 Have
you ever tried to create a document in Mircosoft Publisher or Adobe PageMaker,
or tried to publish your own Internet Web site? Surely these aren't difficult
tasks, or are they?
Of course not, unless of course you plan on using graphics that you or a friend have drawn. Most of these publishing programs, be they Internet, desktop publishing, or even word processing, will only accept three or four graphic formats. And to further the problems, most paint programs only save in a few, unpopular formats. Many of the headaches caused by this inconvience were vanquished when this miracle program called Paint Shop Pro was developed. But this could only convert one file at a time, and its library of formats was limiting. I was back at square one until I found HiJaak Pro. It is like those wonder gadgets we all love from TV that will do anything and everything. With around 85 different formats available, it is one of those dream programs that are available. HiJaak Pro was designed to run on an upper level system. It requires at least a 486-66 with at least 16 MB ram, and approximatly 25 MB disk space to run. It runs like a dream on a Pentium 166, with 32 MB ram, and a 2.5 GB hard drive. It also requires a CD-ROM. Instalation of HiJaak was a snap. Just pop in the CD, run the setup program, tell it where to install the program, and it takes over. It adds its own icon and program group to the start menu. From there you can run any of HiJaak's three program, or the setup program. HiJaak comes with HiJaak Pro, HiJaak Capture, or HiJaak Scan. HiJaak Scan is basicly a middle man between HiJaak Pro and your scanner, and HiJaak Capture has some awesome screen capturing facilities. Of course HiJaak Pro itself is the highlight of the package. It offers some basic graphic editing tools, such as contrast and brightness adjustment, and toys to play with the colors in the graphic. Do everything from make the image greyscale, changing the dithering pattern, to cropping it all from within HiJaak Pro. There, in most cases, is no reason to open a different editor. Plus you can take almost any image and change it to another supported format eaisly. HiJaak handles around 85 different image formats, some of which are 3DS, DWG, IGES, WRL, SGI-RGB, XBM, XWD, PCM, DXF, JPG, GIF, TGA, and BMP, and it offers full PostScript support. One neat feature of HiJaak Pro is that if you feed it a 3DS file or an AutoCAD file, it will spit out a fully functioning and Web ready VRML file, all within two or three mouse clicks. The documentation covers everything you need to know about how to use the program, along with its own glossary of terms used, and a comprehensive list of ways that you can contact Quarterdeck should you need any additional help. It walks you through different procedures and explains everything along the way. Listing at around $99 at most software stores, HiJaak Pro, a Quarterdeck product, is a must-have for anyone who works with different formats of images. I highly reccomend it to anyone who does this type of work. This is one powerful program that you can't afford to miss! Chris Mayer is a freshman at Communications Arts High School. In his spare time he enjoys upgrading and repairing PC's, as well as working on various other projects, such as Northside ISD's Web site and the CAHS Intranet site. He also plays the trombone in the Taft Raider Band. |