No Hands Software Ships Common Ground 1.0 for Windows

Belmont, CA--December 13, 1993--No Hands Software will ship the Windows
version of Common Ground, the company's popular electronic document
distribution software, this week. Common Ground 1.0 for Windows retains
all of the important features found in the Macintosh version, including an
embeddable, free, compact MiniViewer, and pixel-for-pixel fidelity to the
original document. In addition, Common Ground 1.0 for Windows offers full
PostScript support, JPEG compression, and the ability to save documents
into popular word processing formats for editing. Common Ground also acts
as an OLE 2.0 server, providing seamless integration into other
applications such as electronic mail and databases.

Common Ground mimics the important properties of paper that are necessary
to create an electronic document distribution standard, while going beyond
paper to provide the advantages of electronic documents, such as reusable
text and graphics, text searching and navigational tools. Like paper,
Common Ground places almost no requirements on the recipient who needs to
read a document, and documents appear the same to everyone. Users can send
documents with confidence they can be viewed and printed, because Common
Ground lets you distribute a small, free MiniViewer, which runs on a
minimal system configuration. Also, the Common Ground viewer is an
application. It does not contain system-level software, nor does it
interact with every application and cause problems at that level, as
competing products do.

Common Ground relies on its outline font replication technology to
consistently display and print fonts exactly as they appeared in the
original document. In contrast, competing products use a font substitution
method, which does not faithfully reproduce distinctive fonts. As a
result, Common Ground users can count on an exact representation of their
original fonts, regardless of TrueType or PostScript, when they are
viewing on screen, printing or faxing.

Common Ground provides a universal solution to electronic document
distribution. It is platform independent; works with any application that
prints; supports all font types including TrueType, PostScript, and
international characters sets; and lets users copy and paste all text and
graphics. Common Ground is not dependent on any specific font technology.
Also, Common Ground relies on the host imaging system to draw text and
graphics, so its imaging speed is extremely fast.

"At Boston College we want to electronically distribute a wide range of
documents, including technical documentation, student guide books, course
catalogs, university brochures, etc. to 15,000 students. After considering
all the available options for electronic document distribution, we found
Common Ground for Windows to be the only cost-effective solution for
cross-platform mass distribution," said Paul Dupuis, assistant director of
Information Processing Support at Boston College in Massachusetts. "For
example, we've used Common Ground to bring fully formatted documents from
our DEC VAX to our Windows machines, using the CG PostScript extension."

Full PostScript "Distiller" Support

No Hands has incorporated Zenographics' highly-acclaimed ZScript technology
in Common Ground 1.0 for Windows to provide full PostScript support
through its CG PostScript Extension feature. When users encounter a file
with PostScript, they simply select the CG PostScript Extension, which
appears as an alternate printer driver, and print just as they would to
create any other Common Ground document. To get equivalent functionality,
Acrobat users must purchase Adobe's $695 Acrobat Distiller--a separate
application which requires additional installation, set up time, hard disk
space, and requires a two step process to create a portable electronic
document.

Without PostScript support, EPS graphics embedded in any document and
output from Windows-based applications that are designed primarily to
produce PostScript output, such as Aldus PageMaker and Adobe Illustrator,
would be represented by a screen-resolution bitmap at best. These bitmaps
print poorly and may cause the text to reflow and lose the original
pagination.

Users can also "distill" Common Ground documents from any PostScript file,
providing an efficient way to gt documents from other platforms (e.g.,
DOS, Macintosh, UNIX, etc.) into Common Ground's platform-independent
format, where anyone can view and print them.

IPEG Compression

Common Ground 1.0 for Windows also includes built-in JPEG compression, for
compressing continuous-tone greyscale and color images. This feature
extends Common Ground's usefulness for distributing color intensive
catalogs, magazines, advertisements, and other complex documents. Once
compressed, users can easily distribute these smaller files on CD-ROM or
over phone lines, and incorporate them into electronic document
databases.

Editing Portable Documents

Common Ground also incorporates several industry-standard filters which
allow users to save Common Ground documents into their favorite word
processing formats for editing. Once a Common Ground document has been
saved into another format, Common Ground will use PANOSE Typeface Matching
System to map the original fonts to the closest font available on the
system, thus better preserving the look and feel of the original
document.

OLE 2.0 Support

Common Ground supports Microsoft Corporation's Object Linking and Embedding
(OLE) 2.0, as an OLE 2.0 server. This enables Common Ground's viewing
functionality to be seamlessly integrated into electronic mail database
and other applications. Common Ground's ability to work with any document
in any application provides a bridge to bring any document into the OLE
2.0 sphere. For example, a Macintosh Aldus PageMaker document containing
product specifications and drawings can be converted to Common Ground,
embedded in a Microsoft Access for Windows database record, and viewed and
printed by anyone using the database.

Common Ground was featured by Microsoft Corporation as an OLE 2.0 early
adopter in seminars in Boston and Palo Alto, at the Microsoft Office 4.0
launch in New York, and at Comdex in Las Vegas.

About Common Ground

Common Ground is an electronic document distribution program that lets
users convert any document to an exact representation of the original that
can be viewed, searched and printed by anyone regardless of application,
computer and fonts. What distinguishes Common Ground from other electronic
document distribution programs is Digital Paper--the high performance
technology that converts documents created in any application into a
compact platform-independent file format.

Common Ground consists of two major components: a Maker and a Viewer. The
Common Ground Maker converts any document from any application to
DigitalPaper--making it an exact representation of the original document.
Common Ground's Maker features print resolution at 300 dpi, and a free,
embeddable MiniViewer so users can send documents that anyone can open and
print, even if they don't have the Common Ground application.

The Common Ground Viewer features copy and paste options, text searching,
zoom capabilities, navigational tools, OLE 2.0 server support, and on-line
help. The MiniViewer features viewing and printing only.

Common Ground for Windows requires Windows 3.1, an 80386 microprocessor or
faster, and 2MB of RAM (4MB recommended). Using the Common Ground
PostScript Extension requires 4MB of RAM (6MB recommended).

Special Introductory Pricing

The Windows version is available now for a special introductory price of
$99.95 through participating resellers. After the introduction, the
suggested retail price will be $189.95. Common Ground is distributed
through Ingram Micro, Kenfil and international distributors, and is
available through Egghead Software, CompUSA, Computer City SuperCenters,
Software Etc., mail order catalogs, and other major resellers. For more
information about Common Ground contact No Hands Software at 415-802-5800
or 800-598-3821.

500 Free Copies for User Groups and On-line Services

No Hands will give 500 complimentary copies to user groups and on-line
services for a small shipping and handling charge. For more information
check the No Hands forum on America On-line, or contact No Hands via the
Internet at nohands@netcom.com, or via CompuServe at 74740,2142.

Future versions of Common Ground for Macintosh will incorporate all of
these features found in Common Ground for Windows.

No Hands Software

No Hands Software is a leading developer and publisher of a new generation
of software products for electronic document distribution and information
consumption on personal computers and consumer computing devices. Founded
in 1991, No Hands Software is based in Belmont, California.

No Hands Software
1301 Shoreway Rd, Suite 220
Belmont, CA 94002
415-802-5800,  fax 415-593-6868,  Applelink: NOHANDS

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