drop-down box, and the wizard handles the inclusion of related tables if needed.

Sharing Data Among Applications

Integration with OLE 2.0 (Object Linking & Embedding). OLE 2.0 capabilities provide an enhanced interface, drag and drop text editing among applications, and in-place editing. Using in-place editing, you can click on an OLE object in Word (an Excel spreadsheet for example) and Excel's toolbars and menus appear within Word. Office 95 adds enhancements to OLE 2.0 server support in PowerPoint, allowing you to drag PowerPoint graphs directly into Excel or Word.

Drag and Drop Across Applications. Office 95 takes advantage of the Taskbar, a new Windows-based interface element, that displays all the open applications and folders at the bottom of the screen. You can copy or move any piece of information, for example, charts, tables, or paragraphs, from one application to another simply by dragging and dropping the selection on the Taskbar icon for the destination application. For example, to move an Excel chart to Word, you would select the Excel chart and drag it to the desired Word document icon on the Taskbar. Word will automatically maximize to fit the window and drop the chart anywhere within the Word document. You can even convert an Excel list into an Access database using drag and drop.

Access Forms/Reports on Excel Data. You can use Access forms and reports to enter information into a database in Microsoft Excel. Similarly, you can use Access reports in Excel to create complex group reports, or even mailing labels.

Communication Capabilities

WordMail. Word 95 works with the Windows 95 Inbox (a standard component of Windows 95), making it easier to use as an e-mail editor. WordMail takes advantage of support for OLE 2.0 and DocObjects (which handle entire documents as "objects" that can be incorporated into other applications) to create an e-mail environment. You can take advantage of all of Word's capabilities from within WordMail including: AutoCorrect, Spell It, AutoFormat, AutoText, 100 level Undo, etc. Other enhancements include the following:

* Special mail toolbar within WordMail that includes standard Send, Reply, Reply All, and Move functionality.

* WordMail automatically uses revision marking when users edit the body of a previously sent e-mail message. This enables message/edit tracking.

* Headers containing address information are automatically stylized when you hit Reply. This helps you keep track of messages and long e-mail threads.

* AutoSignature automatically enters a stylized sign-off.

Support for Exchange. Office 95 family programs are integrated with Microsoft Exchange, the new, information server component of the Microsoft BackOffice family for Windows NT Server. Any Office files can be posted to Exchange public folders from within Office 95 or routed to multiple users, allowing users throughout the enterprise to easily share working files as though they were working together in the same room. To post a file to Microsoft Exchange, you only need to select Post to Microsoft Exchange from the File menu in any Office 95 application.

Support for Notes. Just like its predecessor, Office 4.3 for Windows, Office 95 can exchange document properties with Lotus Notes via Notes/FX. Office 95 now supports version 1.1 of Notes/FX.

Internet Assistant. This no charge add-on to Word 95 lets you browse and create documents for the World Wide Web, using the familiar interface of Word. You can create documents in the World Wide Web's standardized Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) format simply by saving the document. Internet Assistant's built-in browsing functionality allows you to see what documents will look like online, as well as create hyperlinks simply by "surfing" to the appropriate place on the Web and copying a hyperlink (using the familiar copy and paste metaphor already used in Word).

Compatibility with Microsoft Office 4.3 Files

In designing Office 95, Microsoft kept the file format the same wherever possible. Excel 95 and Word 95 share the same file formats with their most recent predecessors, Excel 5.0 and Word 6.0. I did not encounter any file incompatibility problems in my testing. Microsoft claims that Excel 5.0 and Word 6.0 have the same file format for Windows 3.x, Windows NT, Macintosh, and PowerMac platforms.

However, PowerPoint 95 uses a different file format from PowerPoint 4.0. The PowerPoint 4.0 files can be converted with the installed converter. PowerPoint 95 is supposed to ship with a converter with which PowerPoint 4.0 users can automatically view and edit PowerPoint 95 presentations. Finally, PowerPoint 95 users will have the ability to save their files as PowerPoint 4.0 files.

Access 95 users will be able to open and use Access 1.x and Access 2.0 files, and even make changes to an Access 2.0 application as long as they aren't using new Access 95 functionality. There will also be the option of converting the files to the new Access 95 format. Users of Access 95 will also have the ability to create databases in the Access 2.0.

