Item 4144921 94/03/07 05:38 From: DARREN_SMITH@NEXT.COM@INET# Internet Gateway Subject: Pages Software Announces Shipment of Pages by Pages(tm) For Immediate Release Contact:Susan Peterson Pages Software Inc 9755 Clairemont Mesa Blvd. San Diego, CA 92124 619/492-9050 X 225 619/492-9124 fax susan@pages.com Ann Kohut Manning, Selvage & Lee 10 Universal City Plaza Suite 2600 Universal City, CA 91608-1084 818/509-1840 818/509-1972 fax PAGES SOFTWARE ANNOUNCES FIRST WORLDWIDE SHIPMENTS OF PAGES by PAGES(tm) OBJECTBASED PROGRAM REPRESENTS SHIFT IN DOCUMENT CREATION PARADIGM SAN DIEGO,CA, March 7, 1994 _ Pages Software Inc today announced it has begun worldwide customer shipments of Pages by Pages(tm), the company's much lauded ObjectBased(tm) software application that allows users - including those with little or no layout or design expertise - to write, publish, and present information easily and effectively. Pages by Pages, as both company executives and publishing industry observers agree, represents a complete shift in the document and presentation creation paradigm. Because the program is object-oriented throughout, it transcends existing page layout and desktop publishing programs. "Pages is one of the few new software products that is not evolutionary," said Larry Spelhaug, Pages CEO. " Pages is rule-based and is driven by Design Models(tm), which are the heart of its uniqueness. What we do is separate a document's content from its format, allowing the user to concentrate on writing the document." "During the development process we had always committed to delivering a product that was stable and productive; we now have that and much more," stated Bruce Webster, Pages' chief technical officer. "Pages by Pages is a product that's more elegant, mature, and feature-rich than we had planned. It's a complete product, and I'm confident that those who viewed it during development as well as those trying it for the first time will be favorably impressed." Pages by Pages, which operates on both Motorola and Intel- based processor systems running NEXTSTEP(tm) - the industry acclaimed object-oriented operating system - is targeted to all levels of users in corporate, government, and education markets. Recent agreements between NeXT and Hewlett-Packard will soon enable Pages to run on HP's PA-RISC based machines running NEXTSTEP. NEXTSTEP will run on Sun's SPARC stations this year, and NeXT and Sun have jointly agreed to publish the OPENSTEP(tm) specification by mid-1994. "We believe that Pages by Pages is such an outstanding product, it will expand the market for both NEXTSTEP(tm) and OPENSTEP. Pages' success on these platforms will create a bow wave that the company will ride into other markets," Spelhaug stated. Pages by Pages is based on the philosophy that document processing applications should let the person writing the document focus on the content, and details of the style of the document should be built into the application. Styles and rules for the document have been created for the user in Design Models, which let the user choose the style of any element of a document in the icon-based element inspector. Users can also easily re-format or change the look of the entire document at the click of a button. Pages can be used for single-page letters and memos or for multi-page reports, newsletters, manuals or presentations. Because Pages is so simple to use and offers so much functionality, it makes users more productive by allowing them more time to concentrate on the content of their work. Design Models are the unique part of the Pages system. Design Models use the expertise of a professional designer and production person into rules and priorities, that ensure effective page layout. These rules govern the behavior of elements that make up documents or presentations. Users will be able to select from a number of standard Design Models that are included with Pages. Bundled Design Models will meet the needs of users who produce a wide variety of documents: letters, reports, proposals, newsletters, manuals, and presentations. Additional Design Models will be available and will be priced separately. Design Models for professional markets such as financial services, legal, and medical are planned. The company also said that a Designer Toolkit(tm) enhancement to Pages by Pages will soon be made available to qualified customers. The Designer Toolkit will provide tools that allow users to adapt existing Design Models or to create new Design Models to fill a specific need. The tools will translate a designer's concepts and intentions into rules and priorities. Pages Designer Toolkit will be available at the end of the year. An introductory special of $595 (a $200 savings off the standard retail price of $795) is offered for the first 90 days, with discounts for site licenses and educational institutions. The introductory price includes the product, four Design Models, one year free support, one additional Design Model (as they become available), and a free Pages upgrade. A 30-day license evaluation unit is available for $14.95. Pages will be sold through authorized resellers worldwide, as well as directly from Pages Software Inc. Orders can be placed by calling 1-800-772-5335. System requirements are NEXTSTEP 3.0 or higher with a minimum 20MB of hard disk space and 16 MB of RAM. For NEXTSTEP Intel platforms, 1024 x 768 or greater resolution is recommended, with a minimum of 20MB of hard disk space and 16MB of RAM. The product is available initially on magnetic media, and will soon be released on CD-ROM . Pages Software Inc was founded in June,1990 with the intent to lead the document processing software industry with easy-to-use, productive solutions for all levels of office professionals. The company's products, initially