Works 7

Works 7 combines a word processor, spreadsheet, database, calendar and more in to an easy-to-use, project-driven package. You start by choosing a project such as "Do Well in School" then select one of a series of tasks for instance "Track Homework Assignments". Works 7 uses a series of pre-written templates to get you started and while many are basic, they are enough to get you up and running in double quick time. A bonus of this approach is you may get ideas for things you can do with your PC that you would never have otherwise considered.

The more adventurous user can also start from scratch creating documents, spreadsheets and databases and even combining these in projects. While the word processor lacks the power-user functions of Microsoft Word, no facility is really missed. You still have tables, pictures, spell-checking and a thesaurus at your disposal. Equally, the spreadsheet offers enough power for the home user and small business although there is a limit of one sheet per file. The only obvious weakness is data handling where both the spreadsheet and the dedicated database are significantly inferior to their more "professional" equivalents. You can create a single table and design reports but that is as good as it gets.

Microsoft Works 7 provides everything most home users would need in a single, friendly package. Within its limitations it can also read and write many other file formats providing compatibility with other users. --Iain Laskey

Unfortunately though, the program is not flawless. As a stand-alone package, it almost is, but as soon as you've got some other program to work with - particularly Microsoft Office - it all goes wrong.
Microsoft claim that their Works 7 program is fully compatible with Office, and I suppose, to an extent, it is. It opens Word documents, you can edit them and save the changes, but it's far from easy. You need to manually set up Windows so that the default program used to read ".doc" files is Microsoft Works Word Processor. Once the documents are open, it runs fine until you try and save it. The default save format is ".wps" and you can't change the setting from this. You need to access the drop-down list to save it as a Word document. When you do this, the files that you've just spent hours properly formatting loose some of the layout, and blank pages are inserted at random. The size of the ".doc" files created by Works are huge. I saved a file of about 8 pages that turned out to be 5Mb. Opened in Word and saved, it went down to 52k.
The spreadsheet function is not in any way, shape or form compatible with Microsoft Excell.

As I said, as a stand-alone package, it's superb, but you may consider alternatives such as Sun's "Star Office" at roughly 50 or even "Open Office" which is a cut down version of "Star Office" available for free download from openoffice.org

If compatibility is a must (like me through University work) then there's really no alternative to Microsoft Office packages, but if you're a home user with no requirements for compatibility then this is an excellent, well-priced program.