Corel Ventura 10 review

In terms of formatting and layout, Ventura's design power derives from its use of tags, which are controlled with the Tag Window docker. Most users will be used to the idea of paragraph and character tags from word processors, although with features like text angle and vertical justification settings, Ventura takes the control they offer to a different level. Just as importantly, it also offers Frame, Rules and Page tags so that all aspects of formatting and layout are brought under similarly tight, but flexible, control. Once your tags are set up and applied, the document formatting and, where appropriate, reformatting becomes virtually automatic, although you can always override tag settings where necessary.

The big change to Ventura's tagging system in version 10 is the addition of a new table category. Producing attractive tables has always been a headache for designers, and Ventura has long offered the best handling available, including features like multipage layouts and spreadsheet-style formulae. The major difference now is that all aspects of a table's design, including access to advanced fill and outline formatting, are automatically tied to a table tag. It only makes a serious difference if you regularly produce publications with multiple tables, but it certainly makes sense to expand tag-based control in this way.

That's just about it for new layout power, but Ventura 10 also provides a number of important improvements to output. To help output the reliable PostScript needed for commercial print, there's now support for third-party PPDs, the ability to force all images to output to RGB, greyscale or CMYK, and fallback options to down-sample all images or rasterise the entire page. When outputting to supporting PostScript 3 devices, you can also now take advantage of In-RIP trapping. Further support for commercial print comes in the form of simplified imposition creation in the excellent Print Preview, improved colour management with support for embedded ICC profiles, and a new Prepare for Service Bureau command, which automatically collects all fonts and linked files.

This command also lets you create a PDF that your bureau can use for proofing. This is a sign of Ventura 10's biggest new output option: export to the Acrobat PDF format. In fact, Ventura has long offered a Publish to PDF command, but this was always slightly misleading, as it simply enabled the creation of a PostScript print-to-disk file that then had to be run through the separately purchased Adobe Distiller. Now, however, the command really does what it claims and enables the direct creation of a PDF.

The level of control is impressive. Ventura offers built-in PDF styles for document distribution, editing, pre-press and web delivery, along with more advanced control over bitmap compression, font subsetting, bleed, crop marks and so on. It's not completely state-of-the-art, as files can't be output in the latest Acrobat 5 format, but as Ventura doesn't offer control over the latest PDF features like object transparency or text reflow there'd be little point. Otherwise, the ability to output exact PDFs of your publications is a huge advance, whether intended for collaboration, posting to the Web, producing commercial print or as an alternative to print. It's taken so long to arrive that most Ventura users will already have gone down the Distiller route, but direct PDF support is undoubtedly a major advance.

Ventura might be late to join the PDF bandwagon, but it's determined not to be left behind in the next big thing in DTP. That's why Corel is so excited about Ventura's new XML support, and with good reason. If XML (eXtensible Markup Language) lives up to the hype, it's going to be the lingua franca of data exchange and publishing - and just about everything else. The fundamental unit of XML is the content-based tag, which should mean that Ventura, with its formatting-based tags, makes the perfect publishing partner.