The Expanded Book Toolkit is the software used by The Voyager Company to publish books on disk, such as the novels of William Gibson, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Jurassic Park, Alice in Wonderland, and the Autobiography of Malcolm X. These HyperCard documents are designed to resemble as closely as possible paperbooks, but they come with all the typical HyperCard bells and whistles: auto-linked references and footnotes, on-demand large type to facilitate easy reading, search features to find every occurrence of any given word or phrase, audio files, maps and illustrations, and QuickTime video clips.
With a quick tutorial and a reasonable price (instead of the long-haul studying and four-digit numbers usually associated with this sort of thing), the same ability to create those neat electronic tomes can be yours, even if you've never created any kind of multimedia in your life, even if the mere mention of "HyperTalk" gives you open, running sores. The Toolkit includes two disks, a concise step-by-step manual that covers everything you need to create your own Expanded Books, and licensing agreements which, for a nominal fee, allow end-users and companies to distribute these books for profit (Voyager also produces and international version of the same software, which allows users to create expanded books in eight languages: German, Finnish, French, Spanish, Italian, Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish).
Beginners will breathe a sigh of relief at the precreated screen templates, idiot-proof tutorials, and text preparation functions that make creating professional-looking documents as painless as possible. For the creative, the prospects beckon: living, breathing, resumes; fully illustrated personal journals; employee manuals with step-by-step video; interactive ransom notes. The choice is finally yours.
- Chris Hudak
The Expanded Book Toolkit: US$295. The Voyager Company: +1 (212) 431 5199
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