HexMac Licences TrueDoc
Portable Font Technology
HexWeb XT to allow Newspaper and Magazine Publishing on the World Wide Web with Full Font Fidelity.
Bitstream today announced that HexMac International, of Stuttgart Germany, has licensed its Bitstream TrueDoc Imaging Technoloy to provide font transport and fidelity for its HexWeb line of magazine and newspaper web publishing applications.
The TrueDoc Character Shape Recorder (CSR) component will be built into the HexMac HexWeb XT XTension, and will automatically record all the character shapes used in the document, compress the data, and store the font information as a TrueDoc Portable Font Resource (PFR). This PPR can subsequently be imaged by the TrueDoc Character Shape Player (CSP) resident at the receiving end. Previously converted to GlFs, font formatting will now be perfectly preserved without loss of quality, performance, or HTML text properties. Viewers will see the font shapes exactly as they were created and will still be able to search and navigate the document as usual.
TrueDoc adds its own hinting to enhance the quality of the font images on all platforms.
HexMac will also modify its powerful HexBase® Web Publishing Database to, store the TrueDoc Portable Font Resources (PFRs) and create dynamic pages on the fly with full font fidelity.
"The font fidelity will be added to the whole product line from HexWeb XT to the HexBase Database," said Dieter Pfenning, Technical manager of HexMac International. "Think of the impact of magazines and newspapers published on the world wide web using their existing font styles. This fulfills the promise of true web publishing."
"We are extremely excited about HexMac's web publishing solution for newspapers and magazines," said Ray Boelig, President and CEO of Bitstream.
"Truedoc is a powerful typographic subsystem that solves the font problems that arise in electronic publishing, but it takes real technology leaders like HexMac to incorporate it into a comprehensive solution for real-world users."
About the HexWeb XTension
HexMac's HexWebXT is an XTension for QuarkXPress, that lets newspaper and magazine publishers convert their XPress documents quickly and easily to HTML format and to store them on web servers.HexWeb XT converts the XPress data to HTML automatically providing the author with extensive tools to set up (and manage) links, indices, to retain formatting, to append stories to existing pages, and to manage headers, footers, and links back to the home page. HexWeb XT also supports the latest developments in the web industry such as Shockwave, Java Applets, QuickTime, RealAudio, Frames, etc.
Through the use of HexWeb Index utility, HexWeb XT provides the capability to automatically generate complete tables of contents for the stored pages with hypertext links to all indexed files.
About the HexBase Web Publisbing Database
HexBase is a database specifically designed for Web publishing functions. HexBase extends HTML with additional expressions and control structures that allow queries, formatting, and conditions to be included in HTML documents without the use of CGI scrips. HexBase is combined with an HTTP daemon, allowing HexBase scripts to be cached ino memory for faster pcrformance.HexBase offers publishers the ability to present large amounts of data on the world wide web with advanced formatting capabilities. HexBase is a standalone database that supports the .DBF format. "Form" elements on a web page can be used to query the database from within a web browser. A Hexbase script then checks the validity of the input, retrieves the suitable records from the database and returns an HTML document to the browser for formatting.
Versions of HexBase are available for SGI IRIX and Sun platforms as well as other UNIX derivatives. A new version for Apple's powerful new "Shiner" Network Server was launched at the recent Seybold Seminars in Boston.
About Bitstream TrueDoc Technology
Recently chosen as a Seybold Editors' Technology Trailblazer Award recipient,
Bitstream TrueDoc Imaging Technology is a software development kit (SDK) for hardware and software developers that solves the problems associated with fonts in worldwide digital communications.
TrueDoc Technology consistes of two main components: the Character Shape Recorder (CSR), and the Character Shape Player (CSP). The CSR, typically implemented in the document authoring system, records all character shapes used in the document, adds high-qualiry hims, compresses the data, and stores the character shapes in a portable data structure called a Portable Font Resource (PFR). TrueDoc supports all existing
outline font technoloeies (such as TrueType and PostScript Type 1). All character encoding schemes (including double-byte schemes such as Unicode), and can record any and all character shapes reardless of complexity. This important ability sets it apart from compelitive solutions in that TroeDoc as it exists today can deliver font images from any language for imaging on any other device that includes a TrueDoc Charactcr Shape Player.
The highly compressed and fully scalable PFR can travel wilh electronic documents and be re-imaged by the Character Shape Player (CSP) implemented in the viewing applicatiom The CSP is ectremely small and fast, and has sophisticated anti-aliasing capabilities to optimise character legibility on screens.
Bitstream supplies the TrueDoc components as higly portable ANSI C source code or as Windows or Macintosh libraries. UNIX and Java libraries are currently under construction and will be delivered later this year.
TrueDoc has been licensed to a wide variety of software application developers
including Hummingbird Software (formerly Common Ground Software), Novell, Corel, CoDesCo, Accent Software International, and Tumbleweed Corp. Most recently TrueDoc was licensed by FutureTense Corporation for inclusion into its award winning "Texture" JAVA-based publishing application,
About Bitstream Inc.
Bitstream Inc. is a leading developer of graphical and imaging communications solutions. An established indostry leader in text enabling and enhancing technology,
Bitstream Inc. Iicenses font technology and type to more than 600 hardware and softvvare developers worldwide. Bitstream products and technologies are licensed directly or through partners in the US, Europe and Asia.
For More Information:
HexMac International Ltd.
Mikko Linnamaki
Postfach 100310
10747 Leinlelden-Echterdingen
Germany
tel. +49 711 975U91
fax + 49 7 t 1 975 496 2
email: [email protected]
http://www.hexmac.de
Bistream and TrueDoc are registered trademerks of Bitstream, Inc. HexWeb and Hexbase are registered Trademarks of HexMac International Ltd, Texture is a trademark of FutureTense corporation.
All other Trademarks and product names are the property of their respective owners.