FontAgent Pro Enterprise Server is one of the fastest font servers I’ve used. This latest version uses the J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition) architecture and is multithreaded to take advantage of multicore Macs. The actual server setup involves setting up users, groups, and permissions. The user permissions are very straightforward. For a large number of users, the server can import users and groups from LDAP. As indicated, the users can be broken down into groups, and font libraries can be limited to certain groups. User lists can also be loaded in from a CSV spreadsheet file, making setup a snap.

There’s some additional setup in the System Preference Pane installed, including the server license info and synchronization schedule. Additional licenses or seats can be added at any time. Every user needing to access the server is required to have FontAgent Pro (FAP) installed. Assuming the users have the proper permission, they can upload any custom font libraries and sets directly to the server after they connect to it. Other user benefits include built-in font inspection, smart sets, and smart classification of fonts. Of course, FAP auto-activates in most of the critical Adobe software, so the correct font is always available.

FontAgent Pro Server is a synchronization-type server, so if the server is out, users still have full access to their libraries. Therefore, the only major network activity is when the individual users are synchronizing with the server—and that’s very fast, even over a wireless network.

The cost is $1,695 for the server software, with client software costing an additional $1,175 for ten users. Additional discounts are available for 20, 50, and more users.

Company: Insider Software, Inc.
Price: $1,695, plus client software
Web: www.insidersoftware.com
Rating: 5
Hot: Fast; easy to use
Not:

Version Cue was a good idea that never took off. It was too hard to use for small agencies and not robust enough for large ones. Evolphin Zoom 2.8 fills the gap left by Version Cue’s demise—quite nicely, too. The software is easy to install and set up on either Macintosh or Windows.

The Zoom 2.8 software combines project management with user access controls. It can even produce timesheets—a great asset for a time-based agency. Like Version Cue, it keeps backup versions of files as the files are checked back in (committed). The versions can then be compared for changes.

I had no problem with the software on my Mac and Windows systems; within 30 minutes, I had it running and everything worked as described.

Although not available on the website, the basic price breakdown for 1-3 users is $250 per user with no additional charge for the server product; however, for 4–25 users it’s $250 per user and $9,999 for the server product. Perhaps there should be a slightly more tiered price structure; jumping from 3 to 4 users increases the cost $10,000—a bit much for a small 4- to 6-person agency.

Something I’d like in future versions is not to have to use a separate checkout and check-in menu. Instead, it would be nice if users could use the standard Open and Save menus where I envision the software would then bring up the necessary checkout and check-in versioning dialogs.

Zoom offers many more features, both big and small, than this short review can mention. If your company is in need of an all-inclusive project management, version-tracking software system, you should definitely check out Evolphin Zoom 2.8.

Company: Evolphin Software
Price: Based on # of users
Web: www.evolphin.com
Rating: 4.5
Hot: Provides (relatively) easy-to-use version control
Not: Big price jump for 4+ users

PhotoCopy is an interesting, one-trick wonder plug-in that is easy to use. Essentially, it adjusts an image’s brightness, color, tone, detail, grain, and texture to match either a built-in preset or another loaded image. Perhaps the most fun thing about the plug-in is the built-in presets: there are 94 based on famous movies, 72 based on famous painters, 40 based on famous photographers, and 30 based on historic photographic processes. (I found the last setting the most interesting to experiment with.) Of course, you can create custom settings and save them as presets, too. Regardless, if you’re using a built-in or custom preset, all the settings can be adjusted on the fly.

I have a couple of gripes, one minor, and one so-so. The minor issue is that the Help file should have more info on the photographers (such as their full names) and photographic processes. The movie titles and painter names are pretty self-explanatory, but more info would have been nice. The other issue is more important. When applying a preset, one opens the image (the target) in Photoshop and selects a preset (the source settings). Simple enough. However, when creating a custom preset, one must remember to open the source image first,
and then load the target. Although this is mentioned in the Help file and manual, it seems backward. It should match the rest of the workflow: open a target, and then load the desired source. Also, some of the built-in presets are close to one another—more range would be nice.

I think that more experienced Photoshop users will look at PhotoCopy and think, “I can mimic most of these effects myself,” while less-experienced users wouldn’t mind spending the cash for the quick results. Of course, most experienced users must take into account the amount of time it takes to re-create an effect. This plug-in makes it all very easy.

