PowerForms will be available at retail the first week of December To find retailers near you call:  1-800-708-STAR   

November 28, 1994  

PowerForms: Bringing tomorrow's technology to today's business professionals   

Omaha, Nebraska -- Sestra Inc. announces the release of PowerForms for Newton, a forms management software application for the Newton MessagePad. With PowerForms, the user can build intelligent forms on a Macintosh or personal computer then transfer them to the Newton MessagePad where they can be used for collecting data from the field. The information can then be sent electronically back to the office computer, maintaining the integrity of the data and speeding up the collection process.

"PowerForms provides a cost-effective solution for any company that collects information, whether it's sales orders, surveys or profit projections," said Ken Wirt, director of marketing, Apple's Personal Interactive Electronics Division. "With PowerForms, the people 'in the field' are using standard company formats and transferring the data electronically, so the integrity of the information is likely to be improved, plus the expensive task of re-keying the information from paper forms into a computer system is eliminated."

The PowerForms software package consists of  PowerForms for Newton, an application that runs on the Newton MessagePad; PowerForms Designer for Newton, an application that lets the user create forms on the Macintosh or PC compatible computer; PowerForms Connect an application for Macintosh and Windows computers that transfers data to and from the Newton to the computer; and FormMover, which transfers forms from the computer to the Newton.

PowerForms provides a powerful suite of tools to create intelligent electronic forms. In addition, users can create forms with unlimited pages that include text entry fields, radio buttons, check boxes, pop lists, pop boxes, ink fields, paragraph fields, along with graphical borders and text.  PowerForms pop boxes even include a number of useful built-in lists, including state names. The format and style of the fields are completely editable. Default values, mathematical expressions and scripted macros can all be attached to PowerForms fields. Automatic date-time stamping can be set as an option for fields. PowerForms supports up to 16 radio buttons in a set and unlimited items in lists, which can be edited while the form is in use. PowerForms supports text, numeric, telephone, date, time, and currency data types, along with appropriate graphical "pickers" as alternatives to handwritten data entry. Users can mail forms directly from the Macintosh using PowerTalk. With PowerForms, users can capture video images directly into PowerForms using an Apple Macintosh AV Computer or QuickTime compatible video digitizer card.

PowerForms Designer's intelligent "segment" feature automatically transforms an 8 1/2 x 11" paper form into a Newton size form. The PowerForms Designer for Newton application provides a drawing-like interface to allow users to quickly and intuitively create forms on Macintosh or PC compatible computers. Graphics, including PICTs, can be imported into the form or used as a tracing template to assist in creating the form. The extensive tools palette includes hairlines, bezier curves, polygons, and bitmaps. All graphics objects are converted to Newton objects during the transfer of the form to PowerForms. PowerForms Designer also provides rulers, grids, T-Square, and scroll locking. PowerForms Designer Forms can contain backgrounds that are shared on all pages of the form; there is no limit to the number of pages contained in a PowerForms form. PowerForms Designer's Libraries can be used to store often used form elements or templates to use for quickly building forms.

PowerForms utilities allow the archiving of forms on to a Macintosh or DOS formatted floppy disk. With this utility a PowerForms form may be distributed to others on floppy disk along with the utility program, allowing people to share information in one standardized format. Other included utilities allow data mapping and exchange with numerous third party applications

PowerForms is developed by Sestra Inc, a software company specializing in mobile data management solutions. PowerForms is distributed through Apple's StarCore division.


1994 Apple Computer Inc. Software 1994 Sestra, Inc. All rights reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh and Newton are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc. registered in the U.S.A. and other countries. The light bulb logo, Apple SuperDrive, MessagePad, PowerTalk, QuickTime, and StarCore are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc. Canvas is a trademark of Deneba Software. MacDraw and MacPaint are registered trademarks of Claris Corporation. Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Windows. PowerForms is a trademark of Sestra, Inc. All other trademarks are properties of their respective holders. 
