andrew@stl.stc.co.uk (Andrew Macpherson) (05/03/87)
In article <518@u410a.stl.stc.co.uk> I wrote: | I shall shortly be taking over the editing of a small quarterly | journal. It has previously been put together with Pagemaker on a mac, | but that private machine is no longer available. | | For hardware the PC-clones are readily available to many potential | contributers, so what I would like is a suggestion for an appropriate | package for putting together a 40-page journal, starting from plain | acsii un-marked-up text files. Firstly, a great big thank-you to all those who responded to my request for information. I've been somewhat slow in following up with this summary, as some of the followups have been hard-copy... The products suggested were: Ventura Publisher from Xerox Harvard Professional Publisher Pagemaker (Runs under Windows) Ready Set Go The Newsroom Plus or The Newsroom Pro Troff under Unix TeX/LaTeX from Addison-Wesley fjntasy I have decided to go with Ventura, especially in view of the recent notes about version 1.1 on comp.sys.ibm, but also because it is currently being used by some potential contributors. I had difficulty finding a UK distributor for Harvard Professional at first, though it seems that Software Publishing do have a London office. A friend in the computer press had problems getting a review copy, and this may have biased me against it. Pagemaker is available, I'm sure the list is aware of the many features it has. The big disadvantage from my point of view was Microsoft Windows --- they don't currently seem to be available for the Amstrad 1512's mouse (well I did say the idea was to use cheap hardware) Ready Set Go --- I'm afraid I didn't investigate this further --- only one suggestion, and none in the uk press. The Newsroom series, in the UK from Mirrorsoft (as in Robert Maxwell) seems more for a newsletter than a journal. Fontasy: Definitly a one to two sheets product --- (From Ctrl Alt Deli in the UK) and geared round doing clever things with your matrix printer. Needs lots of ram for bitmaps, but is very cheap. I would recommend this for single-shots. troff, hmm nice thought, problem is hardware. LaTeX, well I'm familliar with it, and had started doing the macros for the diagrams (This is a Go journal by the way), and even started looking at Metafont to define some numbered half-stones (black). The problem really is whether I could get the .sty file such that no hand tuning would be needed by my successors, other than adjusting page-breaks... ------------------- Electronic Replies Follow ------------------- From: jaxom@hpclla.HP.COM (Lance Saleme) Subject: Re: PC-clone Desktop Publishing. Suggestions Please. Organization: Hewlett-Packard CLL I just finished installing, configuring, and debugging our Desktop Publishing workstations here at HP. Even after some minor problems getting the LaserJet+ to talk parallel I can most confidently recommend the following configuration: HP Vectra PC (or PC clone with EGA graphics) MicroSoft Windows (required by PageMaker) PageMaker Mouse, etc. HP LaserJet+ or Apple LaserWriter+ That will do the job with the best results. There are a number of options that PageMaker supports, but I can't comment on the various configurations of hardware. (Personally, I've been using a MacPlus, PageMaker, and a LaserWriter. Still, if you can't have that then the PC solution above is the next best thing.) Good luck, Lance Saleme Hewlett-Packard Commercial Systems Division Marketing *na leilabd@cvaxa *su Re: PC-clone Desktop Publishing. Suggestions Please. *fr Leila Burrell-Davis <leilabd@cvaxa> *tx I saw a demo of Ventura Publisher the other day running on a PC Clone with a hi-res screen (1024 x 800 I think). I was quite impressed and think it may well be worth having a more detailed look at. It's distributed by the Xerox Corporation through approved dealers I believe, but I don't have any more detailed info. I'd be interested to know what you finally decide on as I'm looking for a system suitable for academic papers and books. Leila Burrell-Davis, Arts E, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QN, UK Tel: +44 273 606755 Ext. 2387 JANET: leilabd@uk.ac.sussex.cvaxa ARPA: leilabd@uk.ac.sussex.cvaxa@ucl-cs.arpa UUCP: ...!mcvax!ukc!cvaxa!leilabd [[ I think you should be using LaTeX --- Andrew ]] *na perkins@bnrmtv.uucp *su Re: PC-clone Desktop Publishing. Suggestions Please. *fr Henry Perkins <perkins@bnrmtv.uucp> *tx Andrew-- I'd try The Newsroom Plus or The Newsroom Pro. Price for the former is about 125 U.S. dollars (less by mail order). You should find it mentioned in one of the back issues of PC magazine dealing with desktop publishing. If you need more information, reply to me and I'll do some looking for you. {hplabs,amdahl,3comvax}!bnrmtv!perkins --Henry Perkins It is better never to