PRODUCTS

DTP thrives despite shift

by Rick Reynolds

San Francisco Ð Despite the change in NeXT's marketing strategy away from desktop publishing, NeXTWORLD Expo saw a rush of new or updated DTP tools from a wide range of third parties. NeXT got into the game as well by announcing its support of Kodak Photo CD for NEXTSTEP, a move that could lead to Photo CD capabilities being included in publishing products in the near future.

Demonstrators' products ad-dressed a variety of publishing needs. Ohio-based Here introduced Here's Color, a full-featured color-management system, and its companion Here's Color CRD, a color-rendering dictionary for device calibration.

Talus Imaging and Communications Corporation showed Leaf-Link, MatchMaster, and Retina, respective interfaces to the Leaf-Scan 35 and 45 Color Slide Scanners, SuperMatch ProofPositive dye-sublimation printer, and Iris Color Proofing System.

GS Corporation (formerly Goldleaf Systems) announced new versions of eXTRASCAN and eXTRA-PRINT specifically for the Canon CJ-10 desktop color copier. Altsys announced Version 2.0 of Virtuoso, its professional drawing package. Pinnacle Research drew a lot of people to its booth with its WetPaint color-painting program.

A German software company, tms GmbH, gave attendees an early look at its comprehensive publishing environment, which includes modules for image-editing, vector graphics, and page layout. The 1VISION system has a modular foundation that accepts small utility elements through major application-sized modules.

On the other side of the size spectrum, Belgium-based Technical Management showed Tailor, a small PostScript-file interpretation and manipulation utility. The program is designed to open Post-Script files and modify elements within the code.