The program streams the broadcasts so that no disk space is taken by the audio, which tends to require substantial storage space. The user is not subject to subscription fees, and the interface supports interactive searching for particular subject matter. The application supports multiple player file formats, and the audio quality is often indistinguishable from broadcast radio...sometimes better. $24

The program works by dropping PDF files on the application icon. The result is a compressed version of the original. The program appends either "web" or "compressed" to the file name. $27

Entourage Arts is one of the few companies that publishes professionally drawn NPR models. The models, people, trees, plants, landscaping, etc. are masked, so that their backgrounds are removed, and each component can be easily placed into a scene. In addition, many of the models are precut, so that a single image can be used in part, rather than as a whole. For example, an image of a woman walking her dog is provided in the following components: woman with the leash, woman without the leash, dog, long leash, and short leash.

The collection consists primarily of NPR People Volume 1, comprised of 112 hand rendered people within 104 expertly alpha masked PNG files (some files contain more than one person). Also included are Piranesi Style files for Mac and Windows ($139). NPR Trees & Plants Volume 1 is a collection of 121 hand drawn trees and plants, with variations of each species in a masked PNG file. Piranesi files are also included ($139). NPR Bundle Volume 1 consists of both of the aforementioned titles in a single package ($259). Wang Wang Collection Trees & Plants Volume 1 consists of 112 hand rendered shrubs and plants along with the Piranesi Style files ($139). Wang Wang is a Shanghai illustrator of note.

The DVD-based collection is taught by industry notables, Steve Holmes and Deke McClelland. The tutorials are designed as work-along exercises, in which the user can, optionally, execute the same actions as the instructors, using their own software and the practice files provided on disc.

The Total Training series offers several significant advantages over other modes of learning, such as books and classroom instruction. The content is highly honed, and presented by first-class instructors, using entertaining as well as instructive techniques. The exercises are fully narrated and explained in detail. The user can revisit any part at any time for review. Finally, the tutorials are based on real-world examples, which can be located easily using a logical index.

This set of instructional videos is by far, the most in-depth and enjoyable way to learn the all of the major capabilities, and minor subtleties, of Adobe's new Creative Suite.

In addition to converting PDFs into editable documents, the program can generate image files in JPEG, Photoshop, PNG, and TIFF formats. It can do so for an entire PDF document or a specified range of pages. In addition, it can extract images from a PDF document or from selected pages.

Multiple PDF files can be converted using the batch conversion facility, and users can control the extraction of text and images from specific pages.

Digital publishers will benefit greatly from the program in that it allows for total editing of any PDF file, and using editing and page layout tools, for the recomposition and assembly of derivative PDFs. This software is one of the essentials. $129

The software supports virtually all internal and external CD and DVD recorders, and for those it has not certified, it incorporates Dynamic Drive Support, enabling it to write to unrecognized drives successfully. The program is sufficiently versatile to provide multi-burning capability, meaning that it can access multiple connected drives simultaneously.

New video mastering features include the capability to create VCD/SVCD from standard-compliant MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 files; add automatically generated menus to VCD or SVCD; and create DVD movies from VIDEO_TS files.

With its capability to produce PDF format documents, as well as other document formats; and image, video, and audio formats; and its capability to access directly an FTP server, the software provides one of the most cost-efficient methods of handling and managing digital content...both that which is born digital and that which is converted from analog.

As a smart repository of digital content, the program provides a rich preview mode wherein contents can be viewed (documents and images), and played (audio and video) without the source application installed. Users can "stack" files to organize them into related groups while maintaining their original proprietary format. A particular stack opens all of its contents simultaneously with a single click.

The program's built-in OCR engine, captures scanned documents with full-text indexing, while retaining text and column formatting. Documents can be opened in a word or text processor, or saved as HTML and published directly to the Web.

Locating documents is accomplished with "easy search" or "fuzzy search" which can quickly locate documents on the basis of a word, phrase, or annotation. Annotations, in the form of audio, highlights, sticky notes, captions, and arrows, can be added easily.

The integrity and security of digital contents contained in the PageManager environment is maintained through the Files Back-Up feature, which uses the proprietary PageManager Back-Up file format (PMF) to back-up and restore mission critical files.

Users can complete a copy with as few as three clicks, or take advantage of the many options to accomplish tasks such as removing unwanted chapters, subtitles, and audio streams. The Auto-Fit capability ensures that bit rates will be properly adjusted so that larger video content can fit on a single CD. An exclusive feature of the software is the means to copy a DVD to any of various output formats, including DivX CD, MPEG-4CD, and WMV.

Among the other significant features are: ripping a DVD soundtrack to an audio CD; merging DVD/VCD.SVCD onto one disc; and importing directly from a camcorder and burning to disc. $79.95

The program requires only a single character sample of the font in question in any of common file formats (BMP, GIF, JPG, etc.). The program will optimize the scan, and require that the user indicate which character the image represents. Clicking on the Identify button results in a list of possible font matches, with a relevance score listed by each. Clicking a font in the list will produce the character beside the source image for an optical comparison. The up and down arrows can be used to cycle through the found fonts. $49.95

A richly-illustrated, full-color guide to the use of Adobe Acrobat 7. The text is concise and full of easy-to-follow images that clearly show how to create, view, navigate, edit, and publish PDF documents.

The Kleper Report on Digital Publishing is (c)opyright 2005, Graphic Dimensions, Rochester, NY, all rights reserved. You may distribute portions of this document, up to 200 words in length, unmodified, provided that you also include this copyright notice and subscription information.