Amiga Computing - Commodore Is Awesome

matically in the background and you can continue
to work while it's happening - unless
you prefer to recalculate manually, that is.
If you make a mess of the accounts, however,
Softwood's program has a distinct
advantage in its unlimited undo function.
Final Calc keeps track of all the changes you
make to a projects data, and allows you to
undo any changes made up to the first
change since you loaded or started the project
Even better, if you mistakenly undo one
of your changes you can then redo it under
the same principaL
SMART PRESENTATION
As you will have gathered if you've read the
section on the program's graph generating
capabilities, Final Calc is heavily geared
towards the smart presentation of data. With
this in mind 'Outline Fonts' are used when
printing in order to achieve a better quality of
print from the printer. It supports Postscript
Type 1 and 3 files and Macintosh ATM font
files as well as Softwood font files.
Final Calc will also prove valuable for those
using industry standard Lotus I -2-3.wkl
spreadsheet files at work, and who occasionaly
want to work on them on their Amiga at
home, since the program supports this type
of file_
More common but equally important for
this type of program is the ability to implement
Macros that will automate a series of
operations, with obvious benefits on your
w tWo7
r
-
M
o
,Kr* too
(wool
lvdortat
r M o t toll
Itr III (mot
J 2, tmtroat 114
oI
IVO locate j brat ihtlit
_J Mit, top J $prat Sao
_j al or Loid _d I l e a * Clow J- I IOW
CRAB
Int
,
quo lot [sato
frankly it seemed unnecessarily tricky to get
the results I anticipated. Similarly, you can
alter the colours of just about everything,
7 but again it seems like a surprisingly complex
process. Of course, reading the manual
properly overcomes this, but it's less user
friendly in this particular respect than I hod
hoped for.
Still there's no doubt that spreadsheets
on the Amiga have never looked so good
before, and this is important if you're in the
business of illustrating conclusions about a
set of data.
Another breakthrough is Final Calc's
ability to animate graphs so that changes
through time can be displayed. This is
undertaken using the Edit Animation wins
dow, and once again its not exactly child's
play, so that ring-bound manual will again
"Still there's no doubt that
spreadsheets on the Amiga
have never looked so good
before, and this is important
if you're in the business of
illustrating conclusions about
a set of data."
productivity as a consequence. The toolkd is
also a standard but necessary component of
the spreadsheet, allowing users to import
and export text and perform search and
replace operations. A further strength is Final
Calc's ability to treat data in a project range
as a database.
I N I
1,1,114.41
r
,
The spre a dshe e t
allows M a cros to be
used to a utoma te
repetitive ta sks
11•;L• Illi••• int tilt
Generating gra phs
in U se d is e a sy
enough, but la be lling
and customising the m
seems unnomassarny
tricky a t time .
prove handy. Printing the graphs is pretty
quick though because of its print spooler
which will work on jobs on the background
while you continue with your work.
IMO
-
Jargon
box
A system sopt ktr)guege
that togs to pevorns thol suppon
obvng men to caret:11one
prosvom from mrh,vi ("lobes
batlo Ouch dittli ii, the
fooll r e A t or leernEliCS
tied
Pedonm calcubbons
fot nLmif 0 ?mop1f cr*, to
--, c foto)
06neS 0 k V drAft htref
'or), 01131.4 105k5 to be
carlomded
Data pre se nta tion
Is Firm/ C a lks torte ,
though its
manipulative powe rs
ans a tsci impre ssive
AMIGA COMPUTING
FEBRUARY 1996
VERDICT
So how does it shape up against the competition?
Well the good news is that Final Calc
outclasses any other Amiga spreadsheet in
many respects. Its range of mathematical
formulas should be sufficient even for full-time
accountants, and unlimited undo/redo functions
and online help ore the sort of functions
that make daunting programs more tolerable
in use.
Of course, Final Cale particularly shines
because of its presentation tools. This is not
just a superficial benefit either, since a range
of graphs give users valuable choices over
how they present their raw data. VVhether animation
will be worthwhile for many users or
merely a gimmick is unclear, but it's worth
giving people the option to experiment
There are numerous other plus points too,
like the program's support for Lotus I-2-330f I
files. However, though the program can import
ASCII files from Final Data, they've failed to follow
Lotus's example and push Cok as port of
an overall Amiga suite. For years it's been possible
to generate a graph in Lotus 1-2-3 and
then easily incorporate it into on AmiPro wordprocessor
document, so it would make sense
for Softwood to advocate a similar use of 5nal
Cak and Final Writer.
Generally, I think more work needs to go
into making Final Cak a more instinctive, easy
program to use, though no number of pretty
icons are going to make a spreadsheet the
easiest type of software to get to grips with.
The online help Is a good start and the manual
is excellent, but some functions still seem
unnecessarily complicated
Then of course there's the matter of price.
Final Cak isn't cheap, but then it offers a level
of professionalism that justifies it The Amiga
deserves a spreadsheet package for the more
serious user, and this is certainly a good step
in the right direction.
I I
r l i n e
REQUIREMENTS
RED essential
2 M b
Product
Supplier
Price
Tel
LL _
RAM h a r d drtvt
,
W o r k b3 eM n b
c h
BLACK recommended
PRODUCT DETAILS
p SCORES
Ease of use
Implementation
Value For Money
Overall
Final Calc
Softwood
E99.95
01773 836781
68%
90%
85%
80%
31