Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!fernwood!portal!cup.portal.com!Lee_Robert_Willis
From: Lee_Robert_Willis@cup.portal.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Zen Ami businessware
Message-ID: <40233@cup.portal.com>
Date: 17 Mar 91 02:38:47 GMT
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 74

>Lee_Robert_Willis@cup.portal.com writes:
>< Vector fonts are great if you can afford the time 
>< penalty, but I bet there are plenty-o-folks with vanilla 68000 Amigas
>< who would be thrilled to have a fast, bitmapped font structured drawing 
>< program.
>
>But, again, the final output quality of any bitmapped font is limited,
>whereas a vector font is not.

I have seen *excellent* output quality from bitmap fonts, the key is that
the bitmap used on the screen is *NOT* the bitmap sent to the printer.
A higher smoother resolution bitmap is what is printed.  Granted, this
does limit the size of your text (you only get the sizes they provide,
no scaling) but its FAST! on the screen, and as long as you don't want
to do anything fancy, like bending, warping, etc. of text, it works 
great.

>
>< Earlier, you wrote that you used ProfessionalDraw for the Zorro III bus
>< documentation.  Out of curiousity: how could you do such extensive 
>< illustration on a program that provides no way of drawing perfectly 
>< vertical or horizontal lines, and does not support 'Grid Snap'?  I
>< find these to be indespensible.
>
>I beg to differ on these points.  Professional Draw 2.0 does indeed
>'draw perfectly vertical and horizontal lines', as well as supporting
>grid snap (which IS indispensable).

HOW?  On what page of the manual is this described?  I RTFM, and have not 
been able to locate this feature.  I've tried calling Gold Disk's support 
line 5 times this week for just this question (always busy, I never got 
through.)

>
>< >>A business will buy a superfast PC  if
>< >>they NEED the power of Ventura Publisher or AutoCAD.  Businesses won't buy
>< >>VP if they just need to do simple memos, 
>< >
>< >Of course not, they'll use WordPerfect or something.  You can too, but you're
>< >not writing simple memos, you're interesting in doing things that are pretty
>< >much only handled by high end system.
>< 
>< Dave, you're trying to change the subject on me.  We were talking about
>< ProDraw being too powerful, not Ami word processors.  My point is that I
>< didn't need all its power (for text manipulation) but I didn't have the
>< option to buy a low-end structured drawing program, because 
>< there weren't any (that I was aware of.  Since then, everyone keeps 
>< telling me about ProVector.)
>
>I think Dave's point was that no one is going to intentionally buy an
>overpowered product (when there are alternatives).  It sounds as
>though he was agreeing with your statement.
>
>< I am not talking about any capability that cannot be done with a word 
>< processor on a PC/AT, which is NOT my definition of a high-end system.
>< (I've actually done this work on an PC/XT, but its s_l_o_w.)
>
>Could you elaborate on this?  Which MS-DOS word processor have you used
>that supported importing of structured drawings (with vector fonts, if
>possible)?  I have never seen such a beast.

Lotus Manuscript is a full featured word processor that imports 
encapsulated PostScript, Lotus Freelance (Lotus' structured drawing
program, PC Bitmaps (I wrote an IFF ILBM->PC Bitmap converter once),
among others.  NOTE:  The drawings are not displayed on screen during
typing mode, but can be seen in preview mode.

Manuscript handles footnotes, endnotes, tables of contents,
figures, tables, multiple columns, structure paragraph numbering, and
mathematical formula.  It's not WYSIWYG, but its as close as you can
get when running in PC text mode.  And its plenty fast on yer basic PC/AT.


Lee                  Lee_Robert_Willis@cup.portal.com