PipeDream offers all the facilities you would expect from the following separate programs:
There are other programs, usually called integrated packages, which also offer these facilities. Often, such packages provide a rather limited range of features and their appeal lies mainly in being cheaper than buying four separate packages. If you use such programs, you quickly find that your software is not powerful enough for your requirements.
Buying PipeDream was certainly cheaper than buying four separate packages and now, thanks to Richard Colton, it is entirely free-to-use. PipeDream was designed to offer not only the range of features found in typical integrated packages, but also the degree of power you expect from state-of-the-art individual packages. As you get to know PipeDream, you will find that it contains many facilities in each of the four categories which do not exist in any other package.
PipeDream has a unique and powerful design. This is based around the concept of a ‘cell’. Cells can contain a line, part of a line, text, numbers or formulae - which can be highly complex calculations. If a cell contains a formula, the result of calculating the formula is displayed in the cell.
PipeDream’s unique design enables you to perform your word processing, spreadsheet and database work within the same window. Suppose you have prepared a financial or scientific report and want to include tables of calculations within it. With other packages, trying to mix text and live calculations can cause difficulties. You would need to make copies of your tables from your spreadsheet or database and ‘paste’ them into your report in your word processor. Typically, after you had done this, the data in the tables would change, and you would have to repeat the operation. Not so with PipeDream; simply create the tables within the text - no cutting and pasting is necessary because the tables remain ‘live’ and can be updated at any time.
You can use PipeDream for word processing: create letters, reports, invitations, film scripts and books.
You can use PipeDream as a spreadsheet: create ledgers, simple shopping lists, complex scientific models and cash flow forecasts.
You can use PipeDream as a database for storing parts lists, names and addresses, details of personal collections and mark sheets.
You can also do things with PipeDream that would be very difficult or impossible with other programs.
For example:
As you will see, with PipeDream you can carry out all these operations easily.