Company: Digital Film Tools

Price: $95

Web: www.digitalfilmtools.com

Rating: 3.5

Hot: Mimics photographic processes with click of mouse

Not: Some presets are too similar to each other

Of course, there are some major differences in this version but it’s mostly the interface that’s new. There were about six different ways to access the Commenting tools in version 9, now there are two in version X: the Tool panel and the Quick Tools feature. (There’s a View>Comment menu, but that simply opens the Tool panel.) The new interface will take a little while to get used to, but generally it’s an improvement over the convoluted interface of the past three or four versions.

Of the new features, Quick Tools is one of the handiest since many of the toolbars are gone. Quick Tools allows you to add the most commonly used tools to the Toolbar; unfortunately, they can no longer be moved from the Toolbar and float over the document or be docked to the sides of the monitor. With larger monitors and dual monitors, not being able to relocate the toolbars is a drawback.

Complaints aside, there are lots of improved features (which technically do include some new features). PDF Portfolios are streamlined and easier to use, plus they include the ability to add live Web content and embed custom fonts in the portfolios. Batch Sequences in version 9 have been upgraded and are now called Actions; they’re easier to create and use. Microsoft SharePoint 2010 and Office 2010 are now supported. Saving PDFs as a Microsoft Office export has been improved too, giving cleaner and better formatted output. Adobe Reader for Windows now can open PDFs in Protected (or sandbox) mode, preventing any malicious code from affecting the users computer. I.T. departments will love this.

Some features have been dropped from version 9—mainly from the Pro Extended version. These include no more built-in video conversion, 3D graphics embedding, no more Geospatial support, and Presenter is no longer included with Acrobat. The video conversion and Presenter has been dealt with in the Acrobat Suite (more on the Suite later). Three-dimensional graphics and geospatial viewing is still supported; so older PDFs will still work. Adobe has offloaded the creation of 3D and geospatial PDFs to third-party companies (there are even discounts for these third-party products if you’re upgrading from Pro Extended).

The Acrobat Suite includes Acrobat X Pro, Photoshop CS5 (not Extended), Captivate 5, Adobe Media Encoder CS5, LiveCycle Designer ES2, and Presenter 7. This is a nice packaging of presentation software that you previously had to purchase separately or buy the Technical Communications Suite (and possibly end up with some unused software). However, the Suite is available for Windows only. Except for Presenter and the some missing features in Acrobat Pro, there’s no reason there couldn’t be a Mac version of the Suite.

The Macintosh version of Acrobat X Pro is still the poor stepchild in the Acrobat family. This version is still behind the Windows version in that it doesn’t include the powerful LiveCycle Designer ES2 and the Microsoft Office PDFmaker. I understand that these products and features are Windows-only, but I’d think that the price of the Mac version would be slightly less than the Windows version.

I like this version but wish there were some new features, such as more prepress editing features (à la Enfocus PitStop Pro) and more comment export to other Adobe programs such as InDesign.

Company: Adobe Systems Inc.
Price: $449 (Upgrade: $199)
Web: www.adobe.com
Rating: 4.5
Hot: New interface is more efficient (after awhile)
Not: Could have more new features

A feature long missing from Illustrator is the ability to collect graphics and fonts similar to the InDesign Package feature. Art Files was created to fill that oversight. Of course, I think file collection should be a basic function of Illustrator but I blame Adobe, not Code Line, for this omitted feature. Code Line has filled the gap well.

I presume Adobe has neglected this feature under the assumption that saving the file as a PDF would embed all the graphics and fonts. Plus there’s a Collect for Output script included with Illustrator that collects any linked graphics—but this file doesn’t collect fonts and works with one file at a time.

Art Files 2 is simple to use—add the Illustrator files and let Art Files scan the files and collect everything. Notes can be added to the files for output instruction, the same as InDesign. You can view each file’s graphics (embedded or linked) and fonts; when multiple files are collected, duplicate graphics and fonts are automatically resolved.

Generally, there are few complaints with this program—it works as advertised—but I’d like to see a few improvements. Currently, Art Files is a standalone program; it would be nice to have a panel, menu, or even a script that links to the Art Files application and adds files to the collection list. You can open the Illustrator file for editing from Art Files, but you must rescan the file in Art Files after the editing; this update should have a preference to be automatic. Also, I wish it were available for Windows. I realize that it might have to be rewritten, but I think it would be popular with Windows users.—David Creamer

Company: Code Line Communications
Price: $49.95
Web: www.code-line.com
Rating: 4.5
Hot: Adds needed collection feature to Illustrator
Not: No Windows version

Whether you’re upgrading a Windows version or purchasing the first Macintosh version, Captivate is a powerful program that does more than just record a video of your onscreen actions. When you simply click the mouse, Captivate creates screen captures then adds mouse animations and captions; of course, it can do full motion recording (FMR) either automatically when required or be set to FMR all the time. The slides can then be customized with text captions, buttons, click boxes, rollover captions, and more.

