ClarisWorks

[Stephen Coates]

Has anyone here ever used ClarisWorks much?

I've been using it since about 1996/1997 as we had it in school on the Macintoshes, along with KidPix, which was always fun to do drawings in. I have continued to use it (and the newer AppleWorks) over the years and still use it now, although alot of stuff that I have done during the last 6 years or so I have done in either Microsoft Works or MS Word.

I have used ClarisWorks recently to do some coursework, both for school and college, but had to switch to MSWord for some stuff that involved pictures as at the time my knowledge of using pictures in Clarisworks was a bit limited.
I am still interested in learning to use ClarisWorks a bit more. I alsio want to get a copy of MS Office 98 for the Macintosh. I downloaded it off Hotline last year but I think the disk which I stored it on was faulty.

[Submeg]

Damn....ClarisWorks? I remember using that when I was what, seven? That stuff is old..... It actually does something useful? I'm amazed!

[Harrison]

I used ClarisWorks many many years ago on Macs at college and university, but only because that was the only office style applications they ever had installed on them.

At home I always used each new version of Wordsworth and Pagestream on the Amiga for most things, and Protext for plain text based writing, right from when I was a school in the 1980's through most of the 1990's. And since using a PC as my main system since the late 90's I've always used M$ Office.

[Submeg]

....I've always used M$ Office.

Is that MS Office? or MS Office?

[Harrison]

Well you do have to fly the flag to show your support, don't you!

I do actually own an official copy of Office 2000 so I think I did my bit to support the cause.

[Stephen Coates]

I don't have any legal copies of MS Office.

[Harrison]

Lets hope no M$ reps are reading this then Steve!

[Stephen Coates]

Has anyone used Office 2007?

I havn't used it but from the screenshots that I've seen, I don't really want to use it. I'm not saying it's new interface is bad, but it just looks completely different to anything else I have used and I really don't want to learnt o use a new programme which does the same thing as the one released 8 years ago.

[Submeg]

Ok, I have 2007 and I have to say, it took me about an hour to learn, but once you do, it is excellent! The layout was thought about carefully and I have to say is very nice. A nice piece of software, yes from M$. Amazing really.

[Harrison]

I have to agree. The changes they made for 2003 took some getting used to, but were a good step forward, but 2007's new ribbon interface is very nicely thought out and designed. In reality pretty much everything works just as it always has, but they have moved the controls away from fiddly menu systems and dockable icon bars and have instead made it much more intuitive with everything being accessed via a single tabbed icon bar (the ribbon) that alters it's function to suit what you are currently doing, which works very nicely and does speed up what you are trying to do.

As Submeg said, it only takes about an hour to find everything again and where it has all been moved to and rearranged, but once you have had a play around it works very nicely.