It would be hard to find something about Quattro Pro 4 that is not discussed somewhere in this book. Its author has had lots of practice. He has written about previous versions of Quattro Pro in other books and has lectured widely on spreadsheets.

His expertise shows in each section. The introductory chapters start with an initial discussion of some computer terms, proceeding through a discussion of the “real estate” of the viewer’s screen to simple formulas and file manipulation. Succeeding chapters speak of building spreadsheets out of the individual cell entries, linking worksheet files, style, formulas, and functions. An entire chapter is devoted to the program’s use as a database. Other chapters treat file management, graphing, and text processing.

The dreaded macro is the subject of two chapters. This subject is treated in great depth, and astute students who master this section will have a command of macros and their uses equal to any task they might encounter. Quattro Pro’s relations with Paradox and Lotus 1-2-3 are treated briefly.

The style is lucid throughout, and the layout of the text, graphics, and pages is well thought out. Both the table of contents and, even more important, the index are thorough. It is easy to find things in this book.

Two things may make the book unattractive for some classes of potential users. The first is endemic to books about spreadsheets. The examples are all taken from the office environment, so the book has lots of worksheets of products, sales, profits, and so on along with sample customer databases. Nothing is wrong with that unless you are trying to illustrate work drawn from scientific or engineering environments. Certainly students of the pure and applied sciences will not be strongly motivated by the examples shown.

The other potential flaw will be evident to advanced users who only want to use the book occasionally as a reference. The explanations of the various features, although thorough, are sometimes garrulous, and they will occasionally annoy the expert user who is looking for a quick, terse clarification of something already known.

Apart from these two reservations, the book is well suited for those working in a Quattro Pro 4 environment, and it holds up well in comparison with what is becoming an alarmingly crowded shelf of spreadsheet reference works. I recommend it.