An affordable integrated package is dissected by Neville Ash

Integrated PC packages are the most exciting software development of 1984 (see PCN issue 72). For many users, however, the price tag of £400 plus puts them out of reach.

Apple users, however, have access to Incredible Jack at £355 and Appleworks at £175. Moving even further down the price range, Practicorp is now offering Practicalc II for only £69.95, but how does this low-cost integrated package stack up in practice?

The first Practicalc, a Commodore 64 spreadsheet, is at the heart of Practicalc II. This is the method used by Lotus in its much vaunted Symphony, and one which can be made to work well. The sheet can be used to generate models of financial or other numeric details, and formulae dependent on data or other formulae dependent on data or other formulae can be entered in the cells of the matrix for fast calculations. This is handy for a range of applications including household accounts and professional financial forecasting.

In word processing mode, text can be entered and data from the spreadsheet can be imported, as can information from the database facility.

The first move is to set up the program for 40 or 80 column mode, and Practicalc II supports most of the 80 column Apple cards around.

The program disk and manual come in a box, and as we were using a beta-test version there was also a large addendum which gave details of the word processing and database extensions to the original Practicalc system. The final version of the manual will be a single entity, but the basic 75-page manual is clearly written with plenty of examples, so there is every reason to think that the same qualities will be found in the revised version.

Once the program is loaded you'll see the standard spreadsheet outline on the screen: rows A to T and columns zero to three. The maximum dimensions are 254 rows by 100 columns and the amount of free RAM for data storage is shown at the top left of the screen - 32K at first, decreasing as you enter values, variables or formulae.

Information entered is first displayed on the data line above the spreadsheet outline and instructions are prefixed by a backslash, as with other well-known spreadsheets. The four arrow keys are used to move the cursor around the matrix, but owners of older Apples will have to resort to Control-Q and Control-Z for up and down.

You always start with the spreadsheet. Pressing backslash and O will take you to the main options menu from which you can choose to use the basic spreadsheet outline for word processing, database or spreadsheet functions.

The spreadsheet provides a wide range of features, including 30 mathematical operations from square roots to trigonometric functions. A neat feature not always found in spreadsheets is that once entered, labels and formulae can be edited, rather than having to be retyped. And, of course, full standard spreadsheet operations such as 'replicate' are provided. Unlike some packages it's possible to adjust individual column widths to accommodate longer labels or bigger figures, and even the formatting of the cells can be set locally or globally.

While the package can handle a fairly large number of cells, up to 2000, it's also possible to consolidate two small spreadsheets for such manipulations as totalling. And if this list seems impressive for a package costing under £100, there's also the facility for 'hiding' columns, so you could hide columns 4 to 95, allowing you to compare columns 3 and 96 on-screen, very useful.

As a spreadsheet, Practicalc II works pretty well, even if it does use the rather old-fashioned method of cell reference, A5 + C9 = E2, for example, rather than Multiplan's winning approach of formulae such as Wages + Costs = Overheads. But then Multiplan retails at over twice the price of Practicalc II and even lacks some of the cheaper package's features.

For word processing you must select the 'long label' option from the main menu. Entering 99 to the Auto Enter prompt provides word wrap. Now, when you return to the spreadsheet outline, your lines of text appear on the dataline and, as they're completed, are moved into the sheet, with the number of characters entered shown at the top right hand corner. Each line of text can be up to 100 characters long and paragraphs can be justified and text arranged in columns.

Practicalc II can be used as a database, and with its facilities for sorting and searching numerically or alphabetically, it can be used as a fairly efficient, if rather simple filing system. The use of conditional 'formulae' (IF...THEN) further extends its possible applications and there's even a simple character bar graph feature within the spreadsheet, as well as the facility for having formulae printed out.

Integration between the various parts of the package is achieved by saving whole or partial sheets before loading them into other options from the main menu. This makes it easy to produce spreadsheet calculations, results of database searches and so forth for pasting into documents, or inserting text into a spreadsheet. There are also facilities for formatting disks and viewing directories from within the program.

The package betrays its spreadsheet roots, and the word processing and database features are nowhere near as powerful, relatively speaking, as the spreadsheet itself, giving the impression of being 'tacked-on'. But the features of an integrated package for under £100 can't be sneezed at. Given its retail price, Practicalc II is remarkable value for money and now that Practicorp has announced similar, low-cost PC software, PC users will soon be able to experience the delights of low-budget, but competent, software.

Features 5/5
Documentation 4/5
Usability 4/5
Overall Value 4/5