For Immediate Release

For more information, please contact:
Katie Graunke
info@stone.com
505-345-4800
http://www.stone.com

Stone Design Announces Free 5 Week Trial Period
for Create(TM) 4.2 Rhapsody

Philadelphia, PA — Stone Design, a longtime leader in the NeXT/OpenStep
marketplace, announced availability of Create 4.2 PR3 for Rhapsody today.
Create is the full-featured design, layout and drawing application, and has
been shipping for over 8 years. This version of Create will run on Apple’s
new Macintosh operating system code named “Rhapsody”, as well as on
OpenStep. It is the first application to ship for Rhapsody.

“Create was designed for the free-thinking Macintosh community” said Andrew
Stone, CEO of Stone Design. “Since we believe in try before you buy, we are
offering 5 free weeks of Create so you can have the Power yourself!”

Current OpenStep users, such as everyone who attended WWDC and received
“Prelude to Rhapsody” can use Create now. Otherwise, contact 1-800-TRY-NEXT
to acquire OpenStep, or wait for the Developer Release of Rhapsody.

To download this version and get your key, visit:

http://www.stone.com/Create_4.2/

Create 4.2 adds several new features to the OpenStep and NeXTSTEP versions
of Create. The new Create “Effects” are drag and drop instances of the many
PostScript effects you can add to any graphic. Especially useful is the
ability to turn Create documents into sets of interconnected web pages,
instantly. The video tool enables users to run QuickTime videos within a
Create document. Create 4.2 can export objects as JPEG and GIF, as well
as the standard EPS, PS, RTF, TIFF, ASCII and Create formats.

“We’re excited about the new release and know that our existing customer
base can testify that Create is the drawing package to use, for any
purpose!” said Katie Graunke, Marketing and Sales director for Stone.
“Download Create and decide for yourself what is marketing hype and what is
reality!”

This new version has an introductory price of $249. Look for Andrew demoing
Create at MacWorld Expo in Boston!

Create Features:
—————-

Tools:

* Drawing tools include: Line, Straight Line, Curve, Arc, Rectangle,
Oval, Rounded Rectangle, Bezier Spline, Spline-Line, Poly Line,
Freehand, Brush, Polygon Star, Interface “Box”, Video,
Rich Text and Super Text.

* Other types of graphics include: Text bound to a path,
EPS and TIFF images, Groups, Box Groups, Mask Groups,
and Date & Page Markers.

Effects:

Each graphic can contain some or all of the following PostScript effects:
* Outline – set the width, color and visibility of the stroke of an object.
* Neon – Stone’s unique Neon feature makes splashing, 3D lines.
* Multiple – each object can be repeated any number of times at any offset.
* Skew – torque and twist objects.
* Shadow – set the color, direction and offset of the object’s shadow.
* Shaded Fill – fill objects with blended colors lines:
across, down, radially or solar fill.
* Pattern Fill – PS Level II patterns that you create with Pattern Editor.
* Group – Manage complexity by grouping objects. See also Levels below.
* Mask Group – Clip any number of objects to the object on top of them
e.g., fill Super Text with a picture of a sunset.
* Box Group – a grouping technique which puts an interface box around objects
* Flip Horizontal and Flip Vertical.
* Scale – set the vertical and horizontal scaling separately or together.
* Rotate – Using Stone’s rotational slider, precisely rotate objects.
* Copy and Paste effects from one graphic to another.
* Color blends: transparent colors, CMYK, RGB, HSB, and Grayscales.

