Editing Corel Ventura

{{Short description|Desktop publishing application}}
{{Infobox software
| name                   = Corel Ventura
| logo                   = 
| screenshot             = CorelVentura10.jpg
| caption                = Screenshot of Corel Ventura 10
| author                 = 
| developer              = [[Alludo]]
| released               = {{start date and age|1986}}
| discontinued           = yes
| latest release version = 10
| latest release date    = {{Start date and age|2002}}
| latest preview version = 
| latest preview date    = 
| programming language   = 
| operating system       = [[GEM (desktop environment)|GEM]], [[OS/2]], [[Microsoft Windows|Windows]], [[Classic Mac OS|Macintosh]]
| platform               = 
| language               = English
| genre                  = [[Desktop publishing]]
| license                = [[Commercial software|Commercial]] [[proprietary software]] 
| website                = https://www.coreldraw.com/en/pages/old-brands/corel-ventura/
}}

'''Ventura Publisher''' was the first popular [[desktop publishing]] package for [[IBM PC compatible|IBM PC]] compatible computers running the [[GEM (desktop environment)|GEM]] extension to the [[DOS]] operating system. The software was originally developed by Ventura Software, a small software company founded by Michael john Meyer,<ref name="infoworld861201" /> Don Heiskell, and Lee Jay Lorenzen, all of whom met while working at [[Digital Research]]. It ran under an included [[runtime system|run-time]] copy of Digital Research's GEM.<ref name="infoworld861201" />

==History==

The first version of '''Ventura Publisher''' was released in late 1986,<ref name="infoworld861201">{{cite magazine|magazine=Infoworld| title=First Look: Ventura Publisher Ranks as a Serious Contender in Desktop Publishing Market |date=1 December 1986 |pages=53 |first=Michael J. |last=Miller |volume=8 |issue=48 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ejwEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA53}}</ref><ref name="infoworld870302-fl">{{cite magazine|magazine=Infoworld| title=First Look: Three Systems Differ in Strengths, But Each Offers Hotshot Publishing |date=2 March 1987 |pages=44 |first=Michael J. |last=Miller |volume=9 |issue=9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1TAEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA44}}</ref><ref name="infoworld870302">{{cite magazine|magazine=Infoworld| title=Desktop Publishing on the PC has finally arrived |date=2 March 1987 |pages=45–48 |first=Ken |last=Freeze |volume=9 |issue=9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1TAEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA45}}</ref> with worldwide distribution by Xerox. Xerox would later purchase all rights to the source code from Ventura Software in 1990.

Ventura Publisher had some text editing and line drawing capabilities of its own, but it was designed to interface with a wide variety of word processing and graphics programs rather than to supplant them. To that end, text was stored in, loaded from, and saved back to word processor files in the native formats of a variety of word processors, including [[WordPerfect]], [[WordStar]], and early versions of [[Microsoft Office Word|Microsoft Word]],{{sfn|Cavuoto|Berst|1988|p=53,56,64}} rather than being incorporated into the chapter files. This allowed users to continue using their favorite word processors for major text changes, spelling checks, and so forth.<ref name="infoworld870302" /> Paragraphs other than default body text were tagged with descriptive tagnames that were entirely user-defined, and characters and attributes that have no native equivalent in a given word processor were represented with standardized sequences of characters. When working with the files outside of Ventura Publisher, these paragraph tags and special character and attribute codes could be freely changed, the same as any other text. These tags looked very much like HTML tags.

<!--  Commented out because image was deleted: [[Image:Ventura_Publisher_Screenshot.jpg|thumb|right|250px|Screenshot]] -->
Ventura Publisher was the first major typesetting program to incorporate the concept of an implicit "underlying page" frame, and one of the first to incorporate a strong "[[style sheet (desktop publishing)|style sheet]]" concept. It produced documents with a high degree of internal consistency, unless specifically overridden by the user. Its concepts of free-flowing text, paragraph tagging, and codes for attributes and special characters anticipated similar concepts inherent in [[HTML]] and [[XML]]. Likewise, its concept of "publication" files that tie together "chapter" files gave it the ability to handle documents hundreds (or even thousands) of pages in length as easily as a four-page newsletter.

The major strengths of the original DOS/GEM edition of Ventura Publisher were:
* Its ability to run, with reasonable response times, on a wide range of hardware (including [[Intel 8086|8086]]- and [[Intel 80286|286]]-based computers)<ref name="infoworld870302" />
* Its ability to produce, by default, documents with a high degree of internal consistency
* Its automatic re-exporting of text to native word processor formats{{sfn|Cavuoto|Berst|1988|p=62-63}}<ref name="infoworld870302" />
* Its ability to print to a wide variety of devices, including [[PostScript]], [[Page description language|PCL]], and [[InterPress]] laser printers and [[imagesetter]]s,{{sfn|Cavuoto|Berst|1988|p=333,336}} as well as certain popular dot-matrix and inkjet printers.{{sfn|Cavuoto|Berst|1988|p=340}}

