Electronic paper catalogs

Typically, an 'electronic catalog' consists of a database with some software for processing the data. This does not include any page-based visualization similar to paper catalogs (e-paper). Some people even call this falsly a 'product catalog' while we refer to a 'product catalog' as to some paper or paper-like (e-paper) thing with pages as it has been known since Gutenberg.

Elecat offers you both:

• the database with comprehensive and up-to-date article data, with orders etc. maintained in Elestore
• and the attractive page visualization as e-paper.

"Pages" in the sense of Elecat does not necessarily mean A4 or paper size although it does in most cases simply because it is practical and cost effective to re-use what exists anyway. Pages can also mean any other, smaller and/or more specific form of data visualization.

Pages in special format
EleExxel, ElePricelist and Elepub are the perfect tools to automatically generate special pages for Elecat in any format you want! But otherwise you can use what you already have. Use the pragmatic approach of Elecat!

Use existing catalogs
Think pragmatically: paper catalogs do exist and they will continue to exist for many decades to come. And they do cost a lot of money. In almost all cases, paper-oriented layout is the only form and the only source of data available, and is kept solely in text frames of DTP files, or even on plain paper.

Therefore, why don't you simply use this same formatted data to electronically distribute them!?

Databases containing the entire data from product publications simply do not exist and Content Management Systems are the rare exception and in use only in some few larger companies.

Compared to the extremely low data acquisition costs of Elecat it would cost a fortune to enter or transfer this data into a database. And it would cost even more to make this data available in a visually acceptable format. We ask: what's the use of all these unnecessary processes? We have not yet heard one valid answer - except that there has been no software available that can use data stored in DTP files or on paper. But that has changed now that Elecat is available!

Therefore, in most cases it does make a lot of sense to simply use the data that already exists, and to use it in exactly the same layout in which it has been formatted for paper. Changing the layout makes no sense, and would cost in terms of both money and time. And it would normally not increase the quality of visualization. So why do it?