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REVIEWS OF THE WEEK | Interesting software/hardware you may need . . .
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                           Envoy for Windows
                       Reviewed by Lars Anderson
 
  If you have ever had the task of editing or commenting you may have
had to print it out, edit it and then put in the additions to the
original document.
  This may have been all right if you are doing a one or two page
editing job on a new manual that you are getting ready for publication.
But say, for example, you are updating an already existing manual and
have to ensure that changes are consistent throughout the document. Say
al so that you not only have to cross reference several different
sources of information such as legal and technical manuals but you
also have to consolidate the different inputs of several colleagues. I
had not heard much about Envoy when I installed it on my 486 Laptop but
I have come to respect it and be a convert to its helpfulness.
  To begin with, to avoid crowding the Hard drive on my computer I
keep most of my files on my Iomega Zipdrive. In the past I have had
problems with applications I installed in this manner. Either the
installation goes roughly or the pointers to the removable Iomega drive
confuse e the installation software. I went to File manager in Windows
3.1 and clicked on to the A drive where Envoy Setup file at the
bottom of the menu display. I had to look for the setup file, it may be
a good idea to rename it so it floats to the top of the file list, call
it "asetup" or something.
  The program came on one disk and it installed itself onto my Iomega
without a hitch. The Button Bar on the viewer could use some variety
since the 7 different text and graphics programs supported are
represented with the same Icon. But what the package lacks in showroom
finish it more than makes for in substance. Envoy supports Corel 4,
Excel 5, Framemaker 4, Pagemaker 5, Quark 3 .2, Word 6 and WordPerfect
for Windows. As part of the installation process the Envoy Driver
installed itself into the Microsoft word printer option list the I had.
  I was pleasantly surprised to find it in there and had to only
choose it as my default printer to save myself the hassle of always
having to go to the setup screen to do so. I printed a 2 page paper
to the Envoy Driver which immediately launched Envoy's viewer and there
was my document ready to be annotated and edited. The Button Bar on the
top of the page included a number of useful tools enabling me to search
for text annotation Zoom in/out. Also included are a several text
annotation methods such as sticky yellow notes, hi-liter, hyper-te xt
links, bookmarks. Also when several pages are involved are the
thumbnail sketches allowing drag and drop annotation and editing. The
On-line users manual was accessible from the Icon suite from the Program
Ma Manager. The On-line manual is also available once the viewer has
launched itself. I found it useful to save it as a text file and get
it printed out.
  It comes to 19 pages and covers most trouble-shooting scenarios.
All in all I found the viewer an excellent addition and something that I
would look forward to experimenting wit h further. My next project will
be sending the document via modem and Internet to see if Envoy's
promise of collaborative effort holds and the document transfers
intact.
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