A review by Rod Farr Working with Quattro Pro 8 part from me being terribly slack, the gradual features overlap that has been also provided. I must say that Ive never Athis article has taken me an proceeding for some software generations actually used cross tabs very much. For inordinate time to put now. And, as together(thanks for the patience, Vic). The might be expected problem has been that I feared that it with Corel lineage would be hard to say something new now, there are a about a spreadsheet application. But I was number of wrong. There are a number of features in graphical features. Corels latest version of Quattro Pro, From the version 8. that are both useful and wordprocessor, desirable. there is now a Corel Quattro Pro 8 is the latest in a WYSIWYG page line of extremely good spreadsheet view that enables applications. Version 8 is a Win95 the User to work application so users of Windows 3.1 miss with a notebook out Im afraid. The review copy was one page as it will part of the WordPerfect 8 suite. I imagine appear when that it is available as a separate product. printed. Anyone Quattro began when Borland decided who has had to try (to its eventual cost) to move strongly into to reformat a page containing all or part of some reason, Ive never constructed a the field of applications rather than a complex spreadsheet so that it will fit on spreadsheet that would have benefitted concentrating on development tools and the printed A4 page will welcome this from pivoting data to get an alternative Sidekick. Then it was a real challenger to innovation. And cell formatting now view or other manipulation by way of the king of the DOS spreadsheet encompasses multiple fonts, sizes and text cross tabs, or maybe Ive never applications, Lotus attributes within cells as well as recognised when using cross tabs would 1-2-3. As Borland the ability to have multiple lines have helped. found it had bitten of text within a cell. Cells can be Then there is a cell reference checker off more than it joined for ease of heading to check and fix formulae that refer to other could chew in the construction and superscript and cells, a concept that many a debugger applications field subscript are also finally could use. And debugger lineage shows and returned to available. out in the very handy Quick Cell feature development tools, Additional emphasis can be that allows a cell to be dragged to the Quattro moved on to added by incorporating clip art Application Bar (QP8s name for what was the care of and creating fancy text. Fancy formerly the Status Bar at the bottom of WordPerfect. The text is presented in different the QP8 Window) so that its updated baton was finally shapes and designs like value can be seen as you change the passed to Corel pennants, waves and circles like values in other cells. Just like a variable (along with WordPerfect). And they have this. watch in a debugger. done a pretty good job in maintaining and The outliner heritage shows in a very The auditing feature also has a enhancing a real competitor to the useful feature when dealing with complex debugger heritage. Auditing a ubiquitous Microsofts Excel. spreadsheets that enables data to be spreadsheet you can trace dependent So whats new with Quattro Pro 8 grouped into collapsible and expandable cells, precedents and errors. Very useful (henceforth QP8), the spreadsheet sets so that the detail can be put aside in large and complex models. application that introduced the notebook until needed to give an overview of the Now, on to QP8 proper. The following metaphor to Windows? bigger picture. is a once over lightly that doesnt do more Quite a few things actually, some that A Quick Filter process owes a lot to than touch the surface. There is an awful have their heritage in word processing and databases. It enables the user to focus on lot in QP8! outliners and some that trace their lineage key information by removing data from the The Main Window from debuggers. There is even a bit more view that is irrelevant to the question Opening QP8 the user is presented of the database application to emphasize being asked. New cross tab facilities are with the a fairly typical first page of a 6 February 1998 SIXTEEN BITS The Property Bar is of adjoining cells, right click and choose context sensitive. For QuickFill or use the toolbar button. Voila, example, a different the months of the year are automatically Property Bar appears inserted, one to a selected cell in the row when creating a chart. or column, in the same format, ie, Feb, Mar, You can decide whether etc. Dont like abbreviated names for the or not to display the months? Then type in the full name of Property Bar. Just check your initial month as the starter and watch or uncheck the Property the full month names QuickFilled. Bar item in the toolbar Consecutive numbers - 1,2 etc; Quarters - menu. Q1, Q2, etc; years - 1997, 1998, etc can all The Action Bar is at be inserted by QuickFill. the bottom of the QuickFit is a nifty little do-dad window. The notebook available from the Format menu or the page controls lie toolbar. It will automatically widen a immediately above the column to the width of the largest entry in Win95 spreadsheet. A toolbar and a Action Bar. Right clicking (did I mention that column. Not that you need to do this Property Bar appear below the menus. that Quattro began the rush to right if you are entering number formats other You can create your own toolbars (click clicking in Windows spreadsheets?) on a than general or scientific or numbers in View/Toolbars/Create) to design a toolbar notebook sheet tab produces a popup text format because the column will that has buttons for the features and menu with choices to edit the name of the automatically resize for you, but its handy macros that you find yourself regularly sheet, set sheet properties, for example, especially for labels and other text. using. Or you can select an appropriate the tab colour or whether grid lines are Data Entry toolbar/Property Bar from a menu that shown, or insert or delete a sheet. Naming Not much to say about entering text appears with a right mouse button click a sheet to something more meaningful and numbers, really. All very standard. A on the current toolbar. There are separate than A, B, etc. is as simple as double- cell entry beginning with a symbol (one toolbars/Property Bars for selection clicking (left mouse button this time!) the of + - $ ( @ . # or =) is recognised as a formatting, data manipulation, charting Tab and typing in the label you want. formula or value unless preceded by a . and chart colour schemes, drawing, Creating Your Spreadsheet All other entries are treated as text labels. outlining, auditing and numeric tools - There has been a lot of work done in Reference to cells in the various sheets some 35 different ones in all. recent versions of the major spreadsheet within a notebook is by sheetname:cell co- If you leave the default notebook applications to ease the drudgery of ordinates, eg, A:B23. toolbar, or any other selected toolbar setting up the format. QP8 has a full range Moving and copying data can be checked in the menu, it remains in place of tools, under the SpeedFormat, undertaken by the familiar cut and paste and the newly selected toolbar generally QuickFormat and QuickFill banners, that routine or by the equally familiar drag and appears as an additional toolbar below the do exactly that. drop. The default when dragging is to existing toolbar and above the Property You can use SpeedFormat to make cell move the selected cells. Press Ctrl when Bar. To get rid of a toolbar/Property Bar, lines and borders visible and printable. dragging to make a copy. You can also simply uncheck it in the right click You can use it to format cell with one of 24 copy or move the content of selected cells generated menu. The toolbars for the predetermined colour shading schemes. to another notebook. Make sure that the outlining and auditing features appear on QuickFormat (available from a popup other notebook is open and drag the the left side of the window, squeezing in menu generated by a right mouse click or selected cells to the notebook title on the the working area of the notebook page. the toolbar) lets you Application Bar. You can then drag them paste the format from within that other notebook to wherever a selected range of you want the information placed. cells to all You can link data from one notebook subsequent to another using Paste Special/Link from selections until the the Edit menu. Useful when more than one feature is turned off. person is working on a series of separate QuickFill fills the but interlinked spreadsheets. selected range of To add a note or comment about a cell cells according to the and its contents, right click the cell and first cell you have select Insert Comment. After typing in input. For example, your comment into the box that appears type Jan (without and clicking on the sheet to exit, the cells the quotes) into a top right corner shows a little red triangle. cell, select that cell Moving the cursor to the cell brings up and a row or column the note in a tasteful pale yellow box.