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1989-04-05
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211 lines
******************
* *
* PAGESTREAM 2 *
* ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ *
* (Soft Logic) *
* ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ *
* *
* DAVE COWLING *
* ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ *
******************
The world of Desktop Publishing, once the realm of the Apple Mac,
is slowly gaining credibility on the Atari with the efforts of Halco
who are marketing TT's with Calamus, G.S.T. with Timeworks and Soft
Logic who now have Pagestream at version 2.1.
It would be wrong to assume that the Mac had it all its own way,
for many years, Timeworks has been a standard on the ST as well as
the PC and certainly Timeworks 2 is a very professional package,
albeit a little slow in certain areas (see review STEN # 9).Now
Pagestream 2 steps in with a slick, easy user friendly approach.
It is difficult to say which of the DTP packages on the market has
the edge, particularly when comparing software as comprehensive
as Pagestream and Timeworks, features and facilities are very subjec-
tive, what suits one may be a pain to someone else, so versatility
and the ability to customise become very important.
Pagestream 2 is supplied in a box file containing 4 disks,
an extensive manual and a quickstart guide to get you going and for
your part you should have an ST (FM/E, STacy, TT) with a minimum 1
meg of memory. The program will be enhanced with a second drive or
better still a hard disk, extra memory, accelerator cards and a
high res monitor. Installation is also simple, just copy the disks
onto other floppies or into a directory on your hard disk then set
your preferences from within the program. Why do ST software writers
not take a leaf from their counterparts who produce offerings for the
PC where installation is simply a matter of inserting the master disk
(or copy) and a series of questions prompt system answers, preferences
etc and only the files that are needed are transferred saving time
and disk space, and for a floppy only system, fewer disk swops.
When loaded, Pagestream 2 offers a blank screen except for the
menu bar across the top and the toolbox down the right hand side
of the monitor. If this is the first time, now is the
opportunity to configure to suit your taste, don't worry if you
make any porkies, options may be altered at any time and saved for
posterity (or Aunti Nora if she's into DTP), by dropping down the
Global option from the menu bar. Here, Printer, Port, Paper Size,
Print Order, Paths and many more are set, if temporary settings
click on the OK box and for permanent setting clicking on Default
will save for the next time.
Unlike Timeworks, boxes are not the vehicle for getting text onto
the page, instead the whole screen is your window, much like
Aldus Pagemaker on the PC, and if you have set up columns, type
will flow and justify within the column parameters. The windows on
which you are creating your document can be moved and sized just like
any GEM window and up to six may be open at once (subject to
available memory). A nice touch which Pagestream calls Smart Titles
is that the program keeps track of the status of the file in the
window and displays the name in lower case in the top, if any
changes are made, the first alphabetic character will capitalise
giving a visual indication that when finished you should save.
The Smart Titles also extend to Template files, those blank pages
that are set up for regular newsletters, letter heads etc. When a
Template is loaded, the title is not shown but is instead called
'untitled' and will need naming if saved as a document ensuring
that you do not overwrite the master template.
Text can be typed directly into the document or imported from your
favourite Word Processor, unfortunately, my favourite, Protext is not
supported, however as I type, I have imported this text into
Pagestream as an ASCII file. First Word, Redacteur and Wordperfect
(for Atari, PC and don't look if your squeamish - Amiga) will all
import and retain the characteristics set when produced. A novel twist
is that you can EXPORT text from Pagestream as an ASCII file to then
manipulate within your own Word Processor.
An important feature of any DTP package are the fonts in respect of
type, style and size. In DTP today, there are two types of font,
Outline Vector and Bitmap. Outline fonts are defined as points, lines
and arcs, they can be scaled without loss of resolution and so are
suitable for most types of printer and screen. Bitmap fonts are
defined as an array of dots for a particular point size, change size
and you need to load in another set, this is the type used in
Timeworks, quick for screen display but very disk consuming.
Pagestream is able to utilise both types but in the main adopts
Outline giving a high degree of flexibility, the font types are
divided into Soft-Logic, Postscript and Compugraphic and point size
can be any between .01 & 183,000 for the first two and between .01 &
600 for the latter.
Supplied with Pagestream 2 are eleven fonts and all can be subject to
varying styles such as Strike through, Italics, Mirror, Backslant and
many more giving an overall flexibility to the text. Point size can be
mixed at will, each word or even each letter in the word may have a
different size, not easy to read but different, useful however for the
document requiring the large letter at the start of a paragraph.
As it is easy to create text within Pagemaker, a comprehensive
Dictionary is supplied for both spelling and hyphenation albeit my
version is the USA offering although I have not let that colour, sorry
- color my opinion. I understand that versions supplied within the UK
will be the correct version with French & German also available.
