SAN MATEO (10-05-95) - On-line publishing tool vendors are looking to convert desktop publishers who, until recently, cared only about creating and distributing text and images on the printed page but can now turn those pages into interactive documents.
Much of the attention from users and analysts has been focused on authoring tools that help publishers create content-rich applications directly for the Internet, such as Microsoft Corp.'s Blackbird and Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Java development language. These tools offer the most flexibility and control, but World Wide Web publishing tools also include those designed to simply convert existing documents created and formatted for print publication into formats that can be distributed on-line.
Vendors of this second category of on-line publishing tools turned out in force at the recent Seybold San Francisco, the premier venue for print publishing vendors, to attract desktop publishers to the new world of on- line publishing.
This category is dominated by tools that have already established proprietary data formats for electronic exchange of documents, such as Adobe Systems Inc.'s Acrobat, Novell Inc.'s Envoy, and Common Ground Software Inc.'s DigitalPaper. But these tools now use their own formats as complements to the World Wide Web's native Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) format.
Analysts said proprietary formats such as Acrobat's Portable Document Format (PDF) are somewhat less complex to use than HTML.
"HTML is a limiting, tagging language," said Rosanne Rossello, contributing editor of Seybold Publications, in Media, Pa. "As the Web progresses, HTML will get better, but it's the first language to support graphics and it's primitive."
Several vendors appeared at Seybold San Francisco to promote HTML conversion tools.
--Adobe outlined its plans to combine PageMill and SiteMill, Macintosh HTML Web publishing tools acquired last month from Ceneca Communications Inc., with Adobe's PDF file system so users will be able to output their documents in either the HTML or PDF file format. Adobe PageMill for creating Web pages is expected to ship by the end of this month, priced at $99. Adobe SiteMill for maintaining Web sites, priced at $795, is due year's end.
--Common Ground announced at Seybold that it will begin shipping its Common Ground Web Publishing System this week. Priced at $999, the Web Publishing System will let users convert any file into the Common Ground DigitalPaper format and automatically create HTML pages with information about the DigitalPaper document.
--Vermeer Technologies Inc. unveiled FrontPage, a client/server Web publishing tool for developing and maintaining Web sites. With FrontPage, users can save their documents to a Web server and output it in HTML format. FrontPage is priced at $795 and is expected to ship this week.
Adobe, in Mountain View, Calif., is at (415) 961-4400. Common Ground, in Redwood City, Calif., can be reached at (415) 802-5800. Vermeer Technologies, in Cambridge, Mass., is at (617) 576-1700.
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