Mirrorsoft, the software arm of Robert Maxwell's publishing group, have already released a variety of programs for the BBC micro - mostly educational games. Now they have taken a step up and produced Fleet Street Editor, a 'publishing tool' which draws on their own experience and works within the window and icon environment which is proving so popular.

The whole package is extremely well put together. It consists of an A5 ring binder with over 100 pages of manual, two discs and a function key strip. The manual contains a comprehensive tutorial section, known as the 'Guided Tour', as well as reference on each facility of the six 'departments' into which the system is divided. It's very clearly laid out with plenty of illustrations and a good index so you can dip into it as well as reading it cover to cover.

The program itself is completely disc-based and needs no extra hardware nor ROM to function. This has the advantage of versatility and low-cost, but does mean that the package is not as easy to control as with a mouse. The protection system requires you to use the disc supplied as a work disc - never the best state of affairs.

Fleet Street Editor is split into six 'departments'. These are the graphics library, the studio, the copydesk, page make-up, preview and print, and administration. Each handles a nparticular aspect of creating the pages of your publication. A page is divided into a number of 'panels', each of which is made up from graphics and text.

The graohics library is on the second of the two discs that make up the package. This consists of hundreds of detailed graphics - logos, maps, display character fonts and many other useful designs - presented as a series of screens from which you can 'pick' the items you want and transfer them to one of your page panels. They can be positioned roughly on the panel before accurate alignment in the 'studio'. For those who want to put together a publication but perhaps lack the artistic skill to draw their own graphics, this library would be extremely useful. Mirrorsoft are thinking of releasing further library discs with other ready-made designs on them.

The studio is the most complex department within Fleet Street Editor, and allows you to reposition your graphics, copy them, enlarge or reduce them, mirror them or zoom in and adjust them at the pixel level. You can also add line drawings using a variety of different pen styles. The zoom screen separates each pixel, displaying them as a series of boxes. This is very confusing visually and a strain on the eyes after a few minutes work.

Once you're satisfied with the graphic content of your panel, you move to the copydesk, which lets you add text. This can be added using Fleet Street Editor's own rather slow text processor, or by feeding in text from a Wordwise or View file. The text can use two different fonts per panel, which may be selected from a total of six. The text automatically wraps around any graphics, and may be justified to both margins if you like. Since there's no micro-justification in the package, however, this can lead to big gaps between words.

Headlines, at twice the size of a normal character, can be added to the text, again using a selection of different fonts.

The page make-up department allows you to select the panels you've saved to disc and make up a complete A4 page. You can only have a maximum of eight panels on any page, and each is normally the same size. You can stretch a panel to twice its width, but this of course elongates any graphics by the same amount.

The preview and print department allows you to see a complete page on screen, at a reduced size. The text is unreadable, but you get an impression of the overall design before committing the page to paper (see illustration).

The administration department is not directly connected with the publication process, but covers orinter selection, formatting of discs (a nice touch) and the transfer of non Fleet Street Editor files into the system. You could use this function to import digitized pictures or (perish the thought) AMX Art screens.

Comparisons will inevitably be made with the AMX Pagemaker (reviewed last month) but the packages are not as similar as might be thought. The philosophies behind the two are very different and each provides facilities not given by the other.

The biggest advantage of Pagemaker is its full page approach which allows text and graphics to be positioned anywhere on the page without the restrictions of Fleet Street Editor's panels. The use of the mouse and total flexibility of type sizes must also be plus points.

Against this, Fleet Street Editor provides an extensive graphics library, and allows you to re-edit text once it's laid down on a panel, a very useful operation that cannot easily be performed with Pagemaker. Fleet Street Editor is a very well thought-out and useful product and Clares Micro Supplies, who programmed it, can be justifiably proud of the features they managed to squeeze into the limited memory of the model B.

Product: Fleet Street Editor
Supplier: Mirrorsoft, 74 Worship Street, London EC2A 3EN. Tel: 01-377 4831
Price: £39.95 (disc)