What were/is the most powerful Amiga office suites?

[ImmortalA1000]

I know there is Wordsworth vs Final Writer but what about the most powerful Spreadsheet and relational/SQL type Database products for Amiga. I remember there was Superbase Professional but no idea how good Spreadsheets were compared to Excel for Office 95.

Just curious after all the talk of 'serious use'. I never really used business software on any system until around 1997/98 as part of my work and that was Office 97 Professional at work to make integrated reports using Word, Excel and a 3rd party database to export the data for the reports with dynamic graphs etc but this crashed a hell of a lot on Win 95 and 98 anyway so a bit rubbish to be quite frank. Lotus Smartsuite for OS/2 was better for reliability but less sophisticated than Office 97 from what I remember.

I did use SQL and Forms as part of my degree course though, powerful on PC but didn't get any hint of any kind of multimedia database abilities in 1993/94 when I used it for course work but we were given the 'personal' editions.

[desiv]

I never got into the office suite back into the day, but if you are talking an actual suite from the same company, the Final series is top of mind.
Final Writer, Final Calc, and Final Data.
I've used Final Writer (great word processor), and poked at Final Calc (looks good. Never looked at Final Data, but I would be surprised if it wasn't decent based on the other two.

There was also the "Inter" series. InterWord, InterSpread (I think), and InterBase.
Haven't used those, but have heard of InterBase...

As for as just the most powerful database, I'd be surprised (but not too much) if it weren't SuperBase... I think it's the only one from back in the day that had any SQL type functionality...

I have a floppy disk called something like the Appetizer series that I think is supposed to be some type of suite, but I can't remember what it was now. Came in a batch of disks I picked up some time...

Oh, just googled and found out Wordworth did it too. Wordworth Office. Came with:
Wordworth 6, Datastore 2, Organiser 2, and Money Matters 4

I have used Wordworth 7 and it's also a great word processor...

[stevelord]

Originally Posted by ImmortalA1000

I know there is Wordsworth vs Final Writer but what about the most powerful Spreadsheet and relational/SQL type Database products for Amiga. I remember there was Superbase Professional but no idea how good Spreadsheets were compared to Excel for Office 95.

Really depends on what you want to do. Turbo Calc is really pretty good, I analyzed COVID data weekly during lockdown and I have a spending tracker I still update once a month. Leu is a modern spreadsheet with OpenOffice spread compatibility. I tried Maxiplan after watching a MikeyG vid from his serious amiga playlist. It was perfectly fine but unlike Turbo Calc I don't have a use for it.


I tried Superbase 4 Pro but to be honest it was pretty dreadful in comparison to modern databases. There's an SQLite port, and BeeBase (formerly MUIBase) is a full suite built on top. I've tried BeeBase. It was a bit quirky but not too bad, and it's cross-platform. I still couldn't find a practical use for it though. I use SQLite all the time in datasettes, flask apps and so on but I just don't have a data use case that an Amiga is suited to.

[ImmortalA1000]

Interesting, will have to look into these bundled packages, never knew they existed back then thanks.

I think Superbase Professional is less corporate database design and more trying to redefine what you can do in a database via the audio/visual capabilities of the Amiga chipset. This is really all I remember from magazines that covered it back then, perhaps it's more suitable for an Estate Agent wanting to put a database of properties with various photos stored as HAM lace, back in the mid 1990s an Estate Agent printed the text based material and glued the photographs on the sheets of paper lol bit backwards but there you go, probably could have been another Amiga low cost niche market if somebody had created the forms etc as templates for businesses to adapt. I haven't used it but I am pretty sure I have the full [huge] boxed release somewhere.

[Daff]

Papyrus is probably the most modern office suite for Amiga. It's also not to old but it's very CPU intensive.

[saimon69]

I remember somebody i knew used PenPal suite on A500 (word processor + spreadsheet + simple database) to keep prices updated in its small mom and pop grocery store in italy; was indeed not a powerful suite but did the job.
My first office suite with a decent name was Claris Works 3 on mac emulation (later on renamed Apple Works): got all basic tools: spreadsheet, word processor, structured drawing, some bitmap drawing (remnants of macPaint?) and a database - since was an all-in one package was wondering if was possible to port it (maybe in a small sandbox environment) on the amiga side, but guess not.

