Xerox Ventura Publisher 2.0 Greater Publishing Power
By Janet Carter

The desktop publishing industry has grown by leaps and bounds in the past several years especially with page composition soft- ware for microcomputer systems. We featured several articles in past issues of Chips on software reviews for Xerox Ventura Pub- lisher and Aldus PageMaker, Postscript, a page description language for laser printing used with desktop publishing and handy tip for maximizing desktop publishing performance. As the Navy continues to use desktop publishing technology to produce newletters, magazines and technical manuals, we'll continue to keep you up to date on the latest technology. Here's the news on Xerox's latest release of their popular page composition software pack- age, Ventura Publisher.

Xerox Ventura Publisher version 2.0 hit the streets with dynam- ic changes and enhancements to its predecessor version 1.1. Not only does it include onDline help, text rotation, TIFF file compatibility, print style sheets and fraction creation capabilities, but Xerox developed a supplemental module called the Professional Extension. Professional Extension features expanded memory support, vertical justification, cross references, equation and automatic table generation. The latter two features are particularly important when you create large documents with tables and mathematical equations. Xerox also developed a network version of 2.0. To visually show you some of the new features, the camera ready copy of this article was produced in 2.0.

My evaluation encompasses the base product of version 2.0 on a Z-248 system with a Micro Display Systems Genius fullDscreen monitor and a Microsoft Serial Mouse. Our cameraDready copy is printed on an Apple LaserWriter Plus.

I've been a Ventura user for over a year, and I'm really im- pressed with the new enhancements of 2.0 and the Professional Extension. Ventura is a fantastic package for producing large technical documents with varied formats. I'm not crazy about it for newsletters and short documents with varied formats. It just doesn't provide the flexibility of PC PageMaker by Aldus Corporation. While creating this article in Ventura, I was frustrated because I couldn't grab text blocks and pull down handles to physically adjust the text within the columns like I do in PageMaker. This flexibility doesn't exist in Ventura. However, it has many features that PageMaker doesn't including text rotation, automatic numbering, index and table of contents generation, fraction creation, headers and footers and automatic saves to the original word processing file.

System Requirements. Ventura 2.0 requires an IBM PC, XT, AT, PS/2 or compatible system with 640K of RAM (512K may work but is not recommended for documents of more than 20 pages), a hard disk drive with 1MB - 3MB free space to install software and fonts, a graphics board, a mouse, MS-DOS or PC-DOS version 2.10 or higher and a printer. Some recommended printers include any PostScript compatible laser printer, a Hewlett-Packard (HP) LaserJet Plus or Laser-Jet II, a HP Laser Jet with 92286F font cartridge or a Xerox 4045 laser printer. Ventura 2.0 will run from Microsoft Windows Executive and is upward compatible with 1.1.

Overall System Changes. Pop-up menus in dialog boxes, drop down vs. pullDdown menus and onDline help are some overall system changes found in Ventura Publisher 2.0.

Some dialog boxes were revised to feature pop-up menus to improve the organization within dialog boxes. The current settings are shown in the dialog box next to the option and can be changed by simply pressing on the setting with the mouse and making the new selection when the menu pops up. The Set Preferences option of the Option menu lets you show or hide the pop-up menu symbols that appear beside the options with pop-up menus. While we're on the subject of menus, you can choose to have the main menus (Desk, File, Edit, etc.) drop down when touched by the mouse pointer or pulled down by pressing and holding the mouse button. Drop down menus are removed from the desktop by clicking outside the menu area. If the menus are set to pull down, they are pulled up by releasing the mouse button. The choice of drop down vs. pull down is also made in Set Preferences of the Option menu.

On-line help is now available in Ventura 2.0 through the dialog boxes. It is accessed simply by pressing on the ? option with the mouse button. There are over 250 help menus, and I found them to be extremely "help"ful.

File Menu. Ventura 2.0 now accepts WordPerfect 5.0, WordStar 4.0 and 5.0 and 8 bitDASCII text formats. Images created in TIFF formats are also accepted. Ventura 2.0 can read files from pro- grams including Micrografix Designer which save metafiles from the Windows clipboard. This feature was included in patch #2 of version 1.1, but not all customers may have received it.

Edit Menu. Several of the menus in Ventura 2.0 were reorganized to provide a better grouping of options. The Edit menu combines footnote, index and anchor selections into two options to insert and edit special items including box characters, footnotes, index entries, fractions, frame anchors and page and chapter numbers. The selections are chosen through the menu or by pressing the respective function keys. The hollow or filled square box charac- ters were added since some fonts don't provide them. You can also generate true typograpic fractions without changing fonts, shift- ing text and inserting fraction bars. Equations can only be produced with Professional Extension. The Insert Cross Reference item lets you insert the current page or chapter number anywhere on the page inside frames, captions and boxed text.

Chapter Menu. The Page menu was renamed Chapter to better describe page formatting controls for the entire chapter. A Chapter Typography option which controls the character-to-character and line-to-line formatting for the entire chapter was added to the Chapter Menu including widows and orphans, column balance and pair kerning. Although column balance adjusts the number of lines in adjacent columns it does not change the space between lines or paragraphs to balance columns. This is only accomplished through Professional Extension. If you have column balance on, it significantly slows down your system. Widows and orphans are also less effective because the columns are being balanced. You sometimes have to increase leading on some paragraphs or add small solid frames between paragraphs to stretch you columns to elimi- nate widows or orphans. This is where you lose flexibility.

Update counters is a new option in the Chapter menu to reset the chapter, page, table and figure counters at any place within the chapter. You can also automatically link page, table or figure counters across chapter boundaries in books and manuals.

