

 A Note about the Windows formats for the Premiere Issue


This  Premiere   edition of WindoWatch  is  being  published
using  ACROBAT  the Adobe Systems authoring tool.   Because
of  the  many entrants into the world of on-line publishing,
we decided to give them all a good solid sampling.  As we go
to  press the WordPerfect Corp. is announcing at Comdex that
they  will make their viewer freely available using the many
electronic services for distribution.  Adobe Systems in  the
last  month did exactly that. The choices are growing  at  a
very rapid rate and include even more features than those we
talked  about  in  this same space in the Preview  Issue  of
WindoWatch. In addition, we should mention our late editorial
decision to publish this Premiere edition using ENVOY, too.
It seemed to us that given the newness of the Acrobat viewer we
felt it necessary to release in a stand alone Windows format.


Traditional on line publications for Windows platforms have
been limited to the Windows help engine.  Recently, the
Windows help tool has been enhanced by a variety of add-ons
including Help Magic, RoboHelp, and Doc2Help which are on
our list for evaluation. Other authoring packages will
include Common Ground by NoHands Software, WorldView 2
byInterleaf Inc., the Quarterdecks HTML authoring tools
Normandy and still other new and emerging contenders  like
Middleware by netApp Systems.


All  of  the product managers have heard the same  words  of
caution  about file size either for distribution of separate
articles   to   be  read  by  a  viewer  like  the   Acrobat
reader...Acroread.Exe or stand alone  compiled  issues  like
the Envoy authored Preview Issue of WindoWatch.  Envoy was a
v.1  which has been replaced by their v.2 iteration.We are
presently  using Acrobat v.2 and have been told that  it  is
far  superior to their first. Paul Kinnalys evaluation  and
review  of v.1 Envoy appears in this issue. Jim Plumb   will
do  the  same for Acrobat v.2.  At another time, several  of
the  editorial staff will look at all the tools and describe
their strengths and weaknesses.


We  hope  you  find these articles useful and  welcome  your
criticisms.   We  promise to forward bug  reports  to  the
developer  in question.  These tools will become  even  more
sophisticated  as more features are added and other  venders
come  into  this market.  We must wonder aloud if conversion
tools  from  one format to another will become  one  of  the
new features!   I certainly hope so.  lbl

