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Ventura 7 Review

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Toronto Star Fast Forward Computer Wares for Feb 7/96

Copyright © Myles White, 1997

With the release of Ventura 7 for Windows 95, Ottawa-based Corel Corp. has firmly placed its stamp on the venerable desktop publishing product. Whether it's too little, too late, remains to be seen.

Ventura has been around for the PC platform for a long time. Originally released by Xerox, the first version ran under an old, mostly forgotten, early graphical user interface called GEM -- which for all intents and purposes predated Microsoft Windows. At one point, Ventura was thedesktop publishing program for PC users who were, for whatever reason, reluctant to take up the Macintosh platform, and it remained about the only reason GEM stayed around as long as it did (until killed stone dead by Windows 3.x).

Ventura struggled through a couple of releases, but by the time Xerox saw the writing on the wall and attempted to bring out a version for Windows 3.x, others had found the market and applications such as Aldus Pagemaker (now owned by Adobe), FrameMaker (also now an Adobe product) and even a PC version of QuarkXPress, had won the hearts and minds of a large contingent of PC users.

Nevertheless, ardent Ventura users did form a die-hard community -- one which applauded Corel's purchase of the programming code from Xerox. Because Corel started out in life producing, among other long-forgotten products, add-ins to Ventura, its users were desperately hoping the company would revive the product.

Two releases later, they weren't so sure. The first Corel version (dubbed 4.2) was a hasty re-packaging with minor tinkering. Few of the application's strengths were buttressed and a number of its faults (odd font handling and memory requirements that caused huge problems with many systems) were left uncorrected. Ventura 5 was reduced to after-thoughts and was bundled with version 5 of the company's flagship graphics suite, CorelDRAW. It was removed from the CorelDRAW 6 suite and there was no Ventura 6.

If anything, the notable features of Ventura 5.x were the number of patch updates Corel was forced to release to correct faults in the early attempts.

Ventura 7 stands alone. It is no longer bundled with CorelDRAW (and, by the way, I'll also be looking at the new CorelDRAW 7 suite as well as PageMaker 6.5 and FrameMaker 5.1 in weeks to come). As with all current Corel products, it runs only under Windows 95 (or NT). However, unlike Microsoft Publisher 97, the desktop publishing (DTP) program for people with no DTP experience and no desire to become professional, Ventura is a fully functional application that will take you to professional heights.

I should also mention that Ventura 7 is actually a suite of programs. It includes the desktop publisher, but also includes WordPerfect 7, CorelDepth (a 3-dimensional font art program), Corel Capture (a screen capture utility), CorelMemo (electronic sticky notes), CorelVersions (tracks version changes for team editing), Corel PhotoPaint 6 (bitmap and photo retouching tool), Corel Database Publisher (for including data from other sources), Corel CD Creator 2 (incase you're planning to master CD-ROM discs) and Corel Script Editor (for automating certain tasks). Ventura 7 files can be rendered to HTML (the Internet's hypertext markup language) or to Java (using Corel Barista).

Ventura 7 ships on two CD-ROM discs, including a full clipart collection featuring many new clips and photos not previously a part of Corel's suites, and the usual hundreds of Corel's artistic fonts.

New to this version:

• Multiple master pages. You can set up several different master pages with repeating elements within one complex document. Each page can be set to respond to a different master page.

• Multiple Document Interface. Finally, you can work on more than one publication simultaneously. If installed to a network, more than one user can work on a document simultaneously.
• Object Library. But you may not need to work on several publications if your purpose is to re-use elements in several documents. Graphics or other can now be stored in a library for retrieval.
• Artistic text can be made to follow an irregular path. Previously, you'd have had to use CorelDraw to create the same effect, then import the result into Ventura.
• Non-rectangular frames. The frame-creation tool now has a variety of pre-set shapes, including ovals, hearts, speech balloons, and other irregular polygons.
• Full OLE (object linking and embedding) 2.0 support, including drag-and-drop object creation and in-place editing. Ventura 7 is both a client and server.
• Support for Pantone Hexachrome colours. Unlike Publisher 97, Ventura supports a number of colour schemes including Pantone (for both spot and process colour) and FocalTone
• Control over the colour of inter-column rules (lines). Previous versions of Ventura left them black only.
• Tables actually do something. You can insert formulas that work as well as importing data from other spreadsheet programs with formulas intact.
• A new Navigator takes some of the sting out of moving, copying and finding elements and publications. It replaces the old Publication Manager with an easier-to-use interface.

Ventura has had previous support for generating tables of contents, indexes and cross-references (something Quark still won't do) and these features have been updated as well as adding HTML links.

When I wrote about Microsoft Publisher 97, several weeks ago, I stressed how many different types of documents it could produce and the degree of automation brought to the process through its "wizards." It would still be my choice for beginners, particularly for those wanting to use it to design simple Web pages (and given it's under-$100 street price, it's an inexpensive way to find out if a desktop publishing program will work for your needs).

However, once you've exhausted Publisher's bag of tricks and feel ready to move on to something significantly more robust, the $849 (Cdn) Ventura 7 suite ($349 if upgrading from Adobe products, Quark or Ventura 5) will be worth consideration. A PowerMac version of Ventura 7 is expected in August, but pricing hasn't been announced.

One last hint: if you're about to set out from scratch on a heavy-weight desktop publishing project from a PC, find the service bureau that will be preparing the results for mass printing before you purchase the software to do the job. Not all pre-press houses will support Ventura 7 (or PageMaker or FrameMaker or even the PC version of QuarkXPress). You'll want to find out what your choices can use before you limit your selection by choosing software that may lack wide printing industry support.

This document is protected by international copyright. If you want to read it for your own amusement or give a copy to Uncle Fred, that's okay. If you want to quote any part of it in any medium, for any reason, or if you or your uncle want to make lotsa copies for your friends, you have to ask me first. Okay?

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