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Electronic Document Delivery

Electronic Document Delivery (EDD) refers to the ability to "create, distribute, and view documents without ever touching a piece of paper" (Tynan 49). The emphasis is on manipulating large formatted documents such as procedural manuals or catalogues. Many of the software tools, such as Interleaf's WorldView Press and Northern Telecom's Helmsman, are priced in five figures. They also tend to have high overhead and runtime charges, which make them inappropriate for our purposes (see our minimum requirements).

This technology is finding its way down to affordable levels. FrameMaker provides many high-end desktop publishing features for under $1,000. Adobe's Acrobat allows for inexpensive cross-platform file transfer.

In March 1993, Apple announced their EDD entry, DocViewer. Though pricing and tool availability was not finalized, this product will include index, search, outline, bookmark, and export facilities.


© 1993-2000 Christopher Keep, Tim McLaughlin, Robin Parmar.
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