No doubt because it’s something it can do rather than because users are crying out for their spreadsheets to sing and dance for them, Lotus Development Corp has introduced a multimedia edition of its 1-2-3 for Windows spreadsheet software, and a utility that can make movies, with sound, of operations performed on the desktop machine: 1-2-3 Release 4 for Windows, Multimedia Edition includes the existing Multimedia SmartHelp set of learning tools, which include an animated and narrated guided tour of the software, animated clips that describe the way the program works, an audible proofreader and on-line documentation; it also has Lotus Sound, which enables users to create, edit, save, and play sound in the form of .WAV files; Lotus Media Manager, used to preview multimedia files, Lotus Annotator to create and embed multimedia notes in Windows applications, and ScreenCam software that can record operations a user performs on the computer, add audio such as a running commentary on what the user is doing, and play the movie back; ScreenCam will later be offered as a stand-alone product and bundled with other Lotus applications; the new version of 1-2-3 for Windows is $500.
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