Presentation of the written word within Pagemaker is well catered for
with options for adjusting Tracking and Kerning of pairs of letters,
for instance an A and W would sit closer together than an A and T so
pairs within a font can be set and saved, or settings may be altered
just within a document.. Most of the common fonts have the kerning
pairs set but again, one mans' meat....
With DTP, Graphics are often as important as Text and in Pagestream
there are two ways to import pictures. The first is to actually create
within the document itself, a comprehensive set of drawing tools are
supplied, however the easiest is to bring in your scanned image and
the program will accept most bitmapped formats including .IMG, .IFF,
.TIFF, DEGAS, NEO & TNY. Also accepted are GEM Metafiles and
Encapsulated Postcript Format (EPS) although the latter cannot be
shown on the Atari screen Colour images will retain their palettes,
however on screen they will be shown as dithered grey scales but on
printing, Pagestream retains full colour separation.
To enhance documents, Boxes, Lines and Fill patterns can be used to
effect along with Shadowed text, Rotation of text and Runaround an
image. All are catered for within Pagestream and are easy to use.
There are 40 Fill patterns supplied including 1 that is editable, the
same flexibility is given to Line styles.
Most DTP packages employ definable Guide Lines for document creation,
Pagestream is different using instead a matrix of points. These may be
less obtrusive and have the 'Snap to Grid' options when moving or
resizing objects, however I do prefer the non printing guide lines,
that is my particular quirk and certainly the matrix does work, I
suppose at the end of the day I expect guide lines and get dots
instead.
Cut, Copy, Paste and Delete are all available from the drop down menus
making replication and transfer easy, applications such as Business
Card design use these functions where maybe 8 identical blocks are to
be equally placed on a page for printing.
Pagestream is without doubt a package which is more than adequate for
the home enthusiast and will find favour with professional printers,
indeed I know one who at present struggles with a PC running
Timeworks, there is very little memory after GEM is loaded and
everything is a struggle. The Atari / Pagestream combination leaves
his setup way behind and that is no fault of Timeworks, rather the
computer. I have found the program easy to use although very slow when
drawing screens with lots of text or graphics. I have not had the
opportunity to switch off my hard drive and run Pagestream as a floppy
only system and with 4 megs have not encountered any 'Out of Memory'
reports so I have seen Pagestream at its best, and at its best it is
good, in fact very good.
The supplied manual is a excellent and for the impatient like me, the
Quick Start Manual, a short version is a must. I do have to refer to
both manuals on a regular basis, this I put down to my lack of
intelligence and the fact that Pagestream 2 is a very comprehensive
program. Some parts of the package are slow, particularly screen
drawing and an irritating quirk is redrawing the screen twice when the
'Full Screen Box' is clicked. Printing is relatively fast unless you
forget to select the right print density; by default, a setting of 300
x 300 Dots Per Inch is set and my printer, 24 pin, is happiest when
this is altered to 180 x 180 - I am sure there must be a way to reset
the default but as yet I have not found it.
Things I missed were the solid, non-printable guide lines but I could
certainly get used to the matrix of dots, and I was surprised that
text flow around graphics was pretty basic and not employing control-
led flow as available with Timeworks 2, that said however, full colour
separation is available which has to make Pagestream a good purchase
for the amateur and professional alike. Shop around if you wish to
buy, prices range from £165 - £135.
Dave C.
Addendum.
Being before deadline for this review, I managed to switch off my hard
drive and with a memory setting program, reduced the available memory
to 1 meg.
Apart from a slow down for disk access, I was pleasantly surprised to
find the program ran at much the same pace with no bombs appearing and
no apparent bugs manifesting. The reason I mention bugs and bombs was
I saw a recent letter to one of the popular mags complaining that
Pagestream 2 was bombing out and very unreliable on a 1 meg machine, I
tried one or two of the operations that the writer claimed caused the
disruption including trying to access non existent files only to get
the correct reports so can only assume the writer of the letter had
some other problem, possibly a Desk Accessory clashing with the main
program.
The frustration with Pagestream 2 on a single drive system will be
quite severe as disk swapping is quite regular even with two drives,
however this as always will be the case with such a complex program
and prudent placing of fonts and files on particular disks will
minimise the involved exchanges, so in summary, Pagestream 2 remains
an excellent program, even with the minimum 1 meg / 1 drive. If you
are serious about D.T.P. then you should certainly invest in a hard
drive but for the occasional newssheet/poster then the hassle is what
you make it.
~~~OOOO~~~