#ProPage User Question
71 messages in this thread
We're doing a small online survey here and on GEnie. What features would we
have to add to PageStream to get you, as a ProPage user, to switch to
PageStream?
Michael – Soft-Logik Publishing
Well, first off, it's going to have to read ProPage docs. I've got too
much invested in them to send them off to heaven by switching programs. I
depend upon outline font output to printer, too, even though Postscript is
essential for some jobs.
"I depend upon outline font output to printer, too, even though PostScript is
essential for some jobs." PageStream has always had outline font support. You
can use Compugraphic, PostScript or Soft-Logik outline fonts.
Michael – Soft-Logik Publishing
I have both programs already and use ProPage most all the time. PageStream is
just TOO SLOW to use, constant redraws etc. Goofy on screen color
representation, SLOOOW PostScript output, Can't output CG fonts to PostScript
printers. Those are my main beefs, Just make it a little (LOT) "Snappier" and I
might use it more.
/ / / //ANDRE
/exit
Thanks for the comments Andre. I hope we can fix all those in the future.
Michael – Soft-Logik Publishing
Great! I forgot one other thing… What ever happened to support for the
"Resolver" board and other SAGE boards? I'd switch NOW for that!
/ / / //ANDRE
Andre: we have no intention of adding support for the Resolver or
other SAGE boards, and have always said that. We've never promised to
support any of them. The problem with ALL existing amiga 24 bit
boards is that they are framebuffers and are as such useless for
desktop publishing. We're waiting for real 24 bit boards.
Michael,
Compared to PPage, I can't think of much PageStream lacks. There are many
areas where, IMO, PageStream is superior. Font handling and management,
for example. One thing I do like about PPage, though, is the ability to
specify the amount of spacing between paragraphs. In PPage 3.0 you had to
use style tags to get at this feature, but in PPage 4.0 you don't. PPage
lets you enter a percentage value for the spacing, but a proper leading
option would be handy as well. I find paragraph spacing useful for letters
and other single-column documents. (Of course, using it in multi-column
docs is a no-no.)
I agree with Chris that numerical editing of box parameters is more
cumbersome in PageStream than in PPage.
Otherwise, I also agree with Chris. Forget about PPage and set your sights
on QuarkXpress.
-Dave (via AutoPilot)
David: thanks for the comments. Paragraph spacing is high on my personal
wishlist (I really wanted it for the Art Expression and TypeSmith manuals ;-(
Why do you say numerical coordinate editing in PgS is more cumbersome than in
PPage? What's wrong with the Edit Coordinates requester?
Michael – Soft-Logik Publishing
Michael,
Hmmm…I'm not sure *what* I was getting at when I said PageStream's
numerical coordinate editing was more cumbersome than PPage's. 🙁 Lack of
sleep or something…. I retract that comment. In PPage I do like being
able to double-click on a box to bring up the editing window.
I just realized I forgot to mention ARexx support in my previous message.
PPage's extensibility via ARexx macros (aka Genies) is terrific in
concept. I realize PageStream has macro capability, but a full ARexx
interface would be much more powerful. I'm sure you've heard this before,
though. 8^)
-Dave (via AutoPilot)
Dave: double click to edit. I think we put that in AE as an option, but most of
our testers turned it off because of opening the requester by accident.
ARexx support: yes, we plan to add full ARexx support to all future products.
Michael – Soft-Logik Publishing
Read (and write) PPage documents.
Print output to Dot matrix and non-postscript printers as good as PPage
(without the need to special printer drivers for Pagestream only.)
An inexpensive changeover price/upgrade.
A long term upgrade/enhancement plan with some sort of cost structure, so
we can plan ahead.
and possibly others
Leonard Abbey.
Reading and writing ProPage docs: well, that would be nice, but very difficult.
However, as we stated a long time ago in our HotLinks developer kit, we plan on
using a new document format in the future for our program. IFF DOC. This format
will be available to developers.
Non-Postscript output: our output is really good, and the reason we use custom
drivers is to make it faster than preferences. Our custom drivers are often
twice as fast as preferences. Note that we doubled the speed of our HP drivers
recently. (finally implemented compression.)
