Description:
Lotus 1-2-3 is a mature spreadsheet application, capable of performing complicated calculations on arrays of numbers. Its considerable library of built-in functions can help you perform financial, statistical, engineering, and table-lookup tasks, as well as some text-processing jobs (such as substring searching) that other spreadsheets' function libraries can't do. The program also features some integration with IBM ViaVoice voice-editing technology--you can do certain data-entry tasks simply, without typing. Lotus 1-2-3 also ships with an assortment of SmartMaster templates, designed for easy creation of sales plans, expense reports, and other common number-centric documents. The function library and generally slicker interface of Lotus 1-2-3 are better than those of Microsoft Excel, but Excel's PivotTable and auditing features aren't matched here. The neatest new feature in this release of Lotus 1-2-3 is called Web Tables. Web Tables allow you to establish a link to a resource on the Internet--a page of stock quotes, say--and then make reference to that data in your calculations. You can configure your Web Tables so they're updated automatically, or only on your command. It's a neat feature, but in most cases you end up downloading a lot of garbage with the numbers you want, and figuring out a way to parse the information is a challenge. Still, it's nice to see a way, even a crude one, to establish a near-live link to Web data. Web Tables make your calculations that much more current. --David Wall Note: This edition of Lotus 1-2-3 ships with a special edition of Lotus 1-2-3 Millennium Edition for Dummies, a good introductory book on the program.
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