1997

• Heidelberg acquires Linotype-Hell. It decides to keep some of the product lines, such as the recently introduced Tango vertical drum scanner while divesting others.

• Enfocus starts shipping PitStop 1.0, a PDF editing plug-in for Acrobat Exchange 3.0.

• Apple releases Mac OS 8.

• Companies who invest in CtP often still have large libraries of film from which pages need to be reused. They also get advertisements supplied on film. Copydot scanners such as the Eskofot EskoScan 2540 can scan those films and save the data as a DCS-file. These devices only exist for a few years, until archives have been scanned in and all supplied material is digital.

• Working as a prepress support engineer, I get so annoyed about my lack of success in troubleshooting PostScript errors that I decide to create a web site about them. The PostScript Panic Page, precursor of this site, is born. Around 3000 people visit the site in 1998.

• Microsoft invests $150 million in Apple. It promises to continue development of software for the platform while Apple commits to including Internet Explorer as the default browser for Macintosh.

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• Hong Kong returns to Chinese rule.

• Tony Blair wins the British elections.

• Princess Diana dies in a car accident.

• Prices of computers drop below $1000.

• ‘Titanic’ is the most expensive film of all time.

<1996 – 1998>