Upgrade plans: well, we haven't charged for an upgrade in a long time. 2.2,
which was a major change in interface, was a free upgrade. I believe 2.1 we
charged just for the manuals, but if you didn't want them, it was free. 2.0 was
our last paid upgrade, and that was a lifetime ago. We also do regular patch
updates to fix minor problems. For example, we had free patches for 2.2 to
2.2HL to 2.21 to 2.22.
The next upgrade will be a paid upgrade.
Michael – Soft-Logik Publishing
When is the next upgrade due?
–Paul < Motorola Inside >
Paul: ref: when is the next upgrade due?
Well, I sort of opened myself up for that kind of question because I asked you
what features you would like, but I can't say yet. However, WOC is in a week so
we may make some sort of announcement.
BTW, we'll be having a large booth at the New York show, and we'll have some
great show specials. Be sure and stop by. We'll also have a rather large
surprise.
Michael – Soft-Logik Publishing
Oops, I meant stop by if you're in that part of the country. (Although this
show would be worth flying to. 😉
Michael – Soft-Logik Publishing
I use both, and am, now, quite happy with the combination and an good
customer of both your companies. You could add, for starters, two up
printing. That's a biggie with me. Next, catch up with PPage in the
graphics import area. It's kind of sad that PStr will not import your clip
art (or a good deal of it), while PPage imports it all. And, I can get a
full page of those clips on a PPage page with no slow down and not a hint
of screen refresh problems. (Actually, I use both progs on a virtual page,
so screen refresh is almost nil.)…..Nancy
Two-up printing (printers spreads) are something people have been asking for
for a long time. It's on the list.
Michael – Soft-Logik Publishing
Michael,
One think I wishPageStream would do would be to allow the resizing of a group
by means of the Edit Coordinates reequester. It can be done by using the
mouse, but it is tricky to maintain the aspect ratio.
Font selector – With several hundred fonts installed, I find it a pain
stepping through a long list every time to select a font that is low down in
the alphabet. It would help if the slider 'remembered' where it had been so
that the next time I opened the font selector, the last font I selected would
be in the window. What I'd like though would be to have some kind of
'directory' structure to the font list.
AREXX support is a MUST. This would allow me to write programs that generated
bar charts, pie charts, etc starting from raw data.
More flexibility in selecting font sizes – e.g. the ability to have text that
gets progressively smaller as you read along it. (Without having to specify
the size of each and every character.) The ability to bend text around a
curve.
See-through pattern fills – so I can put one pattern on another and see both
where they overlap.
Screen re-draw on/off switch. It's a real pain having to wait when I'm making
a load of minor changes and don't need to have the screen redrawn after each
one.
Make it easier to move around a page with high magnification. Suppose you
have three columns of text on a screen, magnified up 800%, you're near the top
of the left hand column and need to go to near the bottom of the right hand
column… and you don't want to wait for the screen to be redrawn during the
intermediate steps of getting there.
Regards,
Shraddhan – via Whap! from Hertfordshire in the UK
Edit Coordinates of a group: we added that in AE, and yes, it'll find its way
into the next version of PgS.
(We'll also add Shift constraints for resizing.)
Sliders: I'll ask about that. I'm not sure if that is style guide correct,
although I see your point.
Text effects: those are best left to another program such as Art Expression. We
have no plans to combine them into one program.
See-through fills: no, because of PostScript limitations. In fact, we'll take
away bitmap transparency for dot matrix users in the next version to end this
confusion. It will work the same regardless of the printer.
Screen redraws: well, I've always been against interruptible screen refreshes,
but you'll get your wish.
Michael – Soft-Logik Publishing
Michael,
If the next version of PageStream contains the improvements we've been asking
for here over the last year or so, it will be great!
Regards,
Shraddhan – via Whap! from Hertfordshire in the UK
ACK!!!!
>>we'll take away bitmap transparency for dot matrix users in the
>>next version to end this confusion
Please don't remove functionality to make things "easier!" I've used the
bitmap transparency feature with DeskJet printouts a few times for some
rather neat special effects. (Overlaying on top of text, layering
graphics, etc.) This is a useful feature for those of us without
PostScript printers.
You're talking about the ability to change the fill style to None so that
Color 0 will be transparent, right? PLEASE don't remove this. You can do
all sorts of neat stuff with it, and it doesn't mean a thing to many of us
that it doesn't work with PostScript, since many of us almost never output
to PostScript anyway.
