HexMac Connects Web To Quark On Macintosh

Quark links, indexes, Web database from German start-up

German start-up HexMac International, appearing in both the Apple and Codesco booths at IFRA, unveiled six new products for automating HTML file generation.

Although HexMac was exhibiting at a newspaper show, its Web products could easily be applied to other publishing applications.

HexWeb. HexWeb XT is an Xtension for Xpress with which you select stories on an Xpress page and export them to HTML. You can also append stories to existing pages and establish links from within Xpress.

All images on the Xpress page are automatically converted to JPEG. You can choose the size at which the image should be displayed and also assign an ALT command for those without graphical Web browsers. QuickTime movies are also supported.

Dialogs specify the mapping of styles to HTML tags. For example, 14-point type could be set to yield a top-level head in HTML. The Xtension also reads font names, such as Frutiger Bold, and assigns the appropriate bold style to the selected text. A set of GIFs, one for every letter of the alphabet, is also included for use as drop caps or initial caps. You can select one of these or place your own in the specified file folder.

Creating structure on the Web.

HexMac's HexWeb XT Xtension simplifies converting Xpress documents to HTML. A nearly duplicate HTML version of the Xpress page can be generated without writing a lot of code. Special folders can be set up to route files to appear at different levels on a Web site. Index files based on headline and subhead information can also be generated.

With this Xtension, HexMac includes an invisible GIF, which is used to create the illusion of a left indent. The preferences dialog automatically assigns the GIF to paragraphs in the Xpress document that have a left indent applied.

One aspect this Xtension doesn't support is the conversion of columns to tables.

One nice feature is that hyperlinks can be embedded from within Xpress. You can check your links (inside HexWeb XT) only if they are on the same page; however, you can specify links to other HTML pages or URLs as well. Links are listed in a palette for easy access.

You can also add a header and footer for each page, such as a logo image or a link back to the home page. You can also assign a background color or tile to the page.

A character-conversion table is used in converting special characters not directly supported in HTML.

More indexing features.

Another utility, HexWeb Index, analyzes all HTML files in a given folder and automatically generates an index file with hyperlinks to all indexed files.

Using a series of folders, a newspaper or magazine could set up a different folder for each year of a publication and add folders within that publication to define issues or categories of information. HexWeb Index can read the contents of the folders and determine how to sort the files based on category. Image files can also be assigned to provide unique identification of categories.

HexWeb Index is included with HexWeb XT. The U.S. price is $349, available from XChange.


The Economy Overview was brought to You by the CyberNews Online Staff
Last modified: 10.03.1996