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WordTech's innovative use of software featured at NewsForge website

WordTech Communications LLC was featured in a recent article on the prominent website NewsForge. NewsForge, which covers computers and the software industry, featured WordTech for its use of open-source software in our book production work.

Open-source software is software that is developed by teams of volunteers around the world and is made available for free, instead of being developed and sold by commercial companies. The goal of many open-source software developers is to create software that is as good as commercial software. The term "open-source" means that the software's source code is available to anyone to improve and modify. Prominent examples of open-source software include the Mozilla/Netscape web browser and the Apache web server (which powers two-thirds of the world's websites, including WordTech Communications' site).

Among the open-source software tools that WordTech Communications uses or is currently testing for use in its production are Scribus for cover design, Gimp for graphics editing, OpenOffice for text formatting, and LaTeX for typesetting.

WordTech still uses some commercial tools, such as the discontinued Mac version of Corel Draw, InDesign for some complicated design projects, and Dreamweaver for web site management.

WordTech uses open-source software because it helps to lower costs, the available support for the software via e-mail lists is often much better than from commercial companies, and also because the company prides itself on taking innovative approaches to book publishing.

The entire article can be viewed here.

Posted June 17, 2004

©2004 WordTech Communications, LLC

PO Box 541106, Cincinnati, OH 45254-1106 / [email protected]