derek@uwvax.UUCP (03/24/87)
Hi! My mother is going to purchase a Macintosh SE and has charged me with
telling her what software to buy for it. Unfortunately, I know nothing
about Mac software, so any recommendations would be most appreciated!
Her requirements (ideally):
1) A good word processing package. It should be able to do anything from
letters to books, as her husband is a college professor.
2) A package to do entry and statistical analysis of experimental
data, and produce graphs and charts.
3) A powerful and easy-to-use WYSIWYG or desktop publishing thing that can
output to a LaserWriter (which she is going to purchase). This should be
able to import text from 1) above, pictures from MacPaint, and charts or
their data from 2) above, and maybe other things as well.
4) A database system that can do mailings and keep track of a fairly large
number of data items. Ideally, this would be able to interact with 1) or
3) above to personalize letters and whatnot automatically in fairly large
numbers.
5) A financial management system to help them manage a small business.
She and her husband are both mostly computer illiterate but fairly intelligent.
Thank You!
derek
--
Abstract: Derek Zahn @ wisconsin
Usenet: ...!{allegra,heurikon,ihnp4,seismo,sfwin,ucbvax}!uwvax!derek
Arpa Internet: derek@rsch.wisc.edujao@k.cc.purdue.edu.UUCP (03/25/87)
In article <3364@rsch.WISC.EDU> derek@rsch.WISC.EDU (Derek Zahn) writes: >Hi! My mother is going to purchase a Macintosh SE and has charged me with >telling her what software to buy for it. > >3) A powerful and easy-to-use WYSIWYG or desktop publishing thing that can > output to a LaserWriter (which she is going to purchase). This should be > able to import text from 1) above, pictures from MacPaint, and charts or > their data from 2) above, and maybe other things as well. Ready,Set,Go!3.0 is an excellent WYSIWYG page processor for the Mac 512 or Plus... I haven't yet heard of any compatibility problems for the Mac SE (anyone?). It can do all you mentioned above, and has nice features like a fully-featured word processor with search and replace, glossaries, and a 60,000 word spelling checker, automatic or manual kerning, automatic hyphenation (pretty neat! doesn't even have to access the disk as you type things in), automatic snap-to grids for creating text or picture blocks, editing in five different views (normal, reduced to fit i.e. a full page fits on the Mac screen, etc.), and a whole truckload of other features. A significant feature is its ability to flow text around graphics... stick in a picture or something similar in the middle of some text columns and the text will automatically repel from it. Admittedly 3.0 (which just came out a couple of months ago) is still a bit buggy, but I haven't been able to crash it yet. Most of the bugs are just little annoying quirks and not serious problems. I used RSG 2.0 for about a year, and I think that the features added in 3.0 make up for any quirks. I'm sure they'll be fixed in the next release. InfoWorld reviewed RSG3.0 this past February 2, and they say it beats the most recent PageMaker release. Having never used PageMaker, I can't verify this. But RSG3.0 and PageMaker are the top two desktop publishing programs. John O'Malley _____ Personal Computing Learning | 9:00am-5:00pm | UNIX: Resource Center (PCLRC) | Monday-Friday | jao@k.cc.purdue.edu Math-Science B-4 | (I'm there 9am- | Purdue University | 11am) | BITNET: West Lafayette, IN 47907 | (317) 494-1787 | omalley@purccvm Disclaimer: My employer probably doesn't even know I'm writing this, so...
graifer@net1.UUCP (03/27/87)
In article <3364@rsch.WISC.EDU> derek@rsch.WISC.EDU (Derek Zahn) writes: >Hi! My mother is going to purchase a Macintosh SE and has charged me with >telling her what software to buy for it. Unfortunately, I know nothing >about Mac software, so any recommendations would be most appreciated! > >Her requirements (ideally): >2) A package to do entry and statistical analysis of experimental > data, and produce graphs and charts. If you don't need more statistics than mean/avg/std.dev., MicroSoft Excel is one of the best programmable spreadsheets on any machine. This will do your data entry, statistics and other manipulation, and charts. If you need _really_ first quality charts, look at CricketGraph. >...This should be > able to import text from 1) above, pictures from MacPaint, and charts or > their data from 2) above, and maybe other things as well. Since you aren't familier with the Mac, you probably don't know that most Mac applications trade text and graphics very transparently. >4) A database system that can do mailings and keep track of a fairly large > number of data items. Ideally, this would be able to interact with 1) or > 3) above to personalize letters and whatnot automatically in fairly large > numbers. I really like Borland's Reflex for the Mac as a cheap, powerful database. It will generate mailmerge files for MicroSoft Word, or standard Mac text files to use with your WP package. I hope this helps. Happy Mac-ing -- Dan Graifer graifer@net1.UCSD.EDU Disclaimer: Nobody ever listens to me anyways; Why should they start now?