What is eComPress® Publisher?
The eComPress Publisher Toolkit is an electronic publishing tool that is designed for large reference works where the publication is securely delivered and updated online and used off-line. eComPress Publisher permanently compresses the content very efficiently at a bit level, uniquely encrypts, and exhaustively indexes it so the user is guaranteed to find all words, numbers and alpha-numerics. eComPress also incorporates an annotation system for personal and global eComPress Notes, with a powerful facility that automatically transcribes the Notes in context to new and revised material. eComPress publications are readily processed from RTF (MS Word), FrameMaker, XML etc. and are delivered complete with a built-in viewer and are instantly useable on receipt. Document conversion plug-in’s can be designed to address specific formats as required.

How long has eComPress® Publisher been in existence?
The technology was developed by Eurofield Information Solutions(EIS) based on proprietary research done in Sydney, Australia, in the early 1990s. The first commercial sales occurred in 1992. eComPress was only available as a service until 2007, when EIS released the eComPress Toolkit to enable our clients to process their own data in-house.

What are the key discriminating features of eComPress® Publisher?
eComPress differentiates itself in the marketplace in the following areas:

• Data Compression - permanent, lossless bit compression - saving delivery time
• Performance - fast delivery with minimal bandwidth, instant access on receipt
• Searching - fast exhaustive searching, with logical (Boolean) and wildcard support
• Easy-to-use - able to be navigated and searched with no training
• Security - uniquely encrypted content, built-in 32bit CRC, 128bit RSA code signed executable, password access control
• Annotation - powerful user and global annotation facility with automatic transcription in context to new and revised material
• Compatibility - integrated viewer always compatible with the content, and the content is compatible with MS Office with all formatting preserved
• Scalability - create large multi-volume libraries which can be updated in an ad hoc manner and searched contiguously

What are typical applications of eComPress® Publisher?
Publications developed using eComPress include standards, dictionaries, legislation, procedures, operational manuals, maintenance manuals etc. The product is particularly well suited for large mission critical reference works used in the defense and aerospace industries where the data needs to be securely and efficiently delivered and updated on-line and can be quickly and easily searched and annotated off-line without any training. eComPress excels in its bandwidth multiplying capacity and fast, easy-to-use exhaustive searching, with all the content readily able to be used in conjunction with the MS Windows tools you have on your desktop.

What navigation capabilities are provided?
eComPress uses a single screen display split into two adjacent Windows, with the Tree Table of Contents on the left always synchronized with the content on the right. In an effort to always keep the user informed of where they are in highly structured content with many levels, eComPress incorporates a novel Table-of-Contents Tree Pruning facility that removes superfluous levels from view and replaces them with an ellipsis along with a number representing the number of hidden levels.

What search capabilities are provided?
eComPress publications are exhaustively indexed which enable all words, numbers and alpha-numerics to be found quickly using the search index. eComPress supports string searching and the results are accurate, with the eComPress HitMap (green dot) showing precisely where the hits are within the content, and the HitCount showing the exact number of hits associated with that section of the content. Search capabilities include any number of single (?) or multiple (*) wildcards anywhere within the search, and Boolean operators.

Does eComPress® manage images and other non-textual data?
Yes. eComPress coverts all data to bit strings and compresses the data in common bit patterns so it processes text, spreadsheets, photographs, diagrams, flowcharts, schematics etc. All data is made up of bits, so eComPress can cater for all data formats if required.

What annotation facilities are available?
eComPress provides a powerful annotation facility where the user can attach eComPress Notes to text anywhere within the content. Notes can take the form of keyed in text, files, graphics, web or email addresses. User Notes are stored on the C: drive, and are represented as a yellow dog-eared page on the LHS of the text they are linked to. There are also Global Notes which can be shared in a collaborative manner and created and edited by all users which are shown in green. Notes can be selected and put into a Note Pad and published on LAN server where they can be protected with a password and these are shown in blue. eComPress records the user name, date and time Notes are created and edited, and all eComPress Notes are automatically transcribed in context to new and revised publications. eComPress Notes do not compromise the content in any way, and users can interact with Notes, where they are automatically assembled in-context on receipt.

