The program is available for the Mac as well as the PC. This review will only deal with the window's version.

The system requirements are: a 486, Pentium, or Pentium Pro computer with a math co-processor;

Windows 95 or NT 3.51 or 4; a minimum of 12 megs of ram although 16 are recommended; a CD-rom drive; and a color display. Its street price is, according to one catalog, $299.95 for a new purchase and $144.95 for an upgrade. It did not state which product was necessary for the purchase to be considered an upgrade.

Since so many programs are reviewed for their commercial use, I tailor my reviews for the home user of varying levels. In my reviews, I do not normally concern myself on how well this program will work with the major page layout programs like Pagemaker or QuarkXpress. This review will focus on how well this program can be learnt and on some of its major strengths. There have been many other reviews in the graphic oriented computer magazines that have reviewed it from other angles.

The program is creatively packaged in a box that resembles a book. The program comes with a manual, a shortcut card, and a creative technique guide. The tutorial loads under a typical install. Both manuals contain "how to" sections.

Expression differs from other drawing packages in that its vector path can be described as being "overlaid" with a specific type of stroke.

These strokes can be Natural-Media, Graphic Element, or Multi-view strokes.

Expression supports a wide variety of import and export formats so that it can be used in conjunction with other programs. However, while some illustration programs allow for the importation of bitmap information, Expression does not. I found this unfortunate because it would increase the scope of the program. However, raster based files can be converted using programs such as Adobe Streamline. Thus one can take a tiff file, for example, convert it, import it in as an .ai file (Adobe Illustrator file created in Streamline) and use it as a template.

The tools are similar to those found in other drawing programs; however, there are also other tools available that are significantly different. These are used to work with the skeletal stroke technology of Expression. For example, if one chose to create a stroke like a cat and then use this stroke to create a sign, the stroke could be anchored so that parts of it could be distorted while other parts of it remained the same.

Files can be saved as drawing files or as raster files such as TIFFs, BMP's, etc. A resolution then is saved along with the file.

In order to familiarize myself with the program, I first decided to complete the tutorials in the main manual. I found them easily on my hard drive under the tutorial folder. I have a Pentium 100 and I use a digitizing tablet along with my mouse.

The tutorial was well written and showed how easy it was to become familiar with the program. I did find a few minor glitches while doing the tutorial; for example, in order to perform a select by stroke command, I had to have the stroked objects arranged in front of the filled objects.

The palettes in the program are clear and offer many choices. The book also instructs the user as to how to acquire additional information.

The layers feature is extremely well set up, especially for people who do not feel secure in their drawing ability. In the layer's palette, a layer can be identified as hidden. This layer will not print and can be used for a template. Thus, the user can bring in an image and trace over it in an active layer.

Expression brings a new meaning to the editing of text. Once a segment of text is defined as a stroke, one can actually draw with it.

Strokes have the ability to be defined as multi-strokes. An example in the tutorial section is an Iris which goes from closed to fully open. One can draw a field of Irises at all stages by selecting random. Since I wanted to create a bitmap of this field, I selected SAVE BITMAP from the FILE menu. I could, then, define its size and resolution and save it in many formats including tiffs, jpegs, bmps, etc.

I believe the program is a good edition to one's collection of programs. If it had the ability to import bitmap based images, I would feel that it was a great addition.

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