about Mark^Up Tools

Mark^Up Tools was designed with two fundamental features that we believe qualify it as a productivity tool:

• easy-to-use interface
• Singular functionality (marking documents)

The Mark^Up Tools application builds on Microsoft's new XPS technology (XML Paper Specification), which creates a vivid high-fidelity "electronic paper" copy of any document on any format. Elements of the document are embedded as vectors so visual clarity is maintained even in extreme magnification.

Mark^Up Tools opens the XPS files and adds transparent layers above the image of each document page to contain marks and annotations. The Mark^Up Tools document can then be saved as a new XPS file that can be viewed by everyone using Internet Explorer (read more on XPS).

XPS files are as easy to create as sending a document to a printer and can be viewed in Internet Explorer in any Windows XP or later machine. To mark using Mark^Up Tools, simply import the XPS file into the application.

The Mark^Up Tools toolset is sophisticated enough for technical reviewers in technology companies yet easy enough to master for use for home study or photo marking.

• Lines, rectangles and ellipses, free-style lines and clouds with different fill patterns can easily be created on each layer. Also, plain text or multi-font text can be added, together with comments that are listed in a separate report and exportable.
• Photos and other image files can be added, moved and resized. For images made from forms, editable text fields can be added to the image to provide users with a "sign-off" form.
• Watermarks and stamps can be placed in any or all pages of the document, using different fonts and text sizes. The watermark or stamp character strings can be chosen from lists, or new ones created and added to the lists.

With Mark^Up Tools' multi markup-layer architecture, each user has their own layer to place their marks isolated from other users.

The user can lock his/her layer, so that no one can edit their marks. Password protection can be applied, so that by sharing the password the ability to edit the layer can be given to selected individuals.

• Layers and their marks can be hidden from view, helping to make an overcrowded markup easier to read on screen and in print.
• Layers can be organized into groups, with Individual layers belonging to a Group layer. Some commands act on all layer elements within a group.
• When several reviewers have marked documents simultaneously on their respective machines, all layers from the separately marked documents can be consolidated into one Mark^Up Tools document to prepare for return.