Microsoft Works Suite 2004 Artistic Imaging, Unremarkable Accounting Eric Grevstad
Artistic Imaging, Unremarkable Accounting
Along with a smoother installation routine and more polished Task Launcher screens, the most improved player on the Works Suite 2004 team is the Picture It Photo Premium 9 image editor (sold separately for $50). Though it lacks some features of Microsoft's $100 Digital Image Pro 9 — such as the Smart Erase tool that helps remove unwanted background objects or bystanders — it's a definite step up from last year's Picture It Photo 7, with the usual cropping, contrast-tweaking, and red-eye reduction tools plus a friendly wizard for fetching images from camera or CD; handy shortcuts for resizing images and slimming their file sizes for e-mail or Web use; and a Mini Lab batch-processing option to rename or optimize a bunch of shots in one step.
The benchwarmer of the squad is probably Money 2003 Standard, which holds users' hands through checkbook-balancing and budget- or expense-tracking jobs, but is skimpy compared to its Money Deluxe and Premium siblings, which offer more help with investments, credit and tax management, and financial-goal scenarios such as buying a home, sending a child to college, or retiring.
Somewhere in between on the usefulness scale — especially for families with broadband rather than dial-up Internet access — are the Encarta encyclopedia and Streets & Trips. The former (after a default installation) requires you to keep its data CD on hand, but then delivers smoother, swifter access to informative articles and multimedia extras than the online version; the latter offers somewhat more flexible routing and options for driving preferences and gas costs than online map and driving-directions sites.
Finally, Microsoft Word 2002 is the super-powered word processor and almost full-fledged desktop publishing program you know already, which leaves us with the same gripe we expressed when reviewing last year's Works suite: Since Works 7.0 contains — and buyers are paying for, though not seeing in the Start menu — a perfectly capable word processor, complete with columns, tables, headers, footers, and footnotes, we simply can't agree with the decision to supplant it, or supersize it, with the relatively big and bloated Word.
The Works word processor is strong enough to handle the overwhelming majority of the shopping lists, flyers, and invitations that make up the Works Suite templates, and doesn't bring the ponderous Product Activation baggage of Word 2002 — which not only tells consumers they're thieving pirates who can't be trusted, shutting down after 50 uses unless activated by phone or online, but spams the Start menu with the Microsoft Office startup utility and needless "New Office Document" and "Open Office Document" alternatives to the likeable Works Task Launcher.
In short, a $9 discount for 2004 isn't enough to change our 2003 conclusions: First, the beginner-friendly-without-being-baby-food Works 7.0 ($55 with $15 mail-in rebate) is one of Microsoft's best, least-publicized products. Second, we wish the company would offer a step-up suite that bundled it with Publisher instead of Word — and, ideally, its Digital Image Suite 9 combo of the full-bore Digital Image Pro editor and Digital Image Library organizer. Never mind Streets & Trips and Money; we want Works Pro.
