August 10, 2004–Wolfram Publicon, a new integrated software solution for composing sophisticated technical documents, is now available from Wolfram Research. Created for the growing number of academic researchers, students, and industry professionals who need to create or publish documents with technical content, Publicon produces platform-independent files that can be exported to HTML, XML, LaTeX, or custom Publicon formats.
Up to this point, technical writers have had only cumbersome means of integrating mathematical typesetting into their documents. Publicon seamlessly incorporates intuitive math typesetting technology with additional templates for chemical equations, special characters, and symbols to produce publication-quality documents quickly and easily. Mathematical notation from a Publicon document can be copied and pasted for and from computation in Mathematica, the award-winning technical computing system from Wolfram Research, allowing readers meaningful and dynamic interaction with the text.
Formatting documents to the demands of publishers and technical societies like the American Mathematical Society, the American Physical Society, and BioMed Central is greatly simplified with this new standard for technical publishing. Built-in palettes, templates, and style sheets simplify the creation of documents that conform to industry-standard formats, but also allow for complete customization to match any style.
Among its many features that streamline the publication process, Publicon includes:
- A guided, template-driven document creation system
- A scrolling, WYSIWYG interface ideal for online presentation
- Support for the composition of structured documents matching REVTeX, AMS-TeX, standard LaTeX, Open Access publisher BioMed Central’s XML (supported by PubMed Central), and custom Publicon formats
- HTML, XML, and LaTeX export
- Automatic conversion to and from MathML
- Math and chemistry typesetting for word-processor-like equation composition
- Full searchability within typeset equations for any character–including all operators, bracket varieties, and radicals
- Automated reference management for instant bibliographies
- Notes and cross-reference insertion tools
- Style sheets that control all aspects of a document’s functionality and appearance
- Spell checking with a built-in technical dictionary
- Platform-independent document creation
- A searchable help browser for quick-and-easy access to all of Publicon‘s features
“You don’t need to learn a new language or have any experience with publishing to create elegant technical documents with Publicon,” says André Kuzniarek, manager of document technology at Wolfram Research. “From implementing mathematical and scientific typesetting to structuring the document for online publication, Publicon does it all with the click of a few buttons. With Publicon, technical authors have a complete system in which to write, while publishers have the guarantee of receiving documents custom-formatted to their exacting standards.”
“This is a major advance,” says Matthew Cockerill, Technical Director of Open Access publisher BioMed Central. “With Publicon it is finally possible for scientific authors to create manuscripts in a structured way and output them in an XML format suitable for web publication. It will lead to faster publication times and significantly reduce the costs involved in scientific publishing.”
Publicon is available for Windows and Mac OS X and can be purchased for download. More information is available.