Denny: you can just put the bitmap picture in the background and then put text
on top of it. The only reason for putting a picture on top of text and using
the transparent nature of white pixels on non-Postscript printers was to
overlay pixels of one color on text of a different color. (There were a couple
of other reasons you may have wanted to do this but we have a few new features
that make those reasons obsolete.)
It is very important to maintain full WYSIWYG compatibility. We just can't
allow the screen representation to differ from the printed output, especially
when people pay $10 a page at an imagesetter and then learn that bitmaps aren't
transparent to Postscript.
If there is some effect that you think you would lose by us changing this,
please let me know what it is and I'll see what I can do.
Michael – Soft-Logik Publishing
Micheal,
That's exactly what I was doing–overlaying pixels of one color on text of
another color. And a few neat effects with frames and stuff.
Oh well. If there are good reasons other than just to eliminate confusion,
what the heck…
Can I just add that the reason I wanted bitmaps to be transparent is that I've
got a graphic which contains two filled polygons, and I want the printed output
to show the outline of BOTH polygons, not just one or the other.
This would necessarily mean that the bitmaps should be mutually transparent. If
this facility is not compatible with PostScript, why can't PageStream just pop
up a warning?
Regards,
Shraddhan – via Whap! from Hertfordshire in the UK
ref:
This would necessarily mean that the bitmaps should be mutually transparent. If
this facility is not compatible with PostScript, why can't PageStream just pop
up a warning?
???
You mean, every time I print a file with a bitmap to PostScript, the program
should warn me that what I see on screen is not what I'm going to get?
ref:
Can I just add that the reason I wanted bitmaps to be transparent is that I've
got a graphic which contains two filled polygons, and I want the printed output
to show the outline of BOTH polygons, not just one or the other.
???
I don't understand this. I assume you mean that your graphic is composed of two
bitmaps which overlap and that the white pixels of one are cutting off the
other. In a case like this, just combine them in paint program before
importing. If it's all one bitmap, I don't understand how making white pixels
opaque would change anything.
Michael – Soft-Logik Publishing
Michael,
I would not be too happy if PageStream prevented me from doing something that
I would like to be able to do (and which PageStream could cope with), just
because a PostScript printer would not be able to cope – when I don't use a
PostScript printer for output.
Put another way, I'm not sure if it's a good idea for the functionality of a
program to be deliberately limited because of the possibility that the user's
hardware might not be up to the job.
> I assume your graphic is composed of two bitmaps which overlap
> and that the white pixels of one are cutting off the other.
Yes, that's correct.
> In a case like this, just combine them in a paint program before importing.
The situation I'm in is that I need to construct a pair of overlapping
irregular pentagons given a mathematical specification for each (i.e. the
distance of each vertex from the origin, the vertexes being at multiples of 72
degree angles). It's vital that the final output shows BOTH pentagons in full,
even though they overlap. Plus, the pentagons need to be visibly
distinguishable.
Constructing a single pair of such pentagons by hand is not too much bother.
However, I would much prefer to be able to automate the process.
Thinking more about this issue after I posted my message, I realised that if
PageStream had AREXX, I could add the cross-hatching myself via an AREXX
program, and the limitation of not being able to superimpose two bitmaps would
be circumvented.
Regards,
Shraddhan – via Whap! from Hertfordshire in the UK
I learned DTP with ProPage, and I like the degree of control it gives me,
although the program can be frustrating at times.
A while back I set up a system for a restaurant that would be using Microsoft
Publisher on a Windows based machine. It's a entry- to medium powered DTP
program.
Fiddling around with it, I was amazed at how simple it made many tasks . . .
like putting a graphic border around a text box, for instance, or getting the
prices on menu items to all line up at the end of a string of dots, like this:
Salmon . . . . . . . . . $ 14.95
Snapper . . . . . . . . . 7.95
etc. . . .
It lacks many of the "fine-tuning" controls that I take for granted in PPage,
but for simpler printing jobs I find myself reaching for that DOS PC . . .
I'd recommend that you pick up a copy and see ways of making 80% of the most
common DTP operations one-step instead of multi- step.
-Roger
. . . . These are called dot leaders, and are an extremely high priority item.
People have been asking for them since 1986.
