Arbortext PTC/User Blog

This video goes with the meeting notice posted here. This video is a recorded version of

“All about Arbortext Advanced Print Publisher”
Presented by Lawrie Stevens, Global Publishing Solutions
June 2009 Arbortext PTC/User Group Meeting

We’ve had some trouble getting the video recordings of the user meetings posted.  Rather than delay further, we’re going to post as is — with a bit of an explanation.

First, the initial recording during the user group meeting didn’t get recorded with sound. We didn’t send the audio through LiveMeeting, we sent it over a separate conference bridge that didn’t get recorded.

Second, we set up a Go2Meeting to re-record the same content. This time, we discovered that we couldn’t edit the video after it was recorded. I could recapture the audio with Camtasia, but even Camtasia had issues reimporting the original video as an audio-only track.

So we’re posting the video as is.

Please note that for the first three minutes there’s only a black screen. The other thing we discovered with Go2Meeting is that they don’t record the Go2Meeting “stuff”. While all the participants saw the startup screen, the Go2Meeting recorder ignored it.  Result?  Black screen during the introduction.

If you’ve got the skills to edit this recording, we’d love to have a volunteer fix it or suggest to us how to do so.

In the meantime, please skip forward 3 minutes or so, and read Lawrie’s biography here.  The rest of the video is all live APP demo. Nothing canned. There are a couple of breaks where we stopped the recording so he could find where his team located the files he wanted to show and so he could plan the next part of the demo, but as far as the rest of it goes, every last bit is completely live.

Access the video here. You may need the Citrix Go2Meeting codec which is available here.

 Lawrie Stevens, All about APP: Play Now | Play in Popup

“All about Arbortext Advanced Print Publisher”
Presented by Lawrie Stevens, Global Publishing Solutions

For the first time in probably 5 years, APP (formerly 3B2) got center stage as Lawrie Stevens performed a demo — all live, nothing canned — that not only put the product through it’s paces but really showed what it can do. As with all live demos, technology can get the best of you at times, but GPSL always does things live. This way the product can really exhibit itself.

Those of us in attendance were treated to a spectacular exhibit:  APP is a fast, flexible, highly capable production engine.  By the end of the presentation, we were all left wondering: where has Arbortext and PTC been hiding this product? And, when will 5.4 be out so we can play with it?

As moderator, I gathered up the questions asked during the presentation and have reproduced them here. Answers were provided and reviewed by Lawrie before posting.

And, by the way, Arbortext 5.4 was released today.  Enjoy!

Questions and Answers

Q: Does APP guarantee page integrity?

Lawrie: Yes – we can `guarantee’ page integrity in an environment like Boeing (depends, of course, on the integrity / design of the whole solution). As I showed, we are able to take care of LOEP, changes and printing changes (leafs) rather than using external pre-processing. The integrity of pages was a `must have’ and we would not have achieved acceptance without it.

Q: Is the right hand pane searchable?

Lawrie: Yes. The Edit Area (yellow bar) is searchable with simple or regular expression mode (search & replace too). This is also scriptable.

Q: Can I search with xpath?

Lawrie: Yes, using scripts and other tools

Q: Has it been integrated into Styler yet?

Lawrie: APP is integrated with Styler in 5.4 release

Q: Does APP support HAT (Hebrew, Arabic and Thai)?

Lawrie: Yes – As seen. [*]  Thai is a particular language and does present certain challenges. All other languages are fully supported – Arabic, Hebrew and all the major non-Latin languages have been in the system since about 1990. CJK was added in the late 90’s.

[* Ed note: Hebrew, Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, and Greek were all demonstrated live.]

Q: How many pages per minute can APP do?

Lawrie: APP/3B2 is fast. Format/print speed depend on the complexity of the incoming XML and also the complexity of the output eg. complex tables breaking over pages (horiz and vert) can affect formatting speed). Certainly for a well-constructed template the publishing speed far exceeds FOSI

[Ed note:  APP has a counter visible in the bottom window pane, one boeing doc of nearly 1200 pages was processed at a speed of 130,000 pages per hour. That's right. 130,000.]

Q: If you’ve got data that is deeply nested, complicated xml, does this slow it down?

Lawrie:  “No”!  The XML depth will not slow us down. Although 3B2 has a plethora of XML/XPath tools, it also has an underlying logic set which enables us to remove the tree mode where we use simple format counters instead of the XML hierarchy.

Reminder!  Registration closes Thursday 18 June.

“All about Arbortext Advanced Print Publisher”
Presented by Lawrie Stevens, Global Publishing Solutions

Date: Saturday, 20 June 2009, 9:00-10:00 AM Pacific/US
Location:  Online via LiveMeeting.
RSVP: You must RSVP to receive the LiveMeeting invite https://www.123signup.com/event?id=jgzbd
Cost: Free and open to all who wish to attend. Registration is limited to 25.

Topic:

You heard about it at the conference last week or you’ve heard about it from your rep in the last couple of weeks:  In Arbortext 5.4, “Advanced Print Publisher” will be available for Styler and APE as a Technology Preview.

Come see APP (formerly 3B2) demonstrated by someone who can really make this hot automated typesetting application sing!

Please join us online for our first online meeting:

“All about Arbortext Advanced Print Publisher”
Presented by Lawrie Stevens, Global Publishing Solutions

Date: Saturday, 20 June 2009, 9:00-10:00 AM Pacific/US
Location:  Online via LiveMeeting.
RSVP: You must RSVP to receive the LiveMeeting invite https://www.123signup.com/event?id=jgzbd
Cost: Free and open to all who wish to attend. Registration is limited to 25.

Topic

In Arbortext 5.4, an alternative option for print composition “Advanced Print Publisher” is being introduced for Styler and APE.  Initially introduced as a Technology Preview, this new option for composition will allow Styler users to take advantage of APP’s powerful language support to produce high-quality printed output for international readers.

Many of us in the Arbortext community were introduced to APP in 2004 at the AUGI conference that year. Most of us haven’t had the opportunity to really see it since.

Here’s our chance to hear about this amazing technology from one of those who was there during the development.

About the Speaker

Prior to founding GPSL, Lawrie was for many years with Advent (developers of 3B2), first joining them prior to the launch of their 3B2 software in 1987. Initially employed in a sales capacity he served the company in a number of roles until joining the Board in 1993 as Group Sales Director and more recently CTO.

With a strong background in International sales, he was instrumental in building initial export markets and overseas distribution for 3B2, spending 2 years based in Europe. On his return in 1993 he introduced Advent to new opportunities in major projects, solutions and the newly emerging SGML (XML) market. First establishing and building the resource, he then expanded the sales and service teams and was responsible for the required restructuring of company to service this new business model.

Attracting a ‘Blue Chip’ customer base, he successfully introduced cutting edge publishing solutions and technologies to Asia, North America and Australasia with particular success in the USA, Japan and India.

Following the acquisition of Advent Lawrie joined forces with other ex-colleagues and solutions specialists to form GPSL.

http://www.gpslsolutions.com

Note
This meeting will be held online. You must RSVP to receive the LiveMeeting invite: https://www.123signup.com/event?id=jgzbd

Acknowledgements
This meeting is brought to you by the SF Bay Arbortext PTC/User Group

We want to thank Wolters Kluwer for giving us access to their live meeting resources and conference bridge facilities.

We want to thank Single-Sourcing Solutions for coordinating our meeting logistics and administration.