FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For: GLUON, Inc., 443 Greenwich Street, Suite 2E, New York, NY 10013
Contact: Seth Elgart, 212-343-1755, selgart@gluon.com

GLUON Slugger XTension upgrade changes the way QuarkXPress documents are looked at

Multiple slugs, barcodes, color chips and inter-XTension communication are among new features

March 2001, New York City. Software developer GLUON is releasing a major upgrade to Slugger, its slug-making XTension for all types of publishers. It has been evolving for ten years and is now an integral part of the workflow in the top ad agencies of the world. Among the many new features in Slugger 5 are multiple slug layouts, special postscript slugs, cover page slugs, bar codes and Cropster/Slugger inter-XTension communication.

Slugger is the preeminent software for creating slugs on documents. Slugs are printed on every page and contain pertinent trafficking information about all sorts of things, from who worked on the document, and when, to what fonts and images are used and much more. In a professional publishing environment, information about a document is almost as important as the document itself.

Slugger 4 introduced the Slugger Customizer, allowing users to customize their single slug in many different ways. Slugger 5 takes this concept much further, allowing the user to design and use multiple slug layouts. Users then simply select from a popup menu which of the slug designs they want to use and all slugs on the document will be instantly reformatted and updated. Slugger 5 includes several new types of slugs, adding great flexibility.

One new slug is the Postscript Slug, which does not physically appear in the XPress file yet prints on every page. The advantage of such a slug is that it is transparent to the user and appears at the bottom of the paper regardless of trim size. Also available is a Registration Slug which, when printing with registration marks, can replace the standard file name and print time info with customized slug information. Another new slug type is the Cover Page Slug. This slug type can hold more information than any previously available slug since it prints on a full page, once per document.

Other Slugger 5 improvements include an independent secondary slug box. This box can act as a separate slug or guideline and be positioned anywhere on or off the page independently of the main slug. Slugger 5 is now Cropster-aware. GLUON Cropster is the industry standard for creating crops, guides, fold marks, etc. If users have Cropster on their machine, Slugger will pick up the bleed, trim, safety, gutter and fold sizes and automatically enter them into the slug. Slugger 5 also includes bar codes. It can encode the document's job number in a barcode, making it easy to look up job information in a database by scanning the Slug's barcode. GLUON's IntelliTrack time tracking software is Slugger barcode compatible, enabling quick lookups of up-to-the minute job costs. Scanning a recent printout with a hand-held barcode scanner can now yield comprehensive up-to-the-minute information about a document.

Besides the new features, all the standard Slugger features are still there. Automatic color chips, lists of fonts, images and colors used, document path, file name, current and previous operator, current and previous machine used, date created and date modified, print time and scale, etc. are all still part of Slugger 5.

"Running an ad agency without Slugger is like putting in a pinch hitter for Mark McGwire. It makes no sense," says Peter McClard, GLUON CEO. "Slugger is one of those things you don't realize how much you need until you have it. Once it's part of your daily workflow you won't understand how you were able to function without it," observes Seth Elgart, GLUON VP and Director of Sales and Marketing.

Slugger is $150, with multiple-license discounts available. Slugger Customizer is $500 (only one per site needed).

Contact Seth Elgart at 212.343.1755 or 1.888.GLUONXT. http://www.gluon.com