MicroSoft Publisher: this is an example of a program which simplifies basic
tasks by hiding the way things work from the user. Intellidraw is the best
example of this type of program. They use tools which make no sense to the
programmer, but which make more sense to the user. These programs are excellent
for novices, but are limited for power users. Right now, we're concentrating on
making PageStream a full- featured program like Quark XPress. XPress is our
target, not MicroSoft Publisher. Maybe someday when we are large enough to
write two versions, we can do a low-end program as well.
Michael – Soft-Logik Publishing
Michael,
"…we're concentrating on making PageStream a full- featured program like
Quark…"
Bravo! Do this and you will have my undying devotion.
RE: Dot leader
the dot leader is a direct function of the TAB feature in Quark, you can
use any character you choose, not just the dot. Gimme!
Chris
Drop by the Soft-Logik amigaven area sometime tomorrow to get full news on
PageStream 3.0 with arexx, dot leaders and everything else you have asked for.
Michael – Soft-Logik Publishing
Sounds good, will do, I'll stop over tomorrow.
Thanks for the info,
Chris
This message is also to Roger Hand, and a few others interested in
PC-based desktop publishing.
A few weeks ago, I bought MICROSOFT PUBLISHER, mainly because "Windows
User" ranked it first among ALL available desktop publishing programs
available for the PC. This is a joke. MSP is more like a super-smooth
PRINTSHOP. Granted – it does allow you to produce a VERY limited number of
good-looking projects in a flash. It utilizes Page Wizards – exactly like
PPage Page Genies – as well as templates. The company also markets a
template package, which I bought. A SUPER collection of clip art is
included.
But – the program is extremely unstable (and this is not a factor of
memory); many of the templates contain text which cannot be edited without
the formatting breaking up, and revising the templates and the genies is a
pain.
Today, I had quite a long conversation with one of the developers of
Quark, and he was amazed to learn that I did most of my publishing on the
Amiga. He was more than amazed when I told him about the feature I find
most valuable – the virtual page. I've used this feature for a long time
– formerly with the assistance of a public domain utility. The essence of
this concept is that, by defining the appropriate screen size in
Preferences, I can create screens for PageStream or Professional Page
large enough to utilize a single- or double-page spread in its entirely.
My 16-inch monitor is merely a generous-sized window onto this screen,
and, using another handy utility (Pop-up-Menu), I can zip around at top
speed – composing and filling with nary an unnecessary screen refresh. I
can put a page together at least twice as fast as any of my PC-owning
friends, including my son, who publishes a magazine (Earth News) out of LA
using PageMaker.
It has long been beyond me as to why C= hasn't capitalized on the Amiga as
a DTP machine, and why both Gold Disk and PageStream sort of hang their
heads apologetically at the mention of Big Q. One of the features the
fellow at Quark pointed out to me so proudly was their use of diagonal
text boxes! Now, I was nicely polite. This was, after all, a cordial
conversation and I WAS ordering a demo copy of his program. I LOVE to see
PP and PStr developing, and I particularly love to see more and more
import modules – because it means less work for me converting text and
graphics.
If there were decent word processors available for the Amiga, and, if some
enterprising fellow (Ben, are you lurking) developed a HI-JAAK-type
program for the Amiga, I think a lot more people would consider the Amiga
for DTP. This latter shouldn't be too difficult – most of the necessary
code is floating around here and there in the public domain. As for word
processors, developers just have to get their heads out of the sand.
I fully expect here to get the usual flurry of blasts defending Amiga word
processors. The truth is, that all available programs, except for Amiga
WP, are lightweight – not even up to academic thesis preparation. Fonts
and clip art do not a word processor make.
As for Amiga magazines – we need more DTP coverage. The current series in
"Amazing" is an embarrassment: how to make an ugly business card
containing misspelled words, using PageStream, in about triple the steps
such a process would normally take – completely ignoring all PageStream's
and "Radical Type's" resources in that area.
But then, there's always Radical Type – an outstanding resource. (A good
thing, because it's the ONLY resource.)
Sorry for the ranting and raving. It's Friday – and there just may be a
full moon outside…..Nancy
Um, just butting in- What sort of features ( I know, other than tables ),
do you need in an Amiga word processor to do a thesis that aren't there
already? Footnotes, table of contents generation, columns, headers and
footers- all are in the current crop of Amiga word processors. Is there
something else in WP that you use?
//
-Karl \X/ Amiga and Autopilot: The *only* way to fly!
