San Diego, CA Ð Word processing on NEXTSTEP may never be the same. At press time, Pages Software had entered the final testing phase for its unconventional document creation software and was promising shipment by March 1.
The software, three years in the making, takes a new approach to word processing that doesn't include such conventional tools as rulers, font panels, and style sheets. Pages is being positioned as an easy-to-use word processor in light of NeXT's de-emphasis on publishing and a lack of available word-processing software for NEXTSTEP.
"The early view of the product was that it was more of a publishing product," said Larry Spelhaug, CEO of Pages Software. "Internally, we always assumed that it would have full word-processing capability but that wasn't perceived outside the company."
Pages' extensive feature set, roughly equivalent to the latest versions of WordPerfect and Microsoft Word, was entirely implemented in object-based code. The software uses design templates to ease document creation.
Spelhaug attributed the long delay to having to write 90 percent of the software's objects from scratch. Now, though, "extensions to the product should go very quickly and support the notion of fast development using object systems," he said.
Pages is available on floppy disk or a special CD-ROM that includes a ten-minute self-running demo of the program created with WatchMe screen-recording software from Otherwise (see "WatchMe cuts user-training costs").
The CD-ROM also includes additional templates and document examples not available on the floppy-disk version.
Pages sells for $795 and comes with four design models: Victory, April, Writer, and Presents.
The company is offering a shipping special for $595 that includes Pages bundled with one year of technical support, one additional design model, and a free upgrade to the next version of the program. If purchased individually, these items would total $1065. Educational pricing is set at $195, direct from Pages. Developer pricing and site licenses are also available. Pages can be reached at 619/492-9050, 619/492-9124 fax; info@pages.com.