PE vs APP vs Print Composer

[kmccain]

Hi,

We currently use Editor and Print Composer to produce print and PDF manuals. I'm being asked about change page capability for an upcoming RFQ and what we might need to support that. Would that be DTD and style sheet dependent only or do we need another product completely?

I've looked at the PTC product pages and have to admit I'm not sure what the differences are between PE and APP. I can see that APP comes in desktop and enterprise flavors. But I also don't see anything about change page capability on either product.

I was hoping maybe someone on the forum could point me to a good comparison chart or perhaps share a little insight on the differences if you have experience with them.

Thanks,

KM

[ptc-1908075]

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[ClayHelberg]

Still not coming through. I guess the mail exploder must be stripping out the quoted text. You might need to remove the quoting indents or other markup to have it pass through.

--C

[ptc-1908075]

Thanks!
S.

[ptc-1908075]

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[ptc-1908075]

Gareth,
>
>
>Again, thanks for
continuing the conversation. Please see embedded comments in blue below:
>
>Best regards,
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>Suzanne
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>

[SimonTaylor]

I feel that I should clarify PTC's position here.

The decision to use APP rather than FOSI was taken for a number of reasons. In particular the language features of APP (right-to-left writing, vertical writing etc), page layout and text formatting functionality and performance. To develop some of these output requirements in the FOSI engine would have taken a prohibitively long time. FOSI is, therefore, no longer the development priority and should not be considered as a platform for any new stylesheet development for Publishing Engine.

The APP engine can be accessed in a couple of ways:

· The APP DLL is included in Publishing Engine and Styler as the default print composition. Users can use Styler stylesheets or APP templates in these environments.

o Styler stylesheets are more appropriate when output requirements can be achieved through the Styler UI with minimal source edits.

o APP templates are more appropriate when more than a handful of source edits are required or the output requirements are beyond what can be handled through Styler's UI.
The ease of use of Styler to drive APP comes at a performance cost. Although we have made great efforts to improve performance, Styler-driven APP will never be a match for APP templates.

· The 'standalone' APP products are actively developed and maintained. This development feeds the PE and Styler print capabilities. There are a number of instances where standalone APP is the correct one to choose including:

o If your output requirements are rather more complex (and yes, service information isn't always simple) than can be described using Styler

o If you wish to take multiple inputs and/or create multiple outputs from the same document

o If your automation requirements are beyond the basic load-format-print process

o If you require the added security of being able to fine-tune output before creating output
In the future it will be possible to use these types of APP template with PE.

I'd like to remind everyone to follow the Forum Guidelines. In particular "Except for the forum entitled 'network', participants are prohibited from posting messages of a commercial nature. Commercial messages include, but are not limited to, discussion of product pricing or availability, employment postings or similar information."

If anyone wants any clarification or more information, they can contact me directly.

Thanks!
Simon

Simon Taylor
Product Manager
Parametric Technology (UK) Ltd

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[ebenton]

PTC’s PE-centric approach is something that we cannot deal with in our program. We provide software for a number of individual government contractors, most or all of which cannot afford a PE server. We do desktop publishing using Editor and Print Composer. PTC’s perceived ignoring of FOSI and Print Composer is a concern for us.

[ChrisWestern]

For what it is worth a couple of additional points in here:

http://www.tformat.com/common-misconceptions-about-arbortext-app-3b2/

Happy Thursday everyone!

-C