Don't forget index generation and end notes. Only Amiga WP and
excellence! have these features. I did not count excellence!
because: a) I think the company is out of business; 2) if you don't
have a PostScript printer, your output will be in bit mapped fonts;
3) excellence! files really do not translate well to any other
medium. Amiga WP will, at least, recognize an HP printer's built-in
fonts.
Well, I was counting excellence! also, and as far as I know, they are
very much in business, as I just talked to them last week. My copy
of excellence! 3.0 has no problem using the default font of my IIp
printer, which is about as much as WP was really up to anyway. A fat
lot of good having built-in proportional fonts ever did me with WP,
since the 4.1 version doesn't support them.
//
-Karl \X/ Amiga and Autopilot: The *only* way to fly!
Actually, it does. If you'll check out the available printers, you'll find
that with a printer change, you'll be able to support your HP's internal
fonts…..Nancy
Maybe on your copy- but on *mine* while you can *select* a proportional
printer driver, you can't see what it will look like or properly format
the page. And as for "preview", I've never been able to use it without
the program hanging. I admit that WP is about the most powerful
fixed-width-font text-only program around, but the limitations finally
became too maddening to live with. Especially since excellence! 3.0 does
the things I need anyway. Exclaimation points aren't THAT hard to type,
are they? <g>
//
-Karl \X/ Amiga and Autopilot: The *only* way to fly!
I would especially agree with you about the word processors. I still use
WordPerfect on the Amiga (and WP5.1 on my Toshiba, mostly for
compatibility) because it is the only one with the heavy-duty features I
need. A word processor without good footnote-endnote handling, table of
contents, and index is of little use if you need to do more than a few
letters and such.
—Betty
Thanks for that response, Betty. I really appreciate it. (The last
time I said something "slightly" critical about Amiga word processors
[on the vendor forum] I got accused of besmirching someone's
religion.) I'm writing a non-fiction book, at the moment, and would
prefer to do it on the Amiga – mainly because I can do all sorts of
other things at the same time. But I'm doing it on the Bridgeboard in
WP 5.2 for all those reasons I mentioned. Darn! Wouldn't it be nice
if WP Corp would suddenly go Amiga crazy?…..Nancy
If Commodore would sell a few million more Amigas, I suspect they
would update WordPerfect for us, but until then, I doubt we will get
a decent word processor for serious writers. I do understand,
though. The bulk of the Amiga market is not populated with serious
writers with needs for the things WP5.1 or 5.2 can do.
What's funny about that is that WPCorp just offered registered
WP for Amiga owners (including me, though I never use the thing) the
chance to UPGRADE – can you believe it? UPGRADE? – to WP for DOS.
DOS! What's worse, they apparently have a super-duper-deluxe version
of WP, system 2 compatible, taking advantage of all the new OS
goodies, fully multitasking, fast, nice, etc. in late beta and killed
the project because of poor WP sales in the past and because the
installed base of Amigas powerful enough to run it was too small.
WPCorp could have helped launch the Amiga to a much bigger
platform than it's on now if they's started out with a version of WP
that was better than the half-***ed port of 4.2 they gave us.
Imagine this – a power up to a 1200 or a 4000/030 priced
reasonably including a 32-bit Word Perfect, like they're including
Final Copy 1.3 (1.3?) now.
Don't you believe the &#&$ at WordPerfect for a minute! What they
did was stir up the beta testers (a good friend of mine was a WP
tester) so that we Amiga users would get excited about a port of
v5.1. Then they approached Commodore and asked them for 4-5 million
dollars. Tis what Jim Dionne told me, and I would believe him over
any one at WordPerfect, especially the guy from Q&A at WP who posted
that trash a year or so ago. Am I mad? Yes, WordPerfect lied from
day one.
I guess that's typical. I just wish there was a good word
processor out there for the Amiga. Don't get me wrong, ProWrite is
OK, and I'm sure excellence! and Final Copy are fine too, but there
are so many things Word Perfect does that I can't do.
WPCorp is generally sleazy anyway – they've pulled the same
number on OS/2, except I think that they're finally going to release
a real product, beyond the dopey port they've had out for a while.
It's just frustrating to see a company like that that could
have done so much for the Amiga.
Doomed to bloody fingernails,
Paul
Why not snap up one of those $200 386/25 Bridgeboards they're talking
about on the Bridgeboard forum and open up a whole new world. I paid $500
for mine, but don't regret a penny of it. (Of course, you'll need VGA,
another hard drive, etc. But they're great!
