Labs

Works adopts a task-based approach. Everything in this cut-down suite for home users is accessed through the Works Task Launcher, an MSN-like front end for launching the various modules it comprises. While you can skip directly to the spreadsheet, calendar or other applications, it would rather you think about what you want to do and let it take you to the most appropriate tool for completing the task. To this end, the Programs tab of the launcher shows 'lawn and garden worksheets', 'grocery and household lists' and 'event flyers', while the Projects section, which lets you group several documents and monitor your progress, is oriented towards 'do better at school' and 'plan a family reunion'.

As such, this is no competition for anything else on test in this Labs.

Several of the tasks drop you straight into MSN - the 'vehicle comparisons' and 'home rent or buy analysis' being two good examples - while others focus on using standard Windows applications such as Internet Explorer and Outlook Express. In spite of this, we had no problem using it with our default browser set to Firefox, which was a pleasant surprise.

Some parts are starting to look a little dated, with distinctly Windows 98 tops to the Help bars and non-maximised dialogs. Terminology is occasionally old-fashioned too, with Works offering 'Windows CE device synchronization' - technically true, but not much help to an inexperienced user wanting to hook up their snazzy new Pocket PC. Other parts are resolutely American in their approach. There's no interrogation of your time zone or keyboard settings to see where you're based, so you often find yourself looking at US-only loan rates or houses for sale, while the address and business finders will only work with north American locations. Some of the tasks and templates double up and appear in multiple categories, but on the whole the range is far wider than it was in Works 7.

And so to the applications themselves, of which there are three main components - the word processor, spreadsheet and database - and several supplementary elements, such as an address book, calendar, and portfolio to help organise and reference your digital assets.

The spreadsheet is basic and

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can only read single pages of Excel spreadsheets. If you try to load one with more than a single page, you'll be asked to select the sheet you want, with the rest being discarded. Once you've imported your file you may find it doesn't work quite as you'd expect. Keen to preserve Excel's market share, Microsoft has cut out some of the key features here, so there's no conditional formatting or cell grouping. It's also quite dumb, with our test file throwing up 589 errors because our formulas were 'too long or too complex'.

It understands both the standard Excel formulas (=SUM[A1:A3] for example) and a simplified subset for the less tech-savvy (=A1+A2+A3). These options are supplemented by the Easy Calc; a wizard for performing simple addition, subtraction and multiplication, which should be great for kids and first-timers, since in many cases the results are written as proper Excel formulas. It also produces a range of 12 chart types, covering all the usual bases from bar and area to radar and scatter.

Beyond the title bar, the database looks almost identical to the spreadsheet, complete with a comprehensive set of options for formatting cell colours and borders. You can design your own forms, but the default is a grid for entering data. Bizarrely, it can import dBase files but is blind to Access.

We were particularly impressed at how easy it was to use. On launching you're presented with a wizard for adding fields to a new blank database, with a set of radio buttons giving you a quick way of defining content types, which extend to serial numbers. The Report Creator is equally easy to understand, and takes you through a series of six steps for creating and formatting your results. It's like simple conditional formatting.

Fourteen sample databases complete with well-designed forms have been bundled, and cover such tasks as recording recipes, indexing CD collections and keeping track of your home inventory for insurance purposes.

Finally, the word processor is surprisingly versatile. Although it didn't manage to retain all of the formatting of our Word 2000 manual it did make a good stab at replicating the layout of the original, with text margins retained and many of the graphics in the correct positions. Those that overlapped each other, though, were missing. An embedded chart remained editable with a double-click; doing so brought up a simple data entry table like the one found in Word. Unfortunately, it misaligned some of the embedded images where they were supposed to float to the right of the body text, and it straightened skewed pictures.

Works offers a fair return for your money if you work in the way it wants you to. However, its price needs to be closer to £30 than £50 if people are going to be persuaded away from the free OpenOffice alternative.