Frame Menu. The Frame menu was reorganized a little bit to include Frame Typography settings and Image Settings. The Table and Figure Counter options were moved to Update Counters in the Chapter menu and the Frame Background and Repeating Frame options were moved to different groups within the menu.

Frame Typography is the like Chapter Typography, but this overrides the global settings for a given page defined in the Chapter Typography option.

Image Settings allow you to control halftone processing for PostScript or TIFF images which contain shades of gray. This option is restricted to only those images which contain shades of gray when printed to a PostScript printer.

Paragraph Menu. The best feature of the Paragraph menu is the ability to print style sheets so you can see all the attribute settings for all tags in your document. It's a great new feature and I guarantee that it will be an asset to your page composition efforts. When you click on Print Stylesheet from the Update Tag List option, the attributes of the current style sheet are ex- tracted and copied into a file with the same name as the current style sheet with a GEN extension indicating that it is a generat- ed file. Once you print the stylesheet, you can place it into a new chapter as generated text and format it to your liking to organize it more effectively.

Ventura 2.0 comes with a sample style sheet to format generated style sheets for printing. You can use this one or modify it to create your own.

The Typographic Controls option of version 1.1 was split into two options under 2.0 including Attribute Overrides and Paragraph Typography. Attribute Overrides let you customize overscore, strikethrough, underline, small text, superscript and subscript text attributes where Paragraph Typography allows you to control kerning and spacing between letters, words and lines.

My favorite feature of 2.0 is the text rotation feature found under the Alignment menu. It allows you to rotate selected para- graphs andindividual text in increments of 90 degrees. I rotated my headline and byDline by creating a frame and typing in the text. I selected the text with the Paragraph Tagging function and added a new tag called Rotate Text. I changed the font type to helvetica bold italic, the point size to 36 and changed Rotating Text to 90 under the Alignment menu. I resized the frame and changed the Maximum Rotated Height option to 11 inches so it would stretch the height of my page. I also added a ruling line below the text. How about graphics rotation? That was a disappointment. If Xerox added graphic rotation, I would give Ventura two thumbs up.

Paragraph Background and Update Tag List are also new members of the Paragraph menu. Paragraph Background lets you put a shaded background behind a paragraph, but it is only available through the Professional Extension. Update Tag List combines the remove and insert tags options of version 1.1 and allows you to assign function keys for tags and print stylesheets.

Graphics Menu. You can select any graphic on the page while in the graphic drawing mode without first selecting the frame to which it is attached. This may save some frustration. Additional- ly, depressing the Alt key while drawing lines, rectangles and ellipses places constraints on the objects to insure perfect horizontal and vertical lines, squares and circles.

Set Preferences Menu. MultiDChapter Operations under the Set Preferences menu lets you renumber chapter, page, table and figure number across chapter boundaries. You have to add chapters to create publications in the MultiDChapter Operations dialog box before you can use this feature. Also, the Update Counters feature in the Chapter menu must be used to set the initial counter for each chapter to Previous Number+1. This is especially useful because you can keep all the chapters in your publication numbered consecutively for changes are made after completion of the publication.

The upgrade to 2.0 is free if you purchased version 1.1 after 15 Aug 88. If not, it is $100. First time purchases are $895 for the base product, $395 for Professional Extension and $1,295 for the network version. The 2.0 network server upgrade from 1.1 including the base product is $395.

Overall, I like the new features and think Xerox is constantly thinking of better desktop publishing methods. It is a sophisti- cated package intended for serious publishers. It has a significantly larger learning curve than PageMaker due to its complex- ity. The documentation is clearly written and easy to use. I was most impressed with Professional Extension. You'll find out why in the next issue of Chips.

New Features of Ventura Publisher 2.0 Improved Ease of Use Over 250 help menus New keyboard shortcuts User interface improvements Automatic name creation for text files Pull down menu preference Display Print and Width Table information in the Print Dialog Box Remembering current position when returning to Item Selector Live mouse Better grouping of options Image Support TIFF file compatibility/Gray scal image control EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) screen display EPS printout on non-PostScript printer Gray scale screen driver for VGA monitors Windows metafile support Pagination Tools Page, chapter, figure, table numbering across chapters Page and chapter numbers anywhere on the page New frame anchor type Page Makeup Tools Print style sheets Interactive onDscreen kerning/font change Typography Position/size control for superscripts, subscripts, and small caps Vertical alignment within page, frame or box text Automatic decimal alignment, even without tabs Automatic leaders to end of paragraph, even without tabs Automatically grow underline spacing to fit larger fonts Typesetter and wordprocessor control on baseline setting at top of page Truer decimal tabs for financial tables. Non-breaking hyphens Optional quote and em dash conversion Elimination of rounding in fractional points and point settings Kerning tables for all printers Fonts Text rotation to 90, 180 and 270 degrees HP fonts can be in their own directory High resolution screen fonts for high resolution displays Hollow and square bullet characters Fractional point sizes Fractions (in The Professional Extension) Special effects and gray tints for PostScript fonts Printer Support New Printer Drivers and Fonts IBM 4216 PostScript printer More bit images per page on HP LaserJet printers Third Party Support Third party display and printer installation. Loadable wordprocessor converters. Graphic Drawing impler graphics drawing Selection of graphics constrain lines Headers, footers, and footnote frame attributes Other Eight-bit tag names Eliminate the need to put Box Text and Footnote in each box/footnote respectively Professional Extension EMS (expanded) memory support Vertical justification Equation generation Cross references Tables

About the Author: Carter is a computer specialist at NARDAC Norfolk and a member of the desktop publishing team. She is a guest speaker for Navy Micro '89 on Desktop Publishing Facts and Fables and will teach Xerox Ventura Publisher 2.0 during the conference training sessions.