…..Nancy
I agree. Sure wish they had released that new version.
—Betty
Ahem! I upgraded from Amiga WP to Amiga 5.2 for Windows! (For $100
Canadian.) And…got Grammatik and Adobe Type Manager for free. Then,
using my front cover, I also updated to Microsoft Word for Windows (For
another $100 Canadian.) Then, for $89 for a nifty Oregon outfit called
Surplus Software, I got AmiPro. This total is less than I paid for my
first copy of Amiga WordPerfect!
All nice programs.
WP, if you'll remember, and AmiPro have FREE 800-number tech support.
Eventually, I think I'll probably give Word the boot.
Typical C= They probably picked up all those superceded copies of FC from
Woody Williams' dumpster and thought they'd make a big splash. Ho hum.
Rats, indeed…..Nancy
Betty,
I've been reading the underlying tone of your message for several years
i.e WPerfect is great pity the Amiga processors can't keep up…or words
to that effect.
Just what is it about WPerfect that is so wonderful? Over here we reckon
for sheer out and out power and versatility Protext can't be beaten. So
what is it about Wordperfect?
Pete
WordPerfect is a standard word processor that is available for many
different platforms. With it, it is easy to transfer work from the
computers at work to those at home and back again – which is important
for many who must bring work home from the office. When the Amiga version
became so old that it was no longer compatible with the new versions, this
ability was lost – at least to a large extent.
WordPerfect is also quite powerful, on other platforms. It is the only
'transportable' word processor we have had that would do such things as
indexes, easy column handling, endnotes or footnotes and that sort of
thing easily. It is so widely used that there are many pre-made style
sheets and macros available for it.
ProText, to the best of my knowledge, is not available here at all,
and is certainly not in wide use in offices. Is ProText also used on
other platforms – computers likely to be found at work? Does it do
the endnotes and footnotes, the tables of contents, several kinds of
columns, and easy indexing? Does it have macros and style sheets?
I'm pretty sure that offices over here would not be using ProText,
else we would have heard more about it.
We have quite a few word processors here that are excellent for what they
do – mixing text with graphics, providing good printer output, allowing
use of several fonts, and a few of them have a thesaurus and/or spell
checker. Some offer one or another of the facilities above, but not all
of them. And NONE of the others are likely to be found on the other
platforms that people find at work, so they cannot bring work home to
finish and then take it back to work and just stick in the disk and go the
next day.
For my own use, I don't have to have compatibility any more, but I do want
the abilities that WordPerfect has. Many people need the actual
compatibility. When the Amiga has none of the software used in offices
available, it cuts down on its credibility as a machine capable of being
used for 'real work.'
—Betty
Michtron Inc
Protext dealer
3201 Drummond Plaza
Newark DE 19711
302 454 7946
fax 302 454 1403
Chris
I remember Michtron – HiSOFT BASIC and some other things. But I didn't
know they had ProText. It has not made much of a splash over here, but I
know it is very popular in England.
—Betty
Um, my copy of Excellence! 3.0 handles all that stuff (indexing,
footnotes, table of contents generation) and then some. I'm a pro writer
and it offers most of what I need, including a thesaurus/dictionary and
grammar checker and style sheets. If it could format scripts in dual
non-snaking columsn (a la ProWrite) it would be perfect as a writing tool.
Lousy output unless you import to ProPage or run out your files in E!'s
Postscript mode, though.
I haven't tried the latest Excellence, and I do read that it is a vast
improvement over earlier versions. However, I don't have a Postscript
printer. I have ProPage, of course, but sometimes I like to print
straight from the word processor.
—Betty
If excellence! had Final Copy quality dot matrix output, it'd be the ONE
must-have WP for the Amiga. As it is, it does offer a NLQ print mode which
lets you choose the built-in fonts in your printer — in my case, better
output than I tend to get with bitmap fonts, since I don't have
Postscript. Microsoft Word 5.5 on MS-DOS machines does the same thing, to
good effect.
So excellence! can use any built-in and cartridge fonts of an HP
LaserJet II? What about CGFonts? I know it's supposed to have the most
capabilities of Amiga word processors.
Is it a good product? All I've heard is "SLOW".
Paul
excellence! is no longer slow… anymore than PgS is still 'buggy' (if
you're familiar with how PgS went from 1.x to 1.8 you'll understand).
