| ActiveOffice
is a Microsoft Office 97 add-on product that promises to transform your
reports, spreadsheets, memos and presentations into powerful high impact
communications with one mouse click.
The company literature promises that "With Intelligent Formatting, you select the look you want, and it takes care of the rest - white space, color balance, sizing, margins, text wrapping, everything - all behind-the-scenes." I signed out SPC ActiveOffice: the Essential Graphics Companion to Microsoft Office at the May 1997 meeting. Working with this program became a real challenge since I had to learn the basics of using Microsoft Office 97's Word and Excel at the same time. Why was I in this position? Because we just got a brand new computer from Gateway 2000. I tested SPC ActiveOffice on a Gateway 2000 P5-200 with a Pentium 200 MMX (Intel Pentium processor chip running at 200 MHz with Multi-media Extensions), 64 MB RAM and a 6.4 GB hard drive. The computer also has a Microsoft Intellimouse, an internal Iomega Zip drive, a wave table sound card, a STB Nitro 3D video card with STB Vision 95 and a 33.6 fax/modem. The computer is hooked up to an Epson Stylus Color 500 printer. Its operating system is Windows 95. The box itself has a flip open lid with visuals from ActiveOffice
and a small label declaring that the program is for Microsoft Office 95
and 97. Inside it contains a CD-ROM in a jewel case, a slip of paper with
the serial number, and a 3.5" Disk Set Order Form. Inside the jewel case
is a short list (three items) of instructions on installing SPC ActiveOffice
in Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0.
The program allows you to easily transform your text, tables and data into eye-catching visuals. You choose from among several categories of layouts depending on what you need to emphasize or the data you're working with. Layout categories include
System Requirements
After a general introduction, the tour allows you to select specific tours for Excel, Word or Power Point. The specific tours show you the actual steps to take to use the program to achieve its many effects. After the tour, I looked at some of the samples. Then I installed the program. The only change I made was the installation directory. I also selected putting SPC Active Office icons on the tool bars in each Office program. The install program took a few minutes and everything was done. Of course, for everything to take effect, you must restart Windows. The program provides a button to do so, which does it automatically for you. Running
the Program
Although I chose lists to test ActiveOffice on, I ran into problems right away. I couldn't seem to get the program to work as it had in the demos. Therefore, I decided to rerun the demos. I watched and listened very carefully while they ran. Then I tried again. This time ActiveOffice formatted the chosen text for me. However, it was much too small to read. I fiddled around with resizing the frame and even managed to change the font size. Finally, I had something readable. Now I could experiment with the preset designs, color schemes and textures. This part worked well. Moreover, while the choices in each area are limited, taken together the possible combinations seem limitless. It was fun changing the backgrounds, colors and textures. ActiveOffice offers many more choices than the templates that come with MS Office 97. I finally used ActiveOffice to enhance the list of system requirements for the program. I had a hard time choosing the layouts, colors and textures, but I finally did. I then put a stamp on each one with the names of those I used. I tried to use a color scheme which would print well in black & white. Next, I opened an Excel 4.0 file in Excel 97. I made some charts using Excel 97 so I would be able to compare them with ActiveOffice. I found it fairly easy to make readable charts with a wide range of data in Excel 97. When I tried to create the same type of chart in ActiveOffice, I could not make it readable, no mater what options I chose. However, once I chose a smaller subset of my data; I could make vastly more visually appealing charts with ActiveOffice. Actually, this is good. All the experts say you should not include too much data in any one chart. ActiveOffice almost forces you to follow that dictum. Because of the problems I had with the original formatting in each program, I did not tackle making presentation charts. (I didn't have an existing presentation to work with.) However, I'm sure that they will be just as stunning. Bottom
Line
Once you know what you're doing, you will be able to create stunning graphics in your Word documents, appealing charts in your Excel spreadsheets and great slides for your presentation. However, you must allow yourself time to learn the program and how to set up your files from the beginning to make it easier to apply the ActiveOffice tools. Read the Help files and play with the program. Of course, play. That's the best way to learn it. Don't use it for the project that was due yesterday. Who
should use this product?
You can find ActiveOffice at CompUSA for $49.99 or Computer City for $52.99. Remember that either store gives Alamo PC members a discount. Software publishing Corporation offers a free trail version on their website. |