RagTime – Frame-Oriented Page Layout

RagTime is a unique and professional publishing software for tasks in the fields of graphical design, prepress, office, and database publishing. Where office applications reach their limits and DTP programs are far too complex, RagTime allows you to work more productively. RagTime combines powerful word processing, comprehensive spreadsheets, professional imaging and powerful graphs to a comfortable layout environment for Mac and Windows users. The output on a printer or as a PDF document is always of a high quality. All elements of a page – pictures, tables, text and graphics – keep their fixed positions even if printing on another device. This is an essential for high-level design.

The focus is on a simple and intuitive operation. A formatting palette allows quickly accessing the most frequently used settings and tools. Irrespective of the platform, the output is possible on local printers, as a PostScript or PDF document, including transparency support for pictures, text, tables and other components, or as HTML. In addition, common exchanging formats such as EPS, RTF, JPEG, etc. are available. 

The different components – word processing, spreadsheets, pictures, graphs, etc. – are positioned on the page in individual frames, accurate to the millimeter. The frames, including their content, can be rotated, scaled and skewed. RagTime components, e.g. pictures can also be placed in the text flow or in table cells. Editing objects can be done either directly in the layout component on the document page or separately, in a dedicated editing window. Calculation functions work in tables, text, graphs and even in the control elements of interactive documents and forms. The integrated multilingual spell checking and hyphenation functions work in text, tables, graphs, and other RagTime components.

A central inventory manages all components used in the document, e.g. pictures, text, spread sheets, layouts as well as fonts, value formats and colors. Folders and individual names for all components increase the clarity and support multiple usage of documents. Frequently used documents and forms are directly available in the Foyer, so there is no need for cumbersome searches on the hard disk.