While e! still lacks a few of the rarely used but impressive features of
an AMI-PRO or WORD F/WIN, it is an incredibly feature laden, good looking
program. It's fatal fla, IMO, is poor non-postscript output. I still can't
believe that after all this time, that has not been corrected.
Excellence! has been speedy since v. 2.0 and especially since 3.0. I type
up to 90 wpm and I can't outrun v. 3.0.
It's a good product. It's AREXX facilities are very nice. It supports CG
Fonts on screen, but outputs them to the printer as bitmaps, so the
quality isn't always there.
Excellence! will access up to 11 internal printer fonts using appropriate
FON# codes. E.g., internal font "3" is Courier on the HP Laserjet printer
driver. Since these work through the printer preferences driver, not
directly with the printer, they can be modified. You won't necessarily get
WYSIWIG display, however. What's really nice is that using this NLQ mode,
you can do "mixed-mode" printing: Graphics in your document are printed
out as bitmaps, while the printer's internal fonts are chosen for text in
the *same* document. It can speed up print output tremendously while
maintaining quality.
Excellence! includes an improved HP Deskjet driver, too.
"If excellence! had Final Copy quality dot matrix output, it'd be the
ONE must-have WP for the Amiga."
I agree!
I may need to take a new look at Excellence!. Gee, I hate programs that
have exclamation points in their names.
—Betty
Not only an exclamation point in its name, but it starts with a lower-case
"e" as well!
Denny Atkin
COMPUTE
(formerly COMPUTE!)
Hi, Ron…
I don't know about you, but I like to send my manuscripts in looking, not
good, but GREAT!…..Nancy
Betty and Nancy,
I think you both are showing in the comments on word processors, that
there is a "low end" "high end" choice to be made. Personally I dont
wouldnt pay for all the high end features of a word processor like WP.
There is just so much there that I woudnt use.
Just my 10c worth.
Laurie Carroll AKL NZ
Longdistance Autopilot
You are right, Laurie. And most developers seem to feel that there aren't
many Amiga users who would. *I* don't use graphics much in a word
processor. I use ProPage for that. But the developers have all stressed
the addition of graphics to text over the powerful features that I find
necessary.
—Betty
Nancy,
We have a subscriber only magazine over here called JAM – or Just
Amiga Montly for short <g> The Editor and publisher is Jeff Walker, a
friend of mine. Jeff has been editing Amiga magazines for some years
and is quite an expert on DTP with PPage. He along with another
aquaintance Larry Hickmot have done various articles and a series on
dtp explaining all sorts of cacets of how to do this that and the
other. dtp is a very big over here and of course the respective
followers of PPage and PStream are always sloging it out.
Why not drop a line to Jeff or phone him and see if you could get hold
of the latest magazines which carry dtp articles. I'm sure you would
find them of interest.
JAM
75, GREATFILEDS DRIVE
UXBRIDGE
MIDDX UB8 3QN
0895 – 274449
PETE
Thanks for the response. I've "kept" the message and will write to Jeff.
I'd love to subscribe to another Amiga mag – particularly a worthwhile
one. You might give him Radical Type's address – P.O.Box 20135, St.
Louis, MO 63123-0335, USA. It comes out sort of spasmodically, but it's a
very good magazine – now PageStream-only, but with excellent tutorials and
reviews. (The PageStream-only is because it's published by Michael Loader
who now works for Soft-Logik and who wrote the PageStream and Art
Expression manuals.)
Yes, I totaly agree with Pete Miles. Jeff Walkers JAM (Just Amiga Monthly)
magazine had some really heavy Amiga series about using PPage/PageStream.
I'm not a real DTP guy, but I do regulary work with DTP programs and you
can find lot's of real good tips you can't find in the PPage manual.
I read most non-game Amiga (and some PC/Mac/DTP) magazines and I found
the DTP series in JAM contained the best articles I have seen since a
long time. Though, getting the articles is a bit hard, because you
have to order several old magazines to get the whole series. Maybe
Jeff should think about a special "DTP" issue with all the old DTP
articles…
Michael,
To my eyes the rendition of fonts on screen looks better from PPage than
does my friends version of Pagestream. So perhaps this could be a small
consideration.
BTW, if you mangae to get Pstream to be like Quark then count me as a
convert.
Pete