have been born. But who among us has such luck? One in a million, perhaps. From: patwood@unirot.UUCP (Patrick Wood) Subject: Re: PC-clone Desktop Publishing. Suggestions Please. Reply-To: patwood@unirot.UUCP (Patrick Wood) You may want to look at Pagemaker on the PC, as well as Ventura Publisher (Xerox sells this one in the US), The Harvard Professional Publisher, and Ready, Set, Go. The March Issue of Personal Publishing has an article on these programs. Pat Wood bellcore!phw5!phw *na robert@erix.uucp *su Re: PC-clone Desktop Publishing. Suggestions Please. *fr Robert Virding <robert@erix.uucp> *tx This is a very interesting subject for me as I am also searching around for a desktop publishing system. I know of two, Xerox and Ventura Publisher, and PageMaker; there are probably more but these two I have seen. Unfortunately I have not been able to test them properly. If you get any interesting replies do you think you collect them and send them to me, or maybe send them out on the net if there are more people interested. Thanks in advance, Robert Virding @ Ericsson Telecom, Stockholm UUCP: {decvax,philabs,seismo}!mcvax!enea!erix!robert *na cramer@kontron.uucp *su Re: PC-clone Desktop Publishing. Suggestions Please. *fr Clayton Cramer <cramer@kontron.uucp> *tx In case you weren't aware of it, Pagemaker is now available for the PC. Clayton E. Cramer *na cramer@kontron.uucp *su Ventura Publisher *fr Clayton Cramer <cramer@kontron.uucp> *tx We have it here. It is acceptably quick on an AT, but I sure wouldn't want to run it on a PC. Also, V1.0 has a number of serious bugs in it -- 72 point type locking it up, and putting a box around text on page 1 of a document causes the box to appear on all subsequent pages in the same place. *na corbin@mips.uucp *su Re: PC-clone Desktop Publishing. Suggestions Please. *fr Dave Corbin <corbin@mips.uucp> *tx Hello there, i recently used a desk top publishing program on my AT clone that worked very well... Harvard Professional Publisher from Software Publishing Company (the makers of PFS software and the Harvard brand) was relatively easy to use and produced very high quality output on the laser printer at work. The software was easy enough to use that i jumped in and started without reading the manual. some online help was used when i got stuck though and once i even had to consult the manual when trying to configure the software for my hardware. this is not a crippled program either. you can do the things you mentioned as well as many more complicated things. i think it sells for around $400 in the discount houses around here though i am not sure what you would have to pay across the big pond. The company is based in Mountain View California and has good customer service reputation. their address is 1927 landings drive, Mountain View california , 94043 their Phone number is 415 962 8910. by the way, i don't work there or anything. i do work at Mips Computer Systems and would be happy to sell you a multiuser Unix machine that also runs troff. troff is what i normally use to do my publishing for a couple of boating newsletters that i put out. Harvard PP was/is much easier to use so i may switch. you can get a Mips Computer at Mips UK Ltd (somewhere near London). happy publishing.... -- -Dave Corbin UUCP: {decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!decwrl!mips!corbin DDD: 408-720-1700 USPS: MIPS Computer Systems, 930 E. Arques, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 *na tankus@hsi.uucp *su Re: PC-clone Desktop Publishing. Suggestions Please. *fr Ed Tankus <tankus@hsi.uucp> *tx Andrew, If you have 8088/86-based clones, then using the DOS version of PageMaker or the new Ventura Publisher, would be simply inadequate. These two products require speed and memory, both of which cannot be found in a PC. If you have a laser printer available, then I suggest you try the Harvard Professional Publisher. This product will handle the kinds of documents you mention but will also work on a PC. The firm that makes this product is Software Publishing in California. I believe they have an international office (London?) too. Hope this helps. Cheers! -- Ed. *na pac@v360a *su Typesetting S/W for PC *fr pac@v360a (Paul Cooper) *tx Pagemaker and Ventura are both available for the PC. Pagemaker is about 500 pounds, Ventura about 750 pounds. First hand reports say that Ventura is better. paul *na pac@v360a *su RE: Re: Typesetting S/W for PC *fr pac@v360a (Paul Cooper) *tx Sorry, Pagemaker is 595 pounds. Available from: NEOW Berkshire International Centre 470 London Road Slough Berks SL3 8QY Tel. 0628-39550/664888 [[ I 'phoned NEOW, they were very helpfull, --- they specialise in windows applications]] -- Regards, Andrew Macpherson. <andrew@tcom.stc.co.uk> {backbone}!ukc!stc!andrew Note new phone No:(+44 279) 626626 ext.2769