What are the security features?
eComPress publications are designed to be extremely secure and protects the publisher, content and the user in a manner not provided by other technologies:

• eComPress publications are uniquely encrypted at a bit level to guarantee their integrity in perpetuity. The encryption algorithm is generated using bit strings up to 64Kbits long and derived from the bit patterns in the content.
• Every eComPress publication has a 32bit CRC embedded at mastering. This CRC is recalculated at installation and compared with the embedded one to ensure that the publication the user has installed is complete and not corrupted, truncated or contaminated.
• All eComPress publications use 128 bit Verisign RSA encryption code signing Certificates.
• eComPress publications can also be password protected, this enables an administrator to restrict access to publications, and is also ideal for their secure on-line sale and delivery.

Can eComPress® content be exported and printed?
eComPress content can readily be exported to all the standard Windows applications on the desktop. This can be done using copy-and-paste or drag-and-drop and all the formatting is preserved, including that for tables and spreadsheets. The content can also be printed with all the original formatting and pagination preserved.

How scalable is eComPress®?
eComPress is designed so that publications can be strung together, to include large numbers of publications into an eComPress Portfolio suite. This scalability is made possible by each eComPress publication having a small but very powerful viewer that is encapsulated with the content. eComPress publications are complete and instantly ready to use on receipt, the viewer never needs upgrading for the life of the publication. eComPress Portfolios can expand over time where the volumes can be updated or augmented in an ad hoc manner but the suite can be searched contiguously.

What kind of performance can a publisher expect from eComPress®?
Processing publications will depend on the PC and the size and type of data content, but typically processing all the data for the Random House® Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary running on a PC with a 3GHz clock and 2GB of RAM with Microsoft Windows® XP will take approximately on hour. The level of compression is difficult to predict but the Random House® Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary data would normally be of the order of 150MB including an index, whereas the eComPress version is less than 15MB including the built-in viewer. eComPress also compresses JPEG files to approximately 20-25% of their size without any degradation in the quality of output. With the substantially reduced size of the publications in eComPress format, capacity of servers and communication channels are increased by as much as 900%.

What kind of performance can a user expect from eComPress®?
eComPress publications are compressed at a bit level to as little as 10% of their original size, this reduces the time it takes them to download by as much as 90%, and enables them to install very quickly. Searching performance is highly dependent on the PC, the size of the content and search being conducted, but typically the Definitions in the Random House® Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary running on a PC with Microsoft Windows® XP can be searched in much less than a second. Performance of eComPress Portfolio suites will reflect the size and number of publications in the suite, but most searches would be conducted on one or a small group of volumes in the suite, and it would rarely be necessary to search the whole suite.

How do eComPress® publications differ from PDF publications?
The major difference is that PDF is designed as an electronic means of delivering printed documents, whereas eComPress is designed to be used electronically with powerful navigation, searching, security, compression, annotation, scalability and ease-of-use with its ability to interface with all the other Windows applications on the desktop. A brief list of the advantages of eComPress over PDF are:

• the information is uniquely encrypted and can never be changed
• fast and exhaustive searching of all words, numbers and alpha-numerics
• highlights search hits with the HitMap in Tree Table of Contents, and provides an exact HitCount to indicate the most relevant sections
• fast, easy-to-use and navigate - two window-view, instant search and access with the Drag-on - no training required
• comes complete with its own browser and index- NO additional software required for the life of the publication
• scalable - many eComPress publications can be put into a portfolio suite and updated in an ad hoc manner and searched contiguously
• dynamic tree table of contents - always synchronised with the data
• very secure - with 32bit CRC to ensure all publications are complete and not corrupted, truncated or contaminated in transit
• can readily be printed with all formatting and pagination preserved
• fully Windows compliant with window re-sizing and text wrapping
• fully MS Windows 98, 2000, XP and Vista compatible
• faithful formatting when extracting tables and spreadsheets to other applications
• supports multiple wild-card (?) and (*), and logical (Boolean) searching
• powerful annotation feature, all notes automatically transcribe in context to next update
• ability to have dialogue with users through Notes and email facility
• very small file size - fast and easy to disseminate electronically
• Key Locking - ideal for eCommerce with secure on-line sale and delivery
• fully interfaces with other Windows applications via desktop ‘drag-on’ icon
• greener - PDF is designed to be printed, whilst eComPress is designed to be used electronically

What computer platforms do eComPress® publications and the Toolkit run on?
The eComPress viewer software runs on Microsoft® Windows 98, 2000, XP, Vista, Windows Mobile and Windows Server applications including Terminal Server. The eComPress Publisher Toolkit software runs on Microsoft® XP and Vista.

eComPress® is a registered trademark of Eurofield Information Solutions in the United States and/or other countries. The other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.