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Nicol�s de Hilster wrote, about choosing a spreadsheet program-

I would suggest Calc from OpenOffice (http://www.openoffice.org/). It is
free, reads (and can save) MicroSoft Excel sheets and works cross-platform.

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I have little doubt that Calc (which came free, as a part of Open Office) is 
indeed powerful. I have tried, quite hard, to use it. But is there decent 
printed documentation for it? The only manual I could find combined all 
aspects of Open Office, so it was over-condensed. Many important features of 
Calc, available in the program itself, went unmentioned in that manual. And 
if you can't find that a feature exists, it might as well not be there.

I'm aware that "online help" is available, but that's one of my pet hates, 
for any software. I'm much happier riffling through the pages of a book (if 
it has a decent index) then digging through menus and submenus for stuff 
that's been cunningly concealed. And quite a lot of the online help with 
Calc has been obscurely written and is hard to understand.

In comparison, my old copy of Excel 2000 has a superb manual of over 1000 
pages, to which much attention has been given to making it clear and 
comprehensive.

If Nicol�s can recommend a better printed manual for Calc, I will go back 
and try it again. There's a big in-principle attraction, for me, in free 
software that can be updated for nothing, compared with expensive commercial 
stuff that becomes no-longer supported, then calls for expensive upgrading.

George.

contact George Huxtable, at  george@hux.me.uk
or at +44 1865 820222 (from UK, 01865 820222)
or at 1 Sandy Lane, Southmoor, Abingdon, Oxon OX13 5HX, UK. 


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