Precise Design:
* Zoom: Unlimited zoom and custom zooms are remembered.
You can zoom in on an area with CONTROL-SHIFT drag.
* Undo: as many levels of undo and redo as you like – 30 by default.
* Object layering: Bring To Front, Bring Closer, Send to Back,
Send Further, Lock and Unlock.
* Grids: control grid spacing, color, visibility and “snap-to” independently.
* Rulers: Work in points, picas, inches or centimeters.
* Layers: Each page can be composed of independently nameable,
hideable, lockable layers
* Layout Guides for easy placement of objects.
* Alignment: Align objects to top, bottom, middle, left, center and right.
* Distribution: Distribute objects evenly left to right and/or top to bottom.
* Nudge: using arrow keys or Nudge inspector, move objects precise amounts.
* Each page can have a background image for tracing or presentation.
* Define default colors of an object’s effects.

Text Handling:
2 Text types available: Super Text and Paragraph Text
* Paragraph Text has full support for Rich Text Format:
multifont, multicolor, multi paragraph text.
Sub and superscripting, ligatures, kerning and line spacing.
Spell Checking.
Underline, italics, bold.
* Super Text: can have all of Create’s effects applied to it.
Instantly place along rose, circle, upper or lower arc.
Optional background color.
Support for 2-byte fonts, like Kai-Su.
Convert Super Text to splines.
Place along any path: bind Super Text to Splines or Spline-Lines.
* Convert Super Text to Paragraph Text and vice versa.

Multiple Pages:
* Add, Copy, Paste, Duplicate or Delete pages.
* Reorder pages with easy interface.
* “Play” (continuously loop through) pages.
* Automated pagination with Page Marker.

Splines and Lines:
* Add and delete handles, Join and separate splines and lines.
* Turn objects into splines. Tighten, Loosen and Animate splines.
* Reverse path of splines and polylines.

Import/Export
* Import EPS, PS, JPEG, TIFF, and native file formats.
* Autotrace: converts scanned images to editable graphics.
* Export as EPS, PS, TIFF, JPEG, Ascii, RTF, HTML, CreateImage and Create.
* TIFF export: control bit depth, alpha and compression method.

Linking
* Embed Create graphics in other documents with Object Linking.
* Paste and Link other application’s graphics and text into Create.
* Exported EPS can be reimported and edited.
* True object links with no redundant storage.

Automated Web Page Production:
* Document can create a single web page or a group of interconnected pages.
* Automatically builds graphical Table of Contents.
* Creates easy to read HTML which can be edited by hand.
* Optional navigation bars on top and/or bottom of web pages.
* Set the color of the background, text and links with simple user interface.
* Specify a background image URL.
* Custom HTML: Document titles can have a custom prefix, such as the site
name, and add your own custom header and/or footer to each page.
* Set the quality of the JPEG images created for export.
* Configure HTML Preferences per document and per page.

Online Help, Sample Art and Custom Art:
* Context sensitive help
* Online Create Manual
* Online Tutorial
* Sample art provided.
* Your custom art and group art gets loaded as menu items.
* Entire searchable manual in HTML available at www.stone.com.

Expert Features:
* Preferences: customizations that control every aspect of Create.
* User PostScript Editor – an environment where you can write
and execute PostScript programs:
Open, execute, modify and save PS files.
* Templates: Create new documents from existing ones for
stationary, forms, etc.
Automatic access to your private and group directories.
* Plug-In Tools Add Dynamically Loaded Plug-Ins as they become available
Video is an example of a Plug-In.
* Animator Module: The animator module allows you to create movies.
* Pattern editor: Create PostScript Level II patterns using all
of the effects and tools. Embeds patterns in your
document for use by others.

* And there are probably more features, but we’ve run out of room!

Please visit the Stone Design WWW site to download the software and for
more information about Create and other Stone Design software and services:

http://www.stone.com

-=-
Stone Design Corp. in Albuquerque, New Mexico was formed in 1984 and was
the first developer to ship a product on NeXT Hardware in 1989 with the
release of TextArt. Since then, Stone Design has been a leader in
innovative shrinkwrap software in the NEXTSTEP and OpenStep marketplace.
Like a rock, Stone is committed to Rhapsody and OpenStep development.
Create(TM) is a trademark of Stone Design Corp.