Early in 2005, Arbortext acquired Advent, the makers of 3B2 publishing software. That year at the annual AUGI conference, the greater Arbortext community got their first look at the capabilities that 3B2 brought to the publishing table. For the most part, we were stunned. A lot of the things we'd been told you couldn't do—or rather shouldn't do—you could with 3B2. Today, it still feels as though we only had the briefest of glimpses of what it could do. The powerful impression of capability remains even though most of us never really saw the product again.
Since that time, PTC acquired Arbortext and 3B2 was renamed Arbortext Advanced Print Publisher (APP). As soon as we started supporting APP, we reached out to GPSL to add specialized support to our partner network. GPSL was founded by former Advent employees. If you've been a part of the 3B2 community for any length of time, you certainly know GPSL. If you've never been an APP/3B2 user, it's likely you've never run into GPSL before.
This past June, PTC released Arbortext 5.4 and it included a free technology preview of APP with Styler. Users finally get the chance to use this product they've wanted to touch and feel for a very long time.
In that light, this week's podcast is an interview with Gareth Oakes from GPSL. It is my pleasure to talk to him about his experiences, the expertise and business of GPSL, and his advice for working with Arbortext Advanced Print Publisher and stylesheets.
Enjoy!
Key Concepts:
arbortext layout developer (ald) (3b2), community, page layout and print publishing