CPSC 547 - A Review of Spreadsheets

Analysis

Generally, the three spreadsheets basically had the same type of look and feel, the Graphical User Interface exhibited by all three programs basically did the same things. The one feature that was odd though, was in Lotus 1-2-3, you could only edit within the cell itself. You could not edit a cell within the formula bar as you did in DOS versions of Lotus, or as you can in Excel or Quattro Pro. Quattro Pro, on the other hand, did not allow in cell editing. In Quattro Pro, all editing had to occur in the formula bar, while in Excel either place could be edited. Other typical features, such as right mouse button clicks, on-line help, wizards/advisors all basically completed very similar tasks. Each different package had some minor differences on how to do different things, but the skills required to carry out the tasks (such as cutting,pasting,editing, etc) could be applied and carried over all three programs.

Although the notebook tabs exhibitied first by Quattro Pro gave them an edge in the usability of spreadsheets, the newer versions of Excel and Lotus have adapted to this style as well. Therefore any edge of design towards Quattro Pro has been lost. In fact, Quattro Pro ran considerably slower with even simple formula commands as compared to both Lotus 1-2-3 and Excel.

The presentation viewer is a great addition to Quattro Pro and would be an extremely useful tool if presenting quick and easy presentations is needed. However, business presentations would require more sophistication and a secondary presentation program would be necessary for all 3 spreadsheets programs. The ease of use of linking the spreadsheet into a presentation program was not tested, however, knowing that both Quattro Pro and Excel contain OLE 2.0 would indicate that these programs should link well into Microsoft's Power Point.

Lotus 1-2-3 contains several features which gives it a slight edge in certain areas. Lotus 1-2-3 does not require a seperate program to query and extract data from an external database. In Lotus 1-2-3, you can use a single set of queries to access on-sheet and external databases. In Quattro Pro, the old style of querying (Requires a Criteria-Range method) is necessary and slows down the entire process of querying, even on-sheet. For external databases the information must be imported into the spreadsheet. Excel uses a built in tool for querying for external data, which works well but is an extra step in the process of getting external data.

Some drawbacks of Lotus 1-2-3 seem odd from a system as powerful and as well used as a program like this. User's are unable to hide rows, the menu system becomes "dead" if a formula is being entered, and can only split windows into a 3 page fixed perspective. Excel and Quattro Pro are not limited in this fashion and both allow many views and perspectives of the spreadsheets.

The largest and most distinctive feature between the three spreadsheets involve the macro language. Lotus 1-2-3 and Quattro pro use a macro language first created for the spreadsheet realm itself. They both use previous Lotus 1-2-3 macro language with some additions to give them more functionality. Both languages work well and can create pwerful applications, it is somewhat limiting due to the nature of the language. The language was inteded for making processes easier in spreadsheets, not really for the building of seperate applications. Excel has stepped into the leading edge by in-corporating a powerful programming language as it's macro language. The use of Visual Basic enables the programmer to create extremely easy to use and common window like environments quickly and without much coding. This extra feature to allow a great interface with a program and the spreadsheet make the macro language of Excel extremely powerful.

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Belinda Fong
Christopher Sakamoto

February 21, 1996