Captivate 5 sports a new Adobe interface with new panel workspaces. Once you get used to the new interface, it’s much more productive than in older versions. Other new features include Master Slides and Object Styles—the former is similar to PowerPoint Master Slides and the latter is similar to InDesign Object Styles. The Master Slide feature allows the creating of masters that can be applied to individual slides as required; when the masters are updated, the individual slides update, too. The same principle applies for Object Styles—these styles are for the individual objects on the slides and update globally.

Speaking of PowerPoint, PowerPoint presentations can be imported into Captivate with almost all of the PowerPoint animation intact, plus you can link to the PowerPoint file so edits in PowerPoint can be updated back in Captivate. Other programs that allow round-tripping include Photoshop, Soundbooth, and Flash, but unfortunately, you have to have the full eLearning Suite to round-trip with these programs (all of these programs are included in the eLearning Suite). Photoshop files can be imported with layer support, audio files can be edited with Soundbooth (or directly in Captivate), and Flash-created SWF files can be imported.

My biggest complaint with version 5 is that the round-tripping doesn’t work if you already own Photoshop, Soundbooth, and Flash (from the CS5 Master Collection, for example). That makes no sense to me and I hope this is addressed in a future update. (Of course, one could argue that Captivate should be part of the Master Collection.)

Flash video can be imported, and to make the importing of other formats easier, Captivate now includes Adobe Media Encoder. If you don’t like recording your own audio, you can turn your slide notes into spoken text with the text-to-speech converter.

Creating scored quizzes has always been one of the useful features of Captivate. These quizzes can create branches in the presentation allowing the user to continue viewing the Captivate project or review a section all over again based on the quiz score. In the past, the quiz scores could be sent to a Learning Management System (LMS) or to an email address. New to version 5 is the ability to also upload the presentations to Acrobat.com and collect the data with the new Quiz Results Analyzer. This feature is very useful for small groups that don’t have the need for an expensive LMS.

Output is normally as a SWF file, although interactive PDF and noninteractive Flash video file formats are available, too. The SWF file can include custom skins and a table of contents (ToC), plus multiple Captivate SWFs can be combined together into a single SWF presentation with Aggregator.—David Creamer

Company: Adobe Systems Incorporated
Price: $799 (Upgrade: $299)
Web: www.adobe.com
Rating: 4.5
Hot: Powerful demonstration & interactive training program
Not: Round-tripping only available with eLearning Suite

As with all Zevrix software, it’s Mac centric. The actual server requires a Mac system along with a single version of InDesign installed. Designers may use either Mac or Windows systems. Mac users can use the Zevrix menu to submit files to the server, while Windows users can submit via the normal Package command without submitting the actual links. Fonts are copied and activated, including Windows Type 1 fonts.

With the initial cost, a dedicated system, and a copy of InDesign running, obviously this software isn’t for small shops. One would assume that output turnaround must be fast paced, the InDesign files large with lots of links, or with large graphics files to make the total cost of implementing Package Central worthwhile. In addition, since the purpose of the software is to offload the actual collection of any linked graphics files, it makes sense that the graphics have to be available on a server, preferably a separate one.

Package Central worked as expected. It would be nice if the Package Central software could work with multiple versions of InDesign running on the same server. Right now, all versions must be the same. The manual could explain the system requirements and the overall set up a little better.—David Creamer

Company: Zevrix Solutions
Price: $499.95
Web: www.zevrix.com
Rating: 4.5
Hot: Offload packaging to another system
Not: Manual could be slightly more detailed

Formatting hyperlinks in InDesign CS3 and CS4 is a pain—they have to be formatted one at a time. That means that every new hyperlink has to be selected and made into a URL destination. Granted this isn’t hard, just unnecessary.

URL2hyperlink adds a few new menus to the Hyperlink panel: Convert URL to Hyperlink, Use Auto URL, and Auto URL Options. Convert URL to Hyperlink allows you to convert a number of existing URLs (including email links) by selection, text frame, story, document, or all open documents at once. In addition, you can automatically apply a character style and apply an appearance to the hyperlink when clicked in the PDF.

