Software
Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia

Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia Deluxe Edition bends over backward to make encyclopedia exploration fun and rewarding. More than any other vendor, Microsoft has found ingenious ways to integrate textual information with photos, movies, animations, and sound--almost to the point where the encyclopedia is as much an entertainment product as it is a reference tool. Some users may prefer the World Book's relatively clean and quiet presentation to the Encarta's in-your-face-and-ears razzle-dazzle, but Encarta is undeniably alluring and captivating.

There are two versions of Encarta 98: the three-disk Deluxe Edition ($80 street) and the two-disk non-Deluxe edition ($55 street). The Deluxe Edition's third disk is devoted entirely to the Research Organizer, a new feature that guides you through the process of creating notecards and reports. Though useful and conveniently integrated with Encarta, the Research Organizer provides less support for the budding term-paper writer than what's found in the Homework wizards that IBM has added to this year's World Book.

The Deluxe Edition also offers 2,000 more articles and a great deal more media than the non-Deluxe edition. In addition, you get 18 months of free online updates from July 1997. (If the non-Deluxe edition is preinstalled on your new PC, you can buy an update subscription for $19.95.)

Encarta's article text is solid, but it is certainly not exhaustive; compared with the other packages in this roundup, Encarta would fall into a position comparable to that of Grolier and World Book. But undergraduates and high school students should find it adequate.

This year's version complements its knowledge base with 900 sidebars, which present source documents and contemporaneous accounts of historical events. Encarta 98 also adds 19 new "virtual tours" that use panoramic virtual-reality technology to take you in and around celebrated buildings and other points of interest. You can use them to explore nearly every angle of Monmartre, and while wandering through Monmartre you can enlarge a still photo of the Basilica Sacre Coeur or listen to Edith Piaf sing "La Vie en Rose." World Book's bubble views are more numerous than Encarta's virtual tours, but the latter are more cleverly linked with related media.

Encarta also ups the number of interactivities to 24. These cover everything from ecological matters and natural wonders to anatomy, physics, art, music, and finance. Oddly enough, though, they are not linked to relevant encyclopedia articles.

On our tests, we encountered two problems with Encarta. First, black-and-white images copied on a high-color display appeared in ugly shades of lavender when pasted into Microsoft Paint, Microsoft Word, and other client applications. Because most of the photos associated with historical articles are in black and white, this is an irritating problem. Second, the program crashed when we exited the virtual tours. Microsoft says it's looking into each matter and that the second problem may be the fault of a bug in the Macromedia Flash 2.0 driver used by the virtual tours.

Encarta remains the most entertainingly browsable encyclopedia in the current roundup. If you're looking to hook a youngster on reference reading with a dash of entertainment, this is the one for you.

Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia Street price: $80 (standard edition $55). Requires: 16MB RAM , 40MB disk space, Windows 95 or later, Windows NT 4.0 or later; Microsoft Corp., Redmond, WA, 800-426-9400, 425-882-8080; http://www.encarta.msn.com/