The original Ventura Software ceased operations in February 1990, and a new Ventura Software Inc. was formed at that time, an affiliated company of [[Xerox]]. The developers from the original company worked with the new Xerox Ventura Software company to produce Version 3.0 Gold. This was released in late 1990. Besides DOS/GEM, it was also available for [[Win16]], [[Classic Mac OS|Mac]], and [[OS/2]].<ref>{{cite book|title=Desktop publishing using Ventura publisher 3.2, Macintosh version |year=1993 |isbn=0-697-16627-9 |publisher=Wm. C. Brown Communications, Inc. |first1=Julia |last1=Case Bradley |first2=Joanne |last2=Floyd |first3=Nancy |last3=Sherman |first4=Linda |last4=Mumbauer |first5=Sandra |last5=Rittman |url=https://archive.org/details/desktoppublishin0000unse_z7s9 |url-access=registration}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine|type=ad |magazine=Computerworld|date=17 December 1990|page=76 |title=Xerox advertising |volume=XXIV |issue=51 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-B6b-p_VIoIC&pg=PA76}}</ref>
[[File:Screen shot of an edit session in Xerox Ventura Publisher, ca. 1990.jpg|thumbnail|left|Xerox Ventura Publisher running on GEM]]
The three founders of the original Ventura Software no longer worked on the product after November 1990.

Version 4.0 was released in 1991. The last version released by Ventura Software Inc. was 4.1.1 in 1993.<ref name="infoworld931015">{{cite magazine|title=Desktop Publishing Giants |magazine=Infoworld |date=25 October 1993 |pages=69–79 |first=Galen |last=Gruman |volume=15 |issue=43 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FDsEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA69}}</ref>

The application was acquired by [[Corel]] in 1993.<ref name="infoworld931015" /> It was repackaged and soon released as '''Corel Ventura''' 4.2 without any major change in the application,<ref>{{cite magazine|magazine=Infoworld| title=Corel updates Ventura 4.2 with added speed, fonts |date=25 October 1993 |page=19 |first=Willem |last=Knibbe |volume=15 |issue=43 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FDsEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA19}}</ref> other than to drop all support for platforms other than Microsoft Windows.

The first real Corel version was 5.0 (released in 1994), which made fundamental changes to both user interface and document structure.<ref>{{cite magazine|magazine=Infoworld| title=Ventura has a brighter future in Corel Corp.'s hands |date=20 March 1995 |pages=92–95 |first=Galen |last=Gruman |volume=17 |issue=12 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lToEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA92}}</ref> Because of this, and because of escalating hardware requirements of the various Corel versions, the original DOS/GEM edition still has a small number of die-hard users.

The application was rewritten for the [[Win32]] platform and was released in 1996, labeled Corel Ventura 7 (instead of 6) so that it would match the version number of [[CorelDRAW]]. Corel Ventura 8 was released in 1998. The last published version was Corel Ventura 10 in 2002 (last updated in February 2003); it reportedly runs in Windows 10 under compatibility mode with some functional limitations after workarounds, and on Linux via [[Wine (software)|Wine]] (verified in April 2020).

As an application with strengths in more structured documents, its main competitors were [[Adobe FrameMaker|FrameMaker]], [[QuarkXPress]] and later [[Adobe InDesign|InDesign]].

==Reception==
Approving of its "general excellence", Ian McKinnell of ''[[Personal Computer World]]'' wrote in January 1987 that Ventura Publisher for GEM was immediately usable with his Macintosh experience, and cited the macro feature as "a real improvement over [[Pagemaker]] on the Macintosh". He concluded that while it would not cause new users to buy a PC, for existing owners "Ventura Publisher is well worth investigating".<ref name="mckinnell198701">{{Cite magazine |last=McKinnell |first=Ian |date=January 1987 |title=Ventura Publisher |url=https://www.worldradiohistory.com/UK/Personal-Computer-World/80s/PCW-1987-01-S-OCR.pdf |access-date=2024-10-08 |magazine=Personal Computer World |pages=178–182}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[QuarkXPress]]
* [[Adobe FrameMaker]]
* [[Adobe InDesign]]
* [[Adobe PageMaker]]
* [[Microsoft Publisher]]
* [[Ready, Set, Go! (software)|Ready, Set, Go!]]
* [[Scribus]]
* [[Serif PagePlus]]
* [[Quark CopyDesk]]
* [[Quark Publishing System]]
* [[Timeworks Publisher]] / [[Publish-It!]] / [[KeyPublisher]], an inexpensive Ventura clone that ran under [[GEM (desktop environment)|GEM]] on the [[IBM Personal Computer|PC]] or the [[Atari ST]] without requiring a hard drive
* [[XTension]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

* ''Desktop Publishing Using Ventura on the IBM-PC''. Don Busché, [[Saddleback College]], with Bernice Glenn, Desktop Publishing and Design Consultant. 1989 Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey 07632. Paperback, 270 pages; includes monochromatic illustrations and 5 1/4" floppy data disk. {{ISBN|0-13-202235-4}}
*{{cite book|first1=James |last1=Cavuoto |first2=Jesse |last2=Berst|year=1988|title=Inside Xerox Ventura Publisher|publisher=New Riders Publishing|isbn=0934035-59-8|edition=2nd}}
*{{cite book|first1=James |last1=Cavuoto |first2=Jesse |last2=Berst|year=1990|title=Inside Xerox Ventura Publisher|publisher=Ventana Press|isbn=9780940087613|edition=3rd}}

==External links==
*[http://www.kmoser.com/computerhistory/?id=ventura Ventura Publisher brochure]

{{Desktop publishing software}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:1986 software]]
[[Category:Corel software]]
[[Category:Desktop publishing software]]
[[Category:GEM software]]
[[Category:Desktop publishing software for Windows]]