Hi,
I just wanted to inform you of a test of several low budget
dtp programs
in Germany's highly reputated c't magazine (issue 18/2007).
In c't there
is newer a "winner" but all functions are compared
in a table and the
programs are introduced within a text describing
specialties. The multi
platform approach of PageStream was mentioned but not
credited. Only
Windows versions were tested when available.
Programs tested:
Calamus SL 2006 lite edition
iCalamus 1.09
PagePlus X2
PageStream 5.0.2.1
Microsoft Office Publisher 2007
Scribus 1.3.4
VivaDesigner 5.1 Personal Edition
Test PageStream:
The tested version is on the market unchanged since two
years. Because
of its numerous talents for text flow the old program found
its way into
the test field. In Germany the program is only distributed
for the Amiga
for which it was originally developed. Windows, Mac and
Linux versions
can be ought directly from the American Manufacturer. User
interface and
manual are only available in English.
The paragraph formats are built upon hierarchically. Changes
to a text
style do apply to all subordinated. Based on these paragraph
formats the
software builds TOC with chapters and subchapters and also
shows this
structure in a tree view. Despite numerous parameters for
character,
line and word indent one only gets a usable text flow
(schriftbild) with
a lot of time. Values for maximum allowed kerning
(Laufweitenschwankung)
are only taken into account by the program without
obligation and draws
the characters in some lines of lean columns very wide to
save the
grouped style. The paragraph control (Umbruchkontrolle)
avoids lonely
lines at the beginning and end of columns but doesn't care
for row
distances of text colums besides another. Thus they nearly
never have a
common line.
Working with PageSteam is not really fun as it feels too
unsteady
(hakelig). Fonts loose their color after the definition of a
paragraph
format or the or opacity of objects change to zero without
any visible
cause. Occasional crashes do not help to better the overall
test result.
Also the pdf export disappoints. On our test page
(Beschnittzugabe) and
margins were missing, none of the vector graphics appeared
within the
pdf and the selected font was not embedded within the pdf
but
substituted by another one.
[...]
Result
[...] DTP beginners find good packages for MacOS with
iCalamus or
PagePlus for Windows. Even more fun is VivaDesigner. The
significantly
harder to use programs PageStream and Calamus do not offer
more
functions to users which use the program not too often. The
time and
effort to learn to use these programs is not worth it.
[...]
http://w
ww.heise.de/ct/07/18/links/114.shtml
--
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i.heinicke skyynet.de
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www.skyynet.de
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