Arbortext Advanced Print Publisher

Arbortext Advanced Print Publisher (APP, formerly Advent 3B2) is a high-end print composition engine which is one of the Arbortext products offered by PTC.

History

• Mid-1980s: Advent Publishing Systems create 3B2, a desktop publishing application. 3B2 gained a reputation as a challenger for Quark, but was soon eclipsed by that product in the DTP world. The name 3B2 comes from the business park in Swindon (UK) that Advent had its offices at the time.
• Early 2000s: Advent integrate more XML technologies into 3B2, allowing users to associate formatting with XML hierarchies
• 2004: Advent Publishing Systems purchased by Arbortext to provide a more powerful alternative to its FOSI/TeX engine
• 2005: Arbortext purchased by PTC to provide technical documentation capabilities in its product lifecycle management tools

Uses

APP has traditionally been used for a number of specific typesetting tasks.

• Scientific Technical and Medical Journal Publishing, particularly in India. APP's automation, SGML/XML handling and mathematics formatting mean this difficult layout task can be automated
• Financial typesetting, particularly generation of Edgar for SEC filing
• Government reports such as Hansard, daily journals and other reports.

Technologies

APP applies text and page formatting properties in a proprietary language based on SGML mark-up. APP 'templates' are stylesheets which comprise page layouts, text formatting styles and scripting. Scripting is used to automate the publishing process using 'macros', which are low-level system commands. When using XML, a template can employ XPath to specify the exact conditions to which style is applied.

External links

• PTC product list