Installation is quite easy, like all of Apple's installations. Pop in the CD, install the software, restart (if you install the extra fonts), and you are ready to go. The whole thing only takes up about 60 MB of hard drive space, so the install process goes by quite swiftly.

Since AppleWorks is a multifaceted program, I will break this review up into many parts, describing what each modules does, and it's pros and cons.

Word Processing: This module is of course the research paper, report, and any other kind of writing module. This is the computer's version of a typewriter, only much more advanced. And AppleWorks has a very good word processor. It's filled with all sorts of tools including a very good spell checker, macros, outlines, and HTML exporting.

And while it does have nearly everything Microsoft Word has, it's lacking one major feature, grammar checking. Of course, no computer is perfect at grammar checking, and it should be separated from spell check in Word, but it's always a nice tool to have around. However, location of features in AppleWorks is very good. Such as paragraph settings, font settings, etc. are all organized in an easy to find fashion, much unlike Word.

Drawing: The drawing module is the place to draw shapes. It's kind of a first generation vector based drawing program. Everything there can be resized easily, and small shapes can be drawn really fast, but nothing beyond that. You do get some fun stuff like patterns and gradients that are easily modified.

When I use the drawing module, I seem to always miss the features of the painting module. Stuff like filling in holes with specific patters or colors, the spray can, etc. But when I'm using Paint mode, I usually want the selectability of the drawing mode. Couldn't they just combine them into one?

Painting: Painting is the super-mini PhotoShop. Sure, nobody in there right mind would try to do PhotoShop tasks in AppleWorks, but it's a good comparison. Painting allows you to paint on a canvas, simple as that. Pencils, paint buckets, paint brushes, spray paint, and more make up the painting mode. This is normally where I will make images, if I'm going to use AppleWorks to create the image.

And while AppleWorks does have some fun transform tools like PhotoShop, it doesn't have nearly the same filter compliment. Also, you can select objects, and move them backwards or forwards, but there are no real layers that the user can see. Take PhotoShop, cut out the number of features by a factor of 100, and you have the painting module of AppleWorks.

Spreadsheet: Ever try using Excel, only to give up 5 minutes later because it was too confusing? I know I have. AppleWorks contains everything Excel does, but puts it all in an easy to use, easy to figure out interface. Equations, graphs, stylings, etc. are all here. The default values for cell size and text size leave something to be desired, but that is easily fixable.

One of the greatest things about the spreadsheet, is its ability to make small games, and cool looking graphs. If you are good at programming with only simple equations, you can make some small, fun, little games that will impress your friends and family. But those graphs are just awesome. Bars, pies, and coordinate graphs are only the tip of the iceberg. They are so easy to create, and always look great.

Database: I have to admit, I haven't really used the database module too much, do to lack of need for it. While playing around with it, I found it has a ton of features that I have no idea how to use, and can probably be a pretty powerful tool, if used properly.

Presentation: Presentation is Apple's answer to PowerPoint. It lets you create slides with drawings, text, movies, and sounds. Plus, an array of slide transitions can make your presentation look more professional. If you don't need the super power of PowerPoint, and many people don't, try this out.

A few things I don't like about presentation is the resolution it puts your monitor into when running the slide show, and the contorted controls for running the slide show. I couldn't find any place to change these things either. Also, for drawing stuff, you only get the tools from the drawing module, nothing from the painting module, which is a big mistake in my humble opinion.

There are some other helpful tools built into AppleWorks as well. Assistants are like the Office wizards, where you can quickly and easily create things like business cards, calendars, envelopes, and more. Also, they have included a ton of templates including banners, greeting cards, school reports, and more. This allows you to quickly turn out a beautiful piece of work. Yet more, Apple has provided a huge assortment of good looking clip art, to help you make your reports, presentations, etc. look their best.

Finally, we get to two of the most powerful features of AppleWorks. First, Apple's big selling point with it is that it can easily read and write Microsoft Office files. This makes reading of your friend's Office files very easy, and sending them files they can read, just as easy. But, more powerful yet, is the scriptability of AppleWorks through AppleScript. Apple has included a few scripts for you to get a taste of this power, but if you learn how to make your own, you will have one of the strongest programs around. Finally, a highly scriptable Office-like application.

I didn't encounter any show stopping problems in either Mac OS 9 or X. While X does have some visuals that need to be cleaned up, they're technically are not problems.

For the average user, who doesn't need all the super bells and whistles of Word and Excel, and just wants to get their work done, AppleWorks is a great solution. Fast, small, easy to use, and a whole ton a features packed into a correctly priced piece of software.

Pros	Cons
Word processing, drawing and painting, spreadsheet, database, and presentation modules Small, simple program More features than many people actually need Priced right Takes the place of many programs High scriptability through AppleScript Reads and writes Office files	Not as powerful as Word or Excel Drawing and painting modules could be better No grammar checker
8/10 stars