Ashampoo Office: An Office Suite for Less An Office for Less from Ashampoo Wayne Kawamoto
Need software to create documents, crunch numbers, and manage databases? For this, one office software suite comes to mind. And ever since Microsoft came to dominate the business world with its Microsoft Office Suite that combined the Word word processor, Excel spreadsheet, PowerPoint presentation program, Access database, and more, users have had few alternatives whether they computed at work or at home.
A low-cost alternative is indeed available in the oddly named Ashampoo Office 2006. Like Microsoft Office, the suite bundles a word processor and spreadsheet program, but Ashampoo Office stops there.
While Ashampoo is no match for Microsoft Office Suite in terms of raw capabilities, it does offer core features that allow users to adequately write letters and reports as well as manage numbers and databases. Furthermore, it costs a lot less than MS Office and its applications don't require high-powered hardware and the latest Microsoft operating system.
TextMaker's the Word
Ashampoo's word processor, TextMaker, comes with most of the features that you would expect in a competent word processor and is more than adequate for hammering out letters and reports. It comes with an integrated spell checker and thesaurus, as well as capabilities to manipulate headers and footers, embed pictures and symbols, and create and work with tables. There's even features for reviewing documents and tracking revisions.
The program offers decent help that allows you to search for topics and obtain helpful explanations and instructions. A required bow to Microsoft, the word processor reads and writes Microsoft Word files created in Word 95, 97, 2000, or XP.
The program is not difficult to learn and use. If one already understands and uses Microsoft Word, he or she can immediately be productive using TextMaker. And in some ways, TextMaker, with its smaller feature set, is easier to learn than MS Word.
Table It
Ashampoo's spreadsheet is the competent PlanMaker, which covers the basics. Charting features are surprisingly in-depth and come with lots of chart options and control. The spreadsheet presents the same tabbed interface as Excel so it's easy to manage and work with multiple tables within a single spreadsheet. There are also lots of options to format cells as well as a generous number of built-in formulas.
PlanMaker offers lots of capabilities that will serve the needs of many Excel users. However, most power users will still be best served by Excel. For example, if a sophisticated user wants to work with an advanced feature such as pivot tables, PlanMaker does not provide an equivalent.