One of the other nice features with URL2hyperlink is the ability to format the links as you type them. You set up the options (basically the same options as before without the Scope) and turn on this feature by selecting the Use Auto URL option. From then on your hyperlinks are created and formatted as soon as you type them. The result is a series of nicely named hyperlinks.

The plug-in works in InCopy, so editors can control the creation and formatting too. It currently works in InDesign and InCopy CS3 and CS4. InDesign CS5 can batch convert so the need of this plug-in might be in question; however, the built-in method has some limitations. First, it doesn’t work with selections, text frames, and all open documents—only stories and an entire single document. Second, the hyperlinks aren’t auto-named but just show as anonymous hyperlinks. (InCopy CS5 doesn’t have the batch conversion option.)

Whether or not the URL2hyperlink plug-in gets updated to work with InDesign CS5 remains to be seen but for CS3 and CS4 users, this plug-in is very useful.—David Creamer

Company: DTP Tools Ltd.
Price: $27
Website: www.dtptools.com
Rating: 4
Hot: Automatically converts and formats URLs as you type
Not: CS5 replaces some of the plug-in’s features

When working in Illustrator, have you ever thought that it would be nice to have Photoshop-type color adjustments? How about adding a few Acrobat prepress features? Well then, Phantasm CS is the plug-in for you.

Phantasm CS is a three-edition Illustrator plug-in, namely Designer, Studio, and Publisher ($82, $148, and $231, respectively), with each edition adding more features to the previous one. The Publisher edition includes the most features, including an exposure setting that can mimic the HDR feature in Photoshop. Common features to all three editions include curves, hue/saturation, and levels, which work virtually the same as in Photoshop. In fact, many settings can be saved and loaded into Photoshop (and vice versa).

Many of the Publisher features will be useful to agencies, printers, and other prepress environments, including the ability to edit color channels (including spot color channels) and Bitmap Alpha channels (handy for editing drop shadow and glow settings in Illustrator). Process color channels can be mapped to spot colors for using more vibrant inks. Options to convert rich black to either black or a spot color, Safe CMYK (think GCR), total ink coverage inspection, and overprint inspection make this plug-in invaluable. There’s a simple separation preview feature (in case you don’t have CS4), but the quick separation preview option can take your file and split the color channels into separate layers.

The ability to edit embedded images with Photoshop (normally, only linked images could be edited) and the capability to convert embedded images to linked ones is helpful. Most of the features work on native vector objects, Illustrator-rasterized objects, and imported images—the settings can be used as filters or as effects (editable in the Appearance panel).

Overall, this is an excellent plug-in and definitely worth a look.—David Creamer

Company: Astute Graphics Limited
Price: $231
Web: www.astutegraphics.com
Rating: 5
Hot: Adds Photoshop-like and Acrobat prepress functions to Illustrator
Not:

So far, each version of the SymmetryWorks plug-in gets better and better—and this version is no different! For those just tuning in, SymmetryWorks is an Illustrator plug-in that lets you create patterns much easier and faster than doing it manually. In addition, SymmetryWorks can create layouts in industry-standard patterns, such as diamond, brick, and half-drop.

For a relatively mature plug-in, this version offers some nice improvements. Insertion mode is now the default work method and allows you to add new art to the pattern interactively—much easier than the previous methods. Another big change is the way patterns can be saved to the Swatches panel—now it’s simply done with a click of the mouse. Other major improvements add more support for existing Illustrator features in the SymmetryWorks patterns, including support for symbols (allowing embedding of symbol-based patterns nested within other symbol-based patterns); support for Pathfinder-based compound paths; and support for blends. Some of the new features require the purchase of the SymmetryWorks LP package, which includes the LivePresets plug-in (LivePresets was reviewed in the March/April 2009 issue, p. 112).

I have only two minor complaints. The SymmetryWorks LP package could offer a better discount—the LP package only offers a $10 savings over purchasing the software separately. Also, the manual is still not bookmarked, nor the Contents page hyperlinked (this was mentioned in the SymmetryWorks 4 review). This is very easy to automate, so there’s no excuse for this oversight.

SymmetryWorks is an absolute must for anyone working with textile, wallpaper, and wrapping paper designs, to name just a few industries that could benefit from this plug-in.—David Creamer

Company: Artlandia, Inc.
Price: $275 (Download: $249)
Web: www.artlandia.com
Rating: 5

Hot: Makes amazing patterns fast and easy
Not: SymmetryWorks LP price could offer better savings