News Station / DTP / commercial
From: Michael Current (aa700@cleveland.Freenet.Edu)
Date: 10/06/92-03:06:15 PM Z
From: aa700@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Michael Current)
Subject: News Station / DTP / commercial
Date: Tue Oct 6 15:06:15 1992
NEWS STATION
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Reeve Software
29 W 150 Old Farm Lane
Warrenville
IL 60555
USA
48K disk, Atari 800/XL/XE
Reviewed by Allan J. Palmer
Creative Software
One of the more original non-game software products to appear for the Atari
8-bit range in recent years was Broderbund's Print Shop, which allowed the
creative production of greeting cards, signs, banners and the like. Text and
graphics were mixed with the art being supplied in the form of icons which
were positioned about the page layout. However, even with all its good points,
there were still some things which Print Shop did not cater for. Signs, cards,
etc created by Print Shop are not saved to disk - once you had printed your
masterpiece, that was it, you could not reload it at a later session to tinker
with again. Additionally, there was limitation in the fonts used for text - no
mixture of upper and lower case, no mixture of fonts (at least not without
fiddly printing, repositioning paper then designing and printing again...). If
you want to combine lots of text (in various sizes and fonts) with graphics
for the production of a newsletter or similar, then Print Shop has its
limitations.
DeskTop Publishing become one of the "hot" microcomputer buzz words at the end
of the 1980s. News Station from Reeve Software attempts to provide owners of
Atari 8-bit computers with that capability. If you want to produce a
newsletter, or a document which is primarily text with graphics inserted, then
News Station is worth considering.
Overview
News Station is supplied on disk in a simple clear plastic case - basic
packaging, no frills. The instructions are probably the weakest part of the
package, comprising of 5 single-sided typed pages stapled together with an
additional 1 page addendum for the latest version (3.0). The instructions are
presented as a series of descriptions of what the various control-key commands
do. It is disappointing that the instructions do not include either an example
of output from the package, or a tutorial to explain the features.
Clarification of some commands could be provided. One immediately noticeable
omission is in regard to the loading instructions - you are told to insert the
disk then switch on your computer; you also need to disable BASIC by holding
down the Option key if you have built-in BASIC, as on the 130XE. A small
point, but it can be irritating.
When the disk boots, the Plate Editor program loads. This is one of the two
main programs on the disk, the other being the Press. In order to overcome the
memory limitations of a 48K machine, to store and manipulate the data which
makes up a full page, News Station works on one-eighth of a page at a time.
Each eighth is referred to as a plate, thus the Plate Editor is used to add
graphics and text to each plate. When you are satisfied with the content of
the plate, it may be saved to disk. When you wish to print a page, use
[Escape] to exit from the Plate Editor and automatically load the Press.
Basically, the Press displays a directory of plate files on a disk and allows
you to specify which plate should appear in which position on the page.
The Plate Editor
The Plate Editor operates in two modes, either Text or Graphics. [Control-T]
or [Control-G] toggles between the modes respectively. In text mode, different
fonts may be selected. Besides the standard Atari font, the control-character
graphics may be selected, or a font may be loaded from disk by the [Control-F]
command. There are 6 sample fonts included on the News Station disk.
Unfortunately, these are not named or depicted in the instructions; (they are:
Computer, Greek, Block, Cursive, Square and HighQuality). Having loaded a
font, you activate it for use with the [Control-U] command. Inverse characters
may also be used in any font. Character heights and widths may be adjusted by
[Control-H] and [Control-W] commands - sizes range from 1 to 8 giving 64
possible combinationsfor each character. Thus, (with a bit of patience) you
may mix fonts and character size on a single line. Additional control over
text positioning may be achieved by adjusting the spacing between lines, and
the movement up or down the plate in scan line increments. In text mode, you
are given a screen on which you can type text where you want. Alternatively,
the [Control-V] command allows you to load an ASCII text file (created by a
word processor) to a plate - however, if the text goes off the right side or
the bottom of the plate, then it is not used in the final product.
In Graphics mode, you are able to use 3 types of graphics, namely Print Shop
icons, standard 62 sector picture files produced by art software such as
MicroPainter or MicroIllustrator, and direct drawings (by joystick or touch
tablet). With the range of Print Shop icons available , your graphics work
should know no bounds. Icons may be placed on a plate in one of three sizes -
the smallest about one-twelfth of a plate, the largest about one-half width.
Picture files require a '.PIC' extender. Only the top 5/6 of a picture fits
onto a plate (a plate is 52 sectors long when saved to disk). My initial
experimentation with the package leads me to believe the best approach is to
use Graphics mode on a blank plate and position your graphic images (from
whatever source) before switching to Text mode and adding your words around
the artwork.
General Points
Plates may be saved to disk with the [Control-S] command, they are reloaded
with [Control-R]. To my mind, the disk access commands could be made more
user-friendly. There is no facility to get a full directory of a disk in a
particular drive. The latest version does include a facility to load plates
from either drive 1 or 2, but still only saves to drive 1. If you try to load
a plate file from a disk with no plate files, the program locks up and you
have to reboot!
If you want to create a banner across two plates, or to flow columns down over
the border of two plates, I find the best method is to save your initial
plate, then using it as a guide, in type-over mode, add your new text, or
graphics.
The Press
When you want to print a complete page, load the Press. This program initially
asks you to specify your printer type - printer drivers for Star SG-10,
ProWriter, Epson RX80 (Panasonic, Citizen), Epson MX80 (Gemini 10X) and Atari
XMM801 are included. Version 3.0 of News Station now includes a further option
to allow you to build a custom printer driver which may then be saved to your
program disk and subsequently used by the selection of "Other" from the
Printer menu. Having selected your printer, you will be prompted to insert a
plate data disk into drive 1, when the disk is accessed, the names of the
plate files on it are displayed down the left hand side of the screen, with a
page grid (divided into eighths) appears on the right hand side. Using the up
and down arrow keys and [Return], you may move up and down the list of plate
files and select the plate you wish to appear in the next available position
on the page grid. You may use the same plate as many times as you like on one
page, and obviously, you can save a blank plate from the Plate Editor in order
to print blank plates in the Press. As yet, I have not been able to determine
if there is a means to change the content of the plate grid if you get part
way through and realise you have the wrong plate in the wrong place. When you
select the final plate on a page, the program automatically begins the
printing process without any pause for user acceptance or confirmation.
Summary
As noted above, there are some rough patches to News Station, primarily in the
area of documentation and examples, with perhaps some improvements necessary
in user-interface. Like most American software (e.g. Print Shop), the page
size created is 11" x 8.5", i.e. not A4 format. This may or may not be a
problem for you. The package does provide for a range of creative output, and
if you want to create a newsletter, instruction sheet, or some varied
combination of text and graphics, then if you have the patience to compose
your plates carefully, News Station will certainly satisfy your requirements.
In the short time that I have experimented with the package, I have found it
to be quite a powerful piece of software for the 8-bit Atari. Obviously the
output is not the same as something produced from a ST with Fleet Street
Publisher and a laser printer, but what are your needs? If you have a 48K
8-bit Atari, a disk drive and a printer, then News Station may be all you need
to embark on DeskTop Publishing.
--
Michael Current, Cleveland Free-Net 8-bit Atari SIGOp -->> go atari <<--
The Cleveland Free-Net Atari SIG is the Central Atari Information Network
Internet: currentm@carleton.edu / UUCP: ...!umn-cs!ccnfld!currentm
BITNET: currentm%carleton.edu@{interbit} / Cleveland Free-Net: aa700
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