Evaluation

I have been using the following modules from Office Professional 4.3 for almost a year:

* Word 6.0

* Excel 5.0

* PowerPoint 4.0

All have worked well, and none required any assistance from Microsoft. I did have considerable trouble with the multimedia aspects. Microsoft concluded the problem had to be solved by Creative Labs, the developers of Soundblaster. Creative Labs placed the blame on Microsoft. Gateway solved the problem. It was the old driver problem. Although I could play MYST without any problems, the audio portion of the Microsoft Bookshelf would not function. It seems that Microsoft compresses audio in a manner different than other vendors. I wonder if Windows 95 plug and play will resolve this type of problem?

Word. Word's many features, combined with ease of use, make for a sterling performer. A number of major accounting firms have selected it over competing applications.

Excel. The Office 95 additions to Excel are evolutionary. I have always found Excel easier to use than Lotus 1-2-3. The availability of pull-down menus for functions, Wizards, etc. have helped to make Excel a top performer. Its ability to manipulate Lotus templates adds to its popularity. If you save the Excel template as a Lotus 1-2-3 document, Lotus 1-2-3 will be able to use it without any problems.

PowerPoint. I have not used PowerPoint as extensively as Word and Excel. It has worked well and the interface between it and Excel has proved invaluable. I have developed graphs in Excel and moved them to PowerPoint via OLE as well as by cut and paste. A much needed improvement was the addition of multiple undos.

Schedule+. My experience with Schedule+ comes solely from testing it in Office 95 (beta version). I did not encounter any significant problems other than those related to learning the applications. Schedule+ is a basic PIM and does not compare with applications such as ACT! or Maximizer.

Access. The beta version of Office 95 did not include Access. My work with it in Office 4.3 has been limited to testing it for this article. It is not the type of application you can sit down and immediately start using. It has a very steep learning curve. The only thing I can report is that it did interface readily with Excel and appeared to work smoothly.

The Bottom Line

If you are planning to migrate to Windows 95, Office 95 is a must if you intend to take advantage of Window 95's 32-bit capabilities and desktop. If you are already using Windows NT 3.51, you can also use Office 95. I actually ran Office 95 under Windows NT 3.51 on a 486DX2-66 with 16 MB of memory. I did not notice any performance degradation.

My overall conclusion on Office 95 is that it is evolutionary. It does provide some nice enhancements over Office 4.3, such as‹

Word

* consistency in the dialog boxes

* the ability to switch between languages and spell check multilingual documents

Excel

* faster recalculations

* faster file opening and saving

* more reliability in OLE

PowerPoint

* multithreading that allows you to run tasks in background while you continue working. Examples are printing and slide sorting. *

Paul D. Warner, PhD, LLM, CPA, is a professor of accounting at Hofstra University. He is a member of the AICPA and NYSSCPA and editor of The CPA & the Computer column of The CPA Journal. He is a frequent contributor to professional journals.

Microsoft Office Standard and Professional System Requirements

* Personal computer with a 386DX or higher processor (486 recommended)

* Microsoft Windows 95 operating system or Microsoft Windows NT Workstation operating system version 3.51 or later (will not run on earlier versions of Windows)

* 8 MB of memory to run two programs on Windows 95; 12 MB of memory to run two programs on Windows NT Workstation; more memory recommended to run three or more programs simultaneously (16 MB recommended).

* Estimated hard disk space required:

* Office Standard (Microsoft Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Schedule+): 28 MB compact; 55 MB typical; 89 MB custom (to add additional features)

* Office Professional (Office Standard + Access): Specific hard disk requirements unavailable

* One 3.5" high-density disk drive or one CD-ROM drive, VGA or higher resolution video adapter (SVGA 256-color recommended), mouse or compatible pointing device

Microsoft Office Professional & Bookshelf System Additional Requirements

* Multimedia PC or an equivalent PC with multimedia PC upgrade kit (includes CD-ROM drive and audio board)

* Microsoft MS-DOS CD-ROM Extensions (MSCDEX) version 2.2 or later (provided with CD-ROM drive)

* One CD-ROM drive

* Audio board with headphones or speakers

* Microphone for voice annotation feature

Options

* Windows-compatible network

* Windows-compatible printer

* 2400 bps or faster modem (9600 bps recommended)

* Audio board with headphones or speakers (not required for multimedia equipped PC)

Street Price

List Complete

Price System Upgrade

Standard version $499 $460 $240

Professional version 599 540 340

NOVEMBER 1995 / THE CPA JOURNAL