[desiv]

Originally Posted by saimon69

I remember somebody i knew used PenPal suite on A500 (word processor + spreadsheet + simple database) to keep prices updated in its small mom and pop grocery store in italy; was indeed not a powerful suite but did the job.

I didn't know PenPal had a database!!!
Not a program I used back in the day, but I had heard about it.
I used Transwrite and WordPerfect mostly, and I think Excellence was my first real GUI word processor.

When I got my 1200, there were some better options I poked at, but I also had a PC by then. And I was still mostly using WordPerfect...
(What? It did what I needed...
When I needed database stuff, I did that on the PC. Foxbase (and eventually FoxPro and Visual FoxPro, with some dBase if needed) was my weapon of choice...
I wonder if it would have been different if there was a mini Suite that came with the Amiga or was really cheap (ala MS Works)? Something to get me into Amiga spreadsheets/databases... Hmmm

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by desiv

I wonder if it would have been different if there was a mini Suite that came with the Amiga or was really cheap (ala MS Works)? Something to get me into Amiga spreadsheets/databases... Hmmm

You can see the part 2 of the post below: i wonder if is possible to disassemble ClarisWorks and make it work on Amiga OS (some sandbox for functionalities needed of course) but am not a coder - open office is the best candidate but is so darn big

[desiv]

Originally Posted by saimon69

i wonder if is possible to disassemble ClarisWorks and make it work on Amiga OS

Is it possible? Yes...
But probably a HUGE amount of work. Not sure how similar Mac libraries are to Amiga ones...
If someone can find the original code, porting should be doable... But a disasembly, convert, and reassembly would be a really really hard task..

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by desiv

Is it possible? Yes...
But probably a HUGE amount of work. Not sure how similar Mac libraries are to Amiga ones...
If someone can find the original code, porting should be doable... But a disasembly, convert, and reassembly would be a really really hard task..

What about a container approach? (like a mini emulator similar to a project later abandoned that was in AROS that contained the base code to run apps, forgot the name) - it will anyway need lot of work but if done could open new avenues - ok this is getting OT

[ImmortalA1000]

Youtube is not exactly crammed full of Final Calc/Data videos sadly.

I remember I did some pretty accurate mockups of ZZAP!64 pages with Word 95 on my Gateway PC it was bundled with. I am sure something like a later version of Final Writer could manage the same. I think the Amiga had WP covered by the time of the early-mid 90s. Was curious about other stuff you might need in an office suite.

Even in the 2000s 99.99% of humans didn't even use all the advanced features of Office 97, including the 10,000+ employee international company I was the Service Manager for back then. Database stuff is probably the biggest wildcard though, really depends what you want to do with them and what particular kind of data you want to store.

[redblade]

There is an early Amiga SQL database program that gets accessed by AREXX calls, the version on Aminet is shareware and uses slower searching/sorting algorithm then the full version.

Would have been interesting to see Workbench with AmiTCP go head to head against a NeXT box webserver in the early 90s.

NeXT step had all the heavy hitters developing SQL DB software for it though.

Also had Multicalc but it didn't look too professional compared to MacOS or TOS because of the KS1.3 palette, yes they could have used a Greyscale palette. Amiga software didn't really start looking professional until the standardised OS2+ palette/look.

[ImmortalA1000]

The Next OS was something very special, as much as I am not an evangelist of Steve Jobs what he gave that original system was so far ahead of anything else it was stunning. Maybe of zero use outside the corporate workplace as far as the cutting edge object based design was but still for an engineer type person like me those early demos really blew me away back then. I think some of those original demo videos with Steve showing the advanced features are still up on youtube.

You can still write very powerful relational databases with multiple keys on Amiga, I actually wrote one for a project at University.

I am one of the few people who love the blue/white/orange classic design of KS 1.x but I usually changed the orange to red in my prefs. KS 1.4 had more GEM like slide arrow tags on the windows but AFAIK there is no way to get that onto a disk to load into an Amiga 1000. I don't know if Commodore actually speeded up any of the graphical routines in Kickstart in 2.x and 3.x. Be interesting to run some experiments to see if it's the AGA chipset, the Kickstart libraries or both that make keeping track of all the many open windows on a busy Workbench screen when using something like Dropshadow on the desktop.

