Open Office's spreadsheet program sells itself a little short with the name Calc, which makes it sound like a simple calculator tool. In fact, it's an extremeiy powerful program. As with Writer, the visual similarity between Calc and Excel should quieten any initial doubts after opening it up. Icons are labelled ill the same way as Excel, the formula bar is present and con'ect and the menus all look and feel familiar. Look a little deeper and the pleasant surprises continue. Excel is a staggeringly complex and powerful program, but Calc manages to keep pace in most areas.

Spreadsheets often contain more thanjust lists of infollllation: many include formulae, tables and charts as well. This npkes Calc's job harder, as it needs to be able to display any of these that have been created in Microsoft Excel. The first version of Calc was criticised in this area, but the latest version is much better. It easily opened our table-laden Excel documents and thy vast majority of Excel files will work perfectly. Creating chaJts in Calc itselfis even simpler.

The number of options is just as impressive as Excel, with all the usual types of chart catered for, and there's plenty of scope for creative flexibility in the straightforward wizard that guides you through the process. Adding a formula is easy, too. In fact, Calc's Function Wizard is easily as good as, if not better than, its equivalent in Microsoft Excel. The list offunctions that appears is initially overwhelming, and even if you filter it by category there's no shortage of options.