being developed on NEXTSTEP, are planned for multiple computer platforms and operating systems. Pages Version 1.0 Feature List Architecture Completely object-oriented document processor Design elements (such as font, columns, tables, graphics) all are objects. Design Models provide design intelligence embedded into every document. Object-link compatible Support for short, easy documents as well as long, complex documents full support of NeXTSTEP 3.0+ environment. User interface moveable tool bar, with tear-off sub-bars WYSIWYG display various display levels, including full page, facing pages, multiple pages, thumbnails. ability to scale display between 25% and 200% ability to edit and layout at all display and magnification levels. unlimited windows and documents open at any time Documents unlimited pages, sections, stories per document unlimited number of documents open simultaneously automatic creation of backup document automatic document save at user-selected interval open document defaults set at user or network level manual page breaks document management subsystem thumbnail representations for quick document re-arrangement. zoom and page arrangement feature allows for continued editing. single page, 2 page, or book arrangement gutter control for binding letter, legal, landscape, A4, overhead and 35mm slide page sizes pre-set. full find/replace functionality multiple levels of Undo/Redo Design models 3 Design models with shipping release, 1 to follow post-release 1.0 rule-based style choices for a wide range of design elements multiple design models open simultaneously Design Model transformations Stylesheets separate stylesheets for each section stylesheets and style sets can be saved, edited, protected, named, viewed, re-used unlimited number of stylesheets per document style sets with multiple stylesheets available Styles Styles defined in Design Models System of automatic style coordination automatic global paragraph styles support for bulleted lists, outlines, and TOC leaders alternate and exception styles pre-set or user created embellishments controlled by user and/or system administration Templates pre-defined and user-defined templates network or local distribution Import/Export of text export text to ASCII, RTF, PostScript import text from ASCII, RTF, MIF, WordPerfect 5.0, WriteNow Typographic functions adjustable point size, leading automatic kerning patented copyfitting feature automatic handling of "smart quotes" user-selectable text justification full support for the ISO Latin-1 character set automatic fit matching during font substitution text emphasis includes underline, strikethrough, super- and subscripts, bold, italic, more widows and orphan control automatic generation of drop caps case change (all caps, lower caps, etc.) Color and fills full screen color support ability to apply spot color to titles, heads, text, background, headers, footers, graphics, borders, and more separate selection of stroke and fill colors for text Graphics ability to import and place EPS and TIFF graphics fixed or floating placement ability to scale, rotate, flip graphic images user-selectable text wrap around graphics, frames Object manipulation drag-and-drop placement of objects on page ability to move objects throughout document ability to cut, copy and paste objects ability to add decorative borders to object object linking for live links with other next applications Layout fixed and floating frames for headings, graphics, tables, rules and more display column guides, grid lines snap to column lines, grid lines display and print crop and registration marks user-selectable units, including points, picas, inches, centimeters, ciceros, didots Preferences Global or document preferences at the user or network level show or hide columns, text symbols, graphics, grid Columns unlimited number of columns [based on design model] manual column breaks book or magazine flow Headers and footers automatic insertion, including different styles for facing pages ability to set up and edit text fields with variables multiple numbering styles multiple numbering sequences for sections, documents Footnotes supports bottom-of-page footnotes user-selectable numbering and format styles automatic renumbering full copy and paste supported Tables ability to copy tab-delimited data from other spreadsheets pre-set table styles with user editing and formatting features dynamic layout and manipulation of table elements ability to join, split, and grow cells full emphasis capability, including text justification direct text entry and deletion, with automatic reformatting of document full support of cut, copy and paste ability to edit across column Auto numbering variables (marker language) date and time markers automatic numbering of captions, including multiple sequences automatic numbering of sections, chapters automatic page numbers across sections, documents multiple numbering styles Hyphenation automatic hyphenation control with exception words ability to limit consecutive hyphens in a paragraph Spell check ability to add and delete words in user dictionaries ability to select custom dictionaries on-line access to definition/thesaurus dictionary Documentation, help and tutorial full user and reference manuals on-line context-sensitive help system on-line "resident expert" information for style selections Printing supports all NeXT-compatible output devices, including imagesetters, film recorders, third-party PostScript printers supports both monochrome and color output crop and registration mark printing option # # # Pages by Pages, ObjectBased, Design Models, and Designer Toolkit are trademarks of Pages Software Inc. NeXT, NEXTSTEP, and OPENSTEP are trademarks or registered trademarks of NeXT Computer, Inc. =END=