[desiv]

Originally Posted by ImmortalA1000

I am one of the few people who love the blue/white/orange classic design of KS 1.x

Agree with you there. I mean, I don't run my 1200 OS 3.2.2 with that scheme, but I've kept my A500 1.3.
I'm still a little disappointed the PiStorm for the 500 (which I have on the way) doesn't support 1.3 hard drive booting apparently. I was kind of hoping to do that with my 500, to keep it as original to what I used to use.
I always liked that original look/feel...

[James]

Originally Posted by Daff

Papyrus is probably the most modern office suite for Amiga.

Is the m68k version available anywhere?

[Korodny]

Papyrus is unstable, unfinished crap. Paying customers got a beta version with an internal timeout, i.e. some 15 years or so ago you had to change your system clock back to an older date before running it.... IIRC, the 68k version was never released, not sure how much work was done on that version anyway.

The OP didn't specify what kind of Amiga shall be used to run the office suite - assuming it's featuring a graphics card and at least a 68030 CPU, the most powerful office programs are these:

word processor: Wordworth
spreadsheet: TurboCalc or ignition - the latter is still actively developed on OS4
database: BeeBase - fka MUIBase, still actively developed
presentations: Hollywood Designer - still actively developed
DTP: Pagestream

On OS4, you have a few additional tools available for mind mapping, accounting etc.

If the target machine is an unexpanded A500/A1200 or a machine with just a bit of FastRAM added, the list would look quite different.

[slaapliedje]

This is some great info! I have been thinking of doing a series of videos based around productivity software from the 3 main Windows competitors. Problem is, Commodore never released their own Office Suites. Atari and Apple and even Microsoft all had a 'Works' suite. But Commodore missed out on it.
I think for the Mac I would need to get an 030 or 040 system that competed with the A1200/Falcon for a good test. Though I do have a IIGS with AppleWorks on it... I think I installed WordWorth 6 on my Amiga.

Pagestream... I installed 5.x on my 060@50. Wow is it slow...

[stefcep2]

Think Twist was the best Amiga database.

There was also the "Pro" range for eg Pro Calc ProPage ProDraw. I think ProPage had a built in text editor that could shift text to Propage. Lots of Arexx scripts were available to automate many DTP functions.

[James]

Originally Posted by Korodny

Papyrus is unstable, unfinished crap. Paying customers got a beta version with an internal timeout, i.e. some 15 years or so ago you had to change your system clock back to an older date before running it.... IIRC, the 68k version was never released, not sure how much work was done on that version anyway.

Thought I remembered some people claiming to have it back then, guess I was mistaken. Thanks for the info.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by stefcep2

Think Twist was the best Amiga database.

There was also the "Pro" range for eg Pro Calc ProPage ProDraw. I think ProPage had a built in text editor that could shift text to Propage. Lots of Arexx scripts were available to automate many DTP functions.

Pro Calc is a good spreadsheet. We used Pro Page to make postscript files for commercial offset printing of game manuals and CD inlays. It worked fine on an A2000 with 030 card and on my 25 MHz A3000.

I never had any use for a database program, but in the 1990's I ran my computer retailing business on Easy Ledgers (which later became Quick Books on the PC). This saved me NZ$35000 a year after I fired my manager and did the accounts myself. It was much better than the popular DOS accounting packages written in QuickBASIC that most small businesses used! A young friend of mine also ran his one man electronic repair business on it. Unlike me he didn't employ an accountant to do tax submissions, relying totally on the Amiga to get it right. He had only been going 2 years when he got audited by the IRD - and passed with flying colors.

For word processing I used Final Writer on the A1200. We also used GP Fax and a SCSI flatbed scanner in place of a Fax machine. I still have some of those faxes on my hard drive.

Back in those days it was totally possible for an Amiga to meet typical small business requirements, provided you didn't have silly demands like insisting on 100% Microsoft office compatibility. My accountants complained about me not using the same crappy DOS accounting package as them, which I smoothed over by translating the reports into the format they wanted using a program I wrote in Amiga BASIC. I could have saved another $200 a month by doing the GST returns myself.