I have been an admirer of this software since I first purchased Impression Publisher, and I agree with some of the comments by Dave Floyd in his review of Tablemate 2 (8.8.73). There have been a few teething problems, but anything that saves all the ruler settings with Impression styles has to be good and worth a little perseverance. Iæm happy to say that the author, George Buchanan of Dalriada Data Technology, has not sat back on his laurels after the release of Version 2, as Version 3.11a clearly shows.
On running the new version, it is immediately apparent that this program has undergone a major overhaul, and several items in Daveæs wish list have been implemented. You still cannot have fully justified text, but you can now use the table as a simple spreadsheet. An Index has been added to the back of the addendum instruction booklet which comes with version 3. This is a supplement to the main manual and only explains new or updated features.
The package
The program comes on one disc, containing the program itself, System, SysMerge, Keystrip and Examples directory, totalling approximately 498Kb. Installation is simply a matter of updating your system by using Sysmerge, or the Boot of a Risc PC, and dragging TableMate3 to the desired location on your hard disc. You can, if you wish, run the program perfectly happily from the floppy disc.
The first thing that version 2 users will notice is the new toolbar Ö you now have lots of buttons to play with, just as with Impression!
These buttons enable you to join cells, break open joined cells in rows and in columns, add new rows and columns, cut or copy an area to the clipboard, paste from the clipboard, set the font style and size, foreground colour, background colour, enter a formula, alter the line thickness and colour, select double lines, justify any text left, right or centre, or have a decimal point tab, all at the click of a button.
Tablemate will still only import drawfile format, so it is necessary to drop sprites into Draw first, and then to save the drawfile into the Tablemate frame. This is not a problem and does not hinder production in the slightest. Tablemate 3 now has the full OLE feature implemented. In previous releases, Tablemate was the editor for Impression under Impressionæs OLE, but now you can use the OLE feature of Tablemate to edit your graphics or formulae etc, in a similar manner. With a graphic, for example, Tablemate is the client and Draw the editor. So, if you are editing a DTP document and wish to modify your table, this table could be OLEæd to Tablemate. From there, you could then OLE a picture into Draw. If the picture is a sprite, save it from Draw into Paint and carry out the desired modification, then load the sprite back into Draw, save the modified drawfile which is passed back into Tablemate, save the resultant Tablemate table which is passed back to the DTP package and... OLE!
As mentioned above, it is now possible to join rows vertically as well as horizontally. Once they are joined vertically, you have the equivalent tab alignments as for horizontal joins, obviously renamed to suit, as top, middle and bottom.
You can also now use your table as a simple spreadsheet, allowing summation, and the use of basic maths operations, i.e. +, Ö, ╫, ≈. You can use cell referencing, including absolute cell referencing, and you can define your own currency character, e.g. ú, $, DM etc.
Also added in the latest version is the ability to use double rule-offs. The save dialogue has been increased so that you can now save your sheet in CSV format. With later versions of RISC OS, you can also select colours, using the new colour picker routines.
Conclusion
As I said at the start of this review, this is a nice piece of software designed to take the strain out of producing tables, and it does its designed job admirably. As with most software, different people will use different aspects of the package. For me, the spreadsheet is of little use, but Dave Floyd obviously has a situation where its use would be an advantage. In terms of time saved, the cost of the package will soon be recouped by anyone who has a need to produce tables in reports on a regular basis. I would recommend this package to anyone.
The basic cost of the package for a single user is ú34.50 from Dalriada, or ú35 from Archive. If the program is purchased with the Impression Style/Publisher discount, it is ú19.50 from Dalriada. A Primary site licence is ú65 (ú35 with Impression discount), a Secondary site licence is ú100 (ú55 with Impression discount). Users with Tablemate 2 can upgrade to version 3 for ú5 by returning their original disc and remittance to Dalriada Data Technology (no VAT as DDT are not VAT-registered).áuá
