Corel Ventura
Corel Ventura is the oldest desktop publishing program for PCs with a rich history. In 1985, John Meyer after his departure from the company Digital Research Inc. Ventura software to develop a desktop publishing program under the GEM graphical interface. 1986 Version 1 was completed and was distributed by Xerox. 1987 overtook Ventura Publisher the then leader PageMaker and was the most widely used desktop publishing program at the time. By 1989 there were already 200,000 copies (note: probably in reference to the American market ), as Xerox Ventura Software bought up to 1990 both a GEM, also to be published as a Windows and 2 version. But the legendary speed of the GEM versions could not afford the Windows version. She was also very flawed and therefore unlikely to seriously usable. Although the version 4 it was much better, the lost market share could never be reversed.
In 1993 the program as Corel Corel Ventura and implemented for the version 5, some elements from his graphics program CorelDraw 5 In 1996, Ventura in a completely new programmed version 7 on the market. The hitherto prevailing text-oriented editing has been added to the object-oriented processing. Although this version of the then market leader QuarkXPress was equal, outside the English-speaking space no significant market shares ( spell checkers and separation algorithms but differ in many languages ) could be obtained, because the surface was only in English available.
The projection of PageMaker and Quark Xpress 1998 was at least in the German-speaking area already so large that the version 8, was well, not very well taken on German and many other improvements noted. Not even to this day the current version has 10 ( 9 was skipped) can not change anything. This has a direct PDF output, XML support, database connectivity and an extremely flexible script programming.
Experts are agreed that blatant mismanagement has meant that from the former leader a marginal phenomenon has become. Meanwhile, no more marketing for the program takes place and the realization of a future version 11 seems impossible.
Yet there is a very tight-knit and international fan base around the Ventura, which is composed of publishers, graphic designers and IT people. These professionals assess the Ventura in many respects the established DTP programs still to be superior, although it many of the modern layout techniques such as translucent object shadows are missing.
The particular way of working
His legendary operation is rooted in the history of Ventura. Ventura continued from the beginning to high typographic precision and efficient work by applying powerful formats ( styles ). The text could be placed both on chapter by chapter free defininerten pages as well as in chained and freely movable frame.
This procedure proves to be enormously large documents saves time because a paragraph can be with just one click to a chapter input side. All subsequent changes need to be made only once in the style and then act immediately on the entire document.
Gradually, more layout features such as page and table styles, etc., inserted. Thus, it is possible to Ventura to create complex layouts with turned and threaded frames and simultaneously realize the enormous potential of Ventura styles.
In addition to the normal layout work these styles also allow extremely versatile design possibilities of database- based documents, the so-called database publishing. In combination with anchored picture box, style -based columns Jump, tables, automatic numbering, indexes and directories, telephone books, annual reports, catalogs can be created semi - automatically or fully automatically in a short time, while in other DTP programs significantly more manual work is necessary.