Business firms, upscale professionals, and government agencies have all discovered the power of the World Wide Web for information exchange. Educational institutions, including libraries, are presently making a large-scale push in this direction. Future trends will probably include a shift from promotional, public relations and directory functions to the inclusion of bibliographic records and other forms of electronic data on websites. The choice of the appropriate software - based on one's background knowledge and ambition in design - represents a key facet of Web site development. The following companies all offer first-rate products that can be adapted to the developer's Web site needs.

Adobe. http://www.adobe.com

Its Photoshop 4.0 optimizes the preparation of graphics for use on Web sites.

Design Intelligence. http://www.designintelligence.com

IPublish was developed with the aim of helping novices integrate print documents, Web pages, and on-screen presentations. By facilitating the transformation of templates, the user can experiment with different designs quickly and effortlessly.

Digimarc Corporation. http://www.digimarc.com

PictureMarc is a digital watermarking product which provides protect to Web authors employing copyrighted images.

Live Picture Corporation. http://www.livepicture.com

Reality Studio is primed for release in late spring 1998. It is said to be more a virtual reality tool kit for the Web and intranets than a mere Web site creation tool.

Macromedia. http://www.macromedia.com

Dreamweaver represents a cross between a page layout program and a visually-oriented multimedia authoring tool. You create a core Web page and then assign any of a variety of behavior to the objects on the page.

Microsoft. http://www.microsoft.com

FrontPage 97 possesses two notable advantages: it facilites Web page development without a knowledge of html and it is highly compatible with other Microsoft applications (e.g., Office 97). The Bonus Pack includes Microsoft's personal Web server, a thesaurus, Internal Explorer, image composer, an image editing module, and Source Safe Access for managin g and tracking versions of Web pages.

NetObjects. http://www.netobjects.com

Its Fusion 2.0 enables users to create and manage entire Web sites, not just individual pages.

Pantone. http://www.pantone.com

ColorWeb Pro can be used to specify colors for Web-stie design and to match print colors to on-screen designs.