Lotus Development Canada has introduced a multimedia, cd-rom version of its popular spreadsheet program Lotus 1-2-3.

According to Lotus, the new program, called 1-2-3 Release 4 for Windows: Multimedia Edition, represents the first practical, business world implementation of multimedia.

The program, which was launched Jan. 31 and combines text, sound and animation, uses multimedia primarily to enhance its ‘help’ functions.

Multimedia SmartHelp, for example, features a series of multimedia learning tools including:

- an animated and narrated ‘Guided Tour’

- ‘QuickMovie’ animations that interactively educate users about 1-2-3′s concepts and procedures

- an audible proofreader

The program also includes a feature called ScreenCam that enables users to capture application screen activity, cursor movement, keystrokes and sound in integrated executable files.

Using ScreenCam, users can create help sessions for specific spreadsheet applications, or embed multimedia messages and presentations within a 1-2-3 spreadsheet.

Other multimedia-embedding tools included in the package are:

- Lotus Sound, to create, edit, play and save sound

- Lotus Media Manager, to preview multimedia files on the system

- Lotus Annotator, to create and embed multimedia notes in Windows applications.

In other news at Lotus, the company has started shipping Freelance Graphics for Windows SmartMaster Business Pack.

SmartMaster Business Pack contains 36 additional presentation styles and 34 additional original clip-art images for use with Freelance Graphics for Windows Release 2.01.