npd@doc.ic.ac.uk (Niall P Davis) (02/07/91)
Hi All,
I'm looking to buy an upmarket DTP program, and was wondering if anyone
out there has any experience with:
1 . Pagestream 2.x
2. ProPage 2.0
3. Saxon Publisher
What do you consider the best of the three?
Are there any major forth comming improvements of any of these?
Have I missed any of the important packages?
I have another question related to disk drives. Do any of you know
where I could purchace a MixedDouble ie double disk drive with
one 3.5 and one 5.25 drive?
Thanks in advance,
All the best,
Niall.
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AMIGA// Fall * Niall Davis * Amiga
// in * npd@doc.ic.ac.uk *
\\ // Love * Department of Computing * ... A way of Life
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***************************************************************************m0154@tnc.UUCP (GUY GARNETT) (02/09/91)
I would like to preface this with the comment that I have not tried the most recent release of ProPage. My desktop publisher of choice is PageStream. I have been using V1.8 for quite a while, and the new version 2.1 has some nice enhancements. I feel that PageStream is more flexible than either ProPage or Saxon. PageStream allows text inside of columns, and as free-standing headlines, with a large number of effects available for tall text. Under v2.1, the new Compugraphic fonts improve the screen fonts as well as the printed output. PageStream really shines if you have to drive a non-postscript printer. The new version of PageStream supports style tagging, which makes laying out documents much easier. Tags make large documents, newsletters, and other complex items so much easier, I don't know how I did without them. Although the early versions (prior to 1.6) of pagestream were late and bug-laden, the company (Soft-Logik) has provided excellent support in terms of updates and telephone support. New versions of the software have been released regularly, with a reasonable upgrade policy. The new manual provided with v2.1 is very good (it is one of the better software manuals I have read; very much on par with the best I have seen for other computers, like IBM and MAC). Don't expect it to teach you everything, though. If you don't know what you are doing, expect to experiment before you can lay out complicated projects. If you are not new to typography, the manual *WILL* teach you everything you need to know about the program. This is not criticism of the manual, it is a fact of DTP programs (just like a paint program won't make you an artist, a DTP program will not make you a designer). I have no hesitation about recommending PageStream for any serious DTP work. However, desktop publishing programs, like word processors, are highly subjective and personal peices of software. Try before you buy, you may find that you immediately understand some programs, but bang you head agains the wall with others (ventura drives me bonkers!). Wildstar