Labs

Last relaunched in 2003, SmartSuite looks and feels even older. We couldn't believe its high price.

With the possible exception of SoftMaker Office, Lotus Word Pro has the most confusing interface of all the programs on test. Absolutely nothing is where you'd expect. It's not just that it isn't laid out like Word, it isn't even laid out like a Windows program. It handled our basic Word documents well, but when we tried to edit a more complicated one, almost all the advanced formatting was lost. Text sprawled across several pages, and the tables that formed the document's underlying structure were all misaligned. The spellchecker found all the errors in our test document, and marked new ones as we typed.

The spreadsheet, Lotus 1-2-3, did OK with our basic maths and coped with our advanced formulas. However, it's not pleasant to use. When you press Return, the cursor stays where it is, rather than moving on to the next cell, as in other spreadsheets. If you enter an invalid value, the program doesn't allow you to move on until you've fixed it. Creating charts is easy, but the options and results are basic.

The database program, Approach, allows you to flick quickly and easily between form and worksheet views. There's also an equivalent of Design View. However, we couldn't open either of our Access databases, formatted as Access 2000 and 2003.

Freelance Graphics, the presentation program, comes with an incredible number of templates, though many are extremely cheesy, and the most up-to-date refer to 2000 and 2001. As with the other Lotus fare, the menus are dated and unfamiliar.

Besides the main programs, there's a fairly good sticky notes tool, an appalling web browser (Lotus even makes entering a web address difficult) and a very simple contacts manager. In every case, you can now get a free program that's better than the extras provided with SmartSuite.