AppleWorks 6.2

Rating:
Summary: Appleworks is a versatile swiss army knife
Review: Appleworks 6.2 for Mac OS 10.1 has everything a beginning computer user needs. I used Appleworks 5 for writing my Master's Thesis. The painting application works great for making simple works of art. The spreadsheet application is handy and simple. Appleworks 6.2 includes a new slide show application. The word processing application is easy to use and powerful when used with Casady and Greens Gramarian application. Apple works is a simple program which is perfect for beginners at home and even in the office. The addition of translators to Appleworks inspired me to update to 6.2. I can now work with word documents and pdf formats. That is great! All this for only 79 dollars, that is a fair price.
The most dissapointing feature to 6.2 is the fact that the button bar doesn't move. Also, I have found that the dock placed on the left or right side of the screen interfers with the document windows size. It is easily corrected by moving the dock, or draging the window larger.
The earlier review seems odd to me in that he says he had a problem with crashing. I have not had one crash yet. Mac OS X.1 is stable, and Appleworks seems stable also. I think the problem the first reviewer had was of his own making, not the application or the OS. I suggest buying this product for the new features and the translators. However, I think Appleworks 7 built solely for Mac OS 10 will be much better. When comparing the 400 dollar plus cost of Office to the 79 dollar cost of Appleworks, Appleworks seems like a bargain.

Rating:
Summary: AppleWorks is a hands down better value than Excel
Review: AppleWorks is a hands down better value than Excel for 99.9% of the people 99.999% of the time. Excel has become so bloated with unneeded features that it is ungainly. More over the Excel interface changes significantly from version to version and Microsoft has to do things in their own special way rather than following standards. AppleWorks reads in and uses almost all of my old spreadsheets from Excel as well as docs. AppleWorks is much more stable and not a processor hog like Excel.

Rating:
Summary: why upgarde
Review: Editorial review claims Appleworks 6 will translate Word documents with Dataviz translator. Last phrase is the key. Appleworks 6 does no more translation than did Appleworks 5. If you want to manage in the PC world, either buy a PC or buy Dataviz Maclink Plus. Appleworks 6 offers nothing special for compatibility in spite of the misleading editorial review.

Rating:
Summary: Nice Try but too buggy
Review: I have been using Apple Works since 1988 and have consistently bragged to my Windows using friends about its value and features. I upgraded to version 6 when I moved to OS X and have kept current with all updates. The program crashes. For most apps that's nothing new. For Apple Works it's a shock. This is the least stable version I've ever used. Before my system upgrade I used Apple Works 5 for most of my word processing and basic data base work. I've published newletters, and used its spread sheet consistently. Now I get too frustrated by the crashes. I do save but hate the annoyance.

Some other beefs. The new toolbar takes up too much of the page and has lost much of the wonderful ability to be customized. This is a big step backwards in usability. The new presentation module is nice, a good move but the paint module is terribly dated and won't save in gif format. ... I used Apple Works when there was no choice. I won't open it again except to read the files I've saved, the they get translated to Word.

Rating:
Summary: Great Value Suite of Software
Review: I have been using computer word processors extensively since 1986. In 2001, I switched from being primarily a PC user to being a Mac user. And Appleworks is one of the programs I use the most.

I cannot understand the reviews on this page which slam Appleworks (especially the OSX version) for not being compatible with MS Word. I covert files back and forth from PC to Mac with no problem whatsoever. The best printer I have access to is on a PC at work. I usually write documents at home, convert them to a MS Word document, and email them to myself at work. Then at work the next day I print them. No problem.

There seems to be one glitch if you save files as a rich text file. The translator doesn't know the following characters: " '

But if you save it as a MS Word for Windows 98, 2000, ME file, you don't have this problem.

Apple, keep up the good work. The average Joe or Jane should not have to pay hundreds upon hundreds of dollars to get a solid word processor.

Tom Paine
Benton, LA
[e-mail]

Rating:
Summary: Great Value Suite of Software
Review: I have been using computer word processors extensively since 1986. In 2001, I switched from being primarily a PC user to being a Mac user. And Appleworks is one of the programs I use the most.

I cannot understand the reviews on this page which slam Appleworks (especially the OSX version) for not being compatible with MS Word. I covert files back and forth from PC to Mac with no problem whatsoever. The best printer I have access to is on a PC at work. I usually write documents at home, convert them to a MS Word document, and email them to myself at work. Then at work the next day I print them. No problem.

There seems to be one glitch if you save files as a rich text file. The translator doesn't know the following characters: " '

But if you save it as a MS Word for Windows 98, 2000, ME file, you don't have this problem.

Apple, keep up the good work. The average Joe or Jane should not have to pay hundreds upon hundreds of dollars to get a solid word processor.

Tom Paine
Benton, LA
[e-mail]

Rating:
Summary: AppleWorks is crap
Review: I have hoped and prayed for a Microsoft alternative. Unfortunately it is a Microsoft world, if you want to communicate with that world on a Mac use Office for Mac, it is brilliant. As much as I tried to move towards Works, I purchased it first, I could not, the spread sheet program in Works alone leaves you on a deserted island.

Save your headaches if you share any files than jump up to Office for Mac, however much that disgusts me to admits, it is a superior product.

Rating:
Summary: Intuitive like Apple itself
Review: I recently made the leap to Macs from Windows and the ominous MS Word. In short, I hate Word. MS must assume that it's customers are idiots, why else do they make Word assume things for you (such as when and how to indent, capitalize words and, number items.) I chose Apple and Appleworks 6.2 b/c it offered me complete control over my documents. I found it to be intuitive and powerful. To find out it's true power, however, you might have to play around with it a little at first, esp. if your are fresh off of Word. But all in all I am very pleased with this very unassuming product. Also, being an Apple user and more specifically an Appleworks user in a Win/Word world the data translator makes it easy to translate docs from AW to Word, even cross-platform. CHEERS APPLE!

Rating:
Summary: Go Elsewhere
Review: I'm a huge Apple fan and have been using computers for spreadsheets, graphic design, and word processing for years. I have never in my life found a more poorly considered and executed program than Appleworks. It's translation software from MSWord does not work at all--it deletes large chunks of text, rearranges them, and, all in all, causes more work than simply retyping! Its other features are counter-intuitive and frustrating. If you're thinking about saving money by buying this piece of software, think again. There's far better stuff on the market. You'll regret this purchase. Trust me.

Rating:
Summary: under OSX 1.0.4, bugs bugs bugs bugs bugs bugs
Review: If you intend running AppleWorks under Mac OSX 1.0.x, DON'T !

This software has more bugs than a fight scene in Starship Troopers. How Apple released 6.2 for OSX with so many bugs and crashes defies belief. I've reported the bugs to Apple but they can't be bothered to respond.

Wait for another update (6.3 ?) to see if the problems have been ironed out before wasting your money on this low quality version.