info-mac@uw-beaver (02/11/85)
From: roy@nlm-vax (Roy Standing)
Jim Nisbet (niz@Lindy) reported earlier this week that he had seen a
demonstration of MacPublisher from Boston Software Publishers. Both
in response to his request for additional reactions and my frustrations,
I report the following:
I received a copy of MacPublisher this very day. Based on my request
for a dealer demonstration disk to show to visitors to our National
Demonstration Center, Boston Software Publishers sent me a dealer
package immediately. I was highly impressed by their quick response.
I was also surprised that the documentation within the package stated
that the disk, while stamped DEMO, was a complete version of their
product for evaluation. Additional instructions told how DEMO disks
could be produced from the 'master' and encouraged dealers to make
copies for their customers to evaluate.
On the down side:
I found the documentation somewhat ponderous because it kept telling me
to take a break before continuing. I'm quite capable of deciding to
ignore such suggestions but I kept getting caught because the following
instructions presumed you had closed all the files and returned to the
Finder. I hadn't/didn't and kept messing up. In addition, the instructions
are inaccurate; at least one file wasn't where they said it was (trivial)
and they told me to modify an 'article' file then quit MacPublisher at
which time a dialog box would ask if I wanted to save the changes --
I carefully read and followed the instructions 3 times to be sure I
was doing as instructed and I never saw a dialog box and always lost
my changes (nontrivial).
You can enter an article using their editor or read in a MacWrite file.
With a ruler guide to help you you can take a piece of the article and
electronically paste it on a page (free form or with constrainsts that
snap it into place). The article is automatically split into two
segments adnauseum. So far so good, but once I had a file in three
pieces and tried to subdivide the middle piece it would divide the
file for me. My only option was to take the whole middle piece. Since
I had to split the segment because I had changed fonts/sizes I was
stuck. I later confirmed that it simply couldn't be done (according
to my reading of the manual anyway). The only solution I found was to
save the file under a new name and then open the new file. That
effectively meant removing all pieces of the original file... a pain.
Using MacPaint files was a bigger nightmare. MacPublisher uses it own
file format for bitmap files. You have to use MacPaint, put your images
in the scrapbook/clipboard, and then extract and save them in MacPublisher.
That would be okay BUT you can NOT crop images within MacPublisher. If
you are using column constraints you are forced to have white space out
to the selected column margin. Your only alternative is to go back to
MacPaint and crop the image to fit their, without any tools to help
guide you.
Then came printing. I had gone through their sample lesson and had a
hacked together newsletter of 4 pages. I selected 'print issue' and
settled back to admire my handihacking. Pages 1 and 4 came out fine
but 2 and 3 didn't print! The dialog boxes said they were printing
and there were no error messages. They wouldn't print as separate
pages either. Inspiration led to noticing that the disk only had 7K
free -- foolhardiness led me to throw everything on a hard disk so
there would be plenty of room. I have seen a Mac go bonkers before
but it wasn't mine, this one is mine and when a scream came out of the
speaker and the screen went crazy I felt I had failed it. Not the
least of my concern was whether the crash had messed up my hard disk
(Corvus is rather explicit about telling you to close everything before
deselecting the hard disk). Nothing was damaged and I eventually
discovered that removing the images allowed the pages to print and that
putting the images on pages by themselves allowed them to print.
On the up side:
When you get used to the idea of cutting and pasting to make a newsletter
this program should help get it done. Preplanning is clearly a must,
as is careful preparation of a scrapbook of desired images. Minimize
the number of fragments you divide articles into, anf keep a notepad handy
to jot down fragment sizes if you want to lay an article down in equal
length adjacent columns.
MacPublisher must be able to find all files used in the publication
whenever you work on the publication (for the pages you work on).
If it can't find a file it eliminates it automatically, you do not get
an opportunity to find it and make it available. You must leave
adaquate space free for printing to be successful. You can put the
package on a hard disk (but there is a problem there somewhere).
MacPublisher is copy protected but thats handled with a couple of
invisible files. You can copy all the visible files to another
drive (floppy/hard). When you invoke MacPublisher it asks you to
insert the original disk but will boot into demo mode if you don't
have an original.
Summary:
1) The manual could be better. I also need to sit down and study it.
It may contain many answers I have yet to appreciate.
2) The software attempts to make a very difficult task manageable.
Maybe with some good feedback and evidence of a sufficient
marketplace, the next release will make the task easy.
3) The price is $99.95 and they advocate disemmination of DEMO
disks which will let you use all the facilities (apparently
something is added to every page you printout with the demo
version). At that price, they are offering a lot of software.
4) They use copy protection, but it doesn't seem to make using it
a problem (unless it has something to do with why it messed up
on my hard disk -- by the way the ID was 02).
5) I haven't seen any competition (what is 'pagemaker'?).
6) I will definately demonstrate it in our Center. I am ordering
a license and want to help produce a newsletter with it.
Disclaimer: I am a lowly federal worker who is not allowed to have
any vested interest in private industries related to my profession.
The opinions expressed are my own, they are offered in the hope they
will help others.