** 1 page review / 690 words ** ** DTP+GREY.JPG here ** DTP+GRAPHICS CD-ROM Al Goold reviews this latest CD-ROM from Floppyshop... ** Italics on ** DTP+GRAPHICS, is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mindbogglingly big it is. I mean you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to DTP+GRAPHICS..." (With apologies to Douglas Adams & Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy) ** Italics off ** Problems and solutions... The first "problem" with CD-ROMS is their size. This presents the practical problem of finding your way around and with thousands of files on each CD-ROM it's easy to miss something. To make it easier to navigate DTP+GRAPHICS there is a folder called DIRECTOR.Y inside the _CATALOG folder, which contains both ST/STe and TT/Falcon catalogue programs and text files which describe the contents. Each main folder also contains a README.1ST file which describes what is contained in it and, just for good measure, a DIR.TXT file which shows the entire directory structure. The second "problem" with many CD-ROMS is the language barrier - most software and documentation is typically German. Wearing my "good European" hat I know we should all be learning a second language and I shouldn't complain when I don't understand "foreign" CD-ROMS. However, the reality is I'm not the only one so I'm pleased to report DTP+GRAPHICS is around 90% English. In addition, two different German to English translation programs are provided on the disk for anyone wanting to get to grips with the remaining few files. What's on it? What appears to be the entire Floppyshop collection of clip art, DTP support programs, printer utilities, printer drivers, word processors, image processing packages, fonts, vector graphics packages and non-commercial graphics packages for starters! There are over 3,600 fonts and over 8,000 items of clip art. There are almost 1,200 Calamus fonts, 500 TrueType fonts, over 400 PostScript and hundreds of Signum and GDOS fonts. The clip art folders are categorised into logical sections and Floppyshop claim to have weeded out any duplicate clip art - I certainly never found any. ** CLIP_CAT.GIF ** There are over 5,400 mono IMG files, some of which are among the highest quality I have seen. There are also hundreds of GIFs, PCXs and over 800 GEM Metafiles. In total the clip art and image folders contain over 10,000 items totalling over 270Mb. Additionally there are templates for Calamus, PageStream, Publishing Partner and Atari Works including almost 300 printer drivers (mostly for First Word/Wordplus but also a number of SpeedoGDOS drivers, including 600/720 dpi drivers for the newer Epson, Hewlett Packard and Canon printers) and over 120Mb of graphics related programs and data files. Fillers? Floppyshop have also included a large number of animation files and although these are of little use in a DTP situation, they make interesting viewing. Finally there's a folder containing save disabled versions of Floppyshop's commercial titles along with complete versions of Degas Art part 1,2 and 3, Xlator and Family Roots v1. Conclusion For anyone who does any DTP work at all, DTP+GRAPHICS is amongst the best CD-ROMS available and very good value for money. I would have liked, and been prepared to pay extra for, a printed catalogue of the clip art and fonts. ** boxout ** Shareware Much of the content of DTP+GRAPHICS is non-commercial so do remember to register whatever programs you find useful. Some programmers only want a postcard, just to let them know people are finding their program program useful. It's also the best way to keep programmers interested in the Atari platform. ** end boxout ** ** Product boxout ** Product: DTP+GRAPHICS CD-ROM Publisher/Supplier: Floppyshop, PO Box 273, Aberdeen, Scotland, UK. AB15 8GJ. Tel: +44 (0)1224 586208 email: sdelaney@zetnet.co.uk Cost: £35.00 + P&P Pros: The sheer quantity of files to choose from, layout and directory structure, mostly English Cons: A printed catalogue would have been the icing on the cake. CD-ROM Statistics: Total size: 643Kb Number of files: 27,628 Number of folders: 3,135 Rating: 94% ** end boxout ** ** images ** ** CLIP_CAT.GIF ** Al Goold(1997) A|C|G(1997)