Is Our Two Font Geeks. What We Want for the Holidays Can't Be Wrapped up with a Bow. Here's Our Wish List.
Bob Schaffel and Chuck Weger
IN THIS SEASON OF GIVING, we want to propose a few things (in no particular order) that might better the desktop-publishing industry and thereby make our holidays -- and our jobs -- merry and bright.
A font-management system that works. After ten years of desktop publishing, we're still struggling with issues of displaying and printing documents properly. Adobe Type Manager takes care of simulating type on-screen when fonts required by the document are missing (as long as they're not symbol or pi fonts). But when printing, we don't want fonts that approximate the real thing -- we want the actual real thing. We would like a utility (or system software) that's not only capable of interrogating the document for font requirements but also smart enough to find and install the missing fonts automatically.
Simple systems. Although we think there are numerous useful extensions, we want a system that doesn't require a lot of third-party stuff to achieve basic functionality. Come to think of it, maybe that's what everyone at Apple is calling Copland.
Better testing. Here's a revolutionary idea! How about more interoperability testing by vendors before they drop their products into the marketplace? It's really difficult for publishers to make any money when they're engaged in a never ending industrywide beta-test program.
Database management. As more and more data is converted from traditional materials into digital form and as original digital work mushrooms, we need databases that fit our work flow. The trouble is that most people think of a database as a warehouse for files. That seems a bit shortsighted to us. We need to rethink how data is broken down before it is "checked in" to the database. Instead of organizing databases around primitive field types, why not use databases to store decision sequences that drive the work flow? The result would be more production flexibility and greater data longevity, allowing for real "repurposing" of content.
Anything other than HTML. Because we are now repurposing our data for electronic content delivery, we'd like to see an authoring language for the Internet that doesn't look like warmed-over typewriting. In its current version, HTML has about as much pizzazz as dot-matrix printing. Of course there are some very clever HTML programmers creating exciting visual art with the tools, but most are content to produce information in HTML's usual boring format. The recent Adobe/Netscape announcements about supporting online use of Adobe Acrobat may change this dramatically. Stay tuned.
Reasonable RAM prices. Anyone want to start a philanthropic fund to rebuild the apocryphal Japanese manufacturing plant whose destruction by fire is being blamed for skyrocketing RAM prices? The cost of most chips -- except RAM -- is falling. While we're at it, how about designing computers that don't have different pin configurations in each model release. In some cases, we invest more in SIMMs and DIMMs than we do in computers. It'd be nice to get long-term use out of them.
Cheap ISDN. Because robust telecommunications is becoming a must for professional publishing, it would be a nice present if the phone companies would offer ISDN for the same price as a regular phone line. In New York City, ISDN is an operational and economic reality. In many other places around the country, though, it's not only unaffordable -- it's also unattainable.
On-time delivery. Someone needs to give Apple a manufacturing schedule that allows it to actually deliver new computers when they are announced. Building up our expectations about wonderful new machines and then making us wait 30 to 60 days until the product gets into the pipeline seems Scrooge-like.
Affordable digital cameras. How about someone taking the risk to produce a quality digital camera the rest of us can afford? We always hear that the price is high because the market for digital cameras is small. Which came first -- the chicken or the egg?
Whatever you have on your shopping list, we hope that you have a healthy and happy holiday season. May the god of installations smile on your technological innovation.
Bob Schaffel is emerging-technologies consultant for R. R. Donnelley & Sons. Chuck Weger is a consultant and publisher of the Photoshop Monitor newsletter.
