Press Release

Boston, MA, May 12, 2000 – North Atlantic Publishing Systems is pleased to announce that a major HNJ Engine™ implementation at New England Business Service (NEBS) has been completed, with HNJ Engine now playing an integral role in NEBS’ powerful e-commerce web site. E-commerce is a major focus of NEBS evolving business strategy and HNJ Engine was selected by NEBS to bring its e-commerce vision of web-based interactive design to reality.

NEBS is a leading business-to-business direct marketing company with 2.5 million active small business customers in the - US, Canada, the UK and France. The NEBS web site, www.nebs.com, offers unique instant composition and online preview features for all of its products, including invoices, checks, business cards, a variety of other business forms, and, most recently, Work Wear clothing products, such as shirts, jackets, sweatshirts, and hats.

HNJ Engine is a unique client-server composition system traditionally used to integrate QuarkXPress™ and MS-Word™ in publishing environments. In this mode, it provides 100% accurate write-to-fit capability to the MS-Word user, batch import and export capability to the QuarkXPress user, and, because of the two-way nature of the composition link, the ability to continue copy editing in both applications throughout the editorial production process.

In the NEBS implementation, HNJ Engine has been customized to provide a composition link between the e-commerce web site and the NEBS in-house QuarkXPress composition system. Any user visiting the NEBS web site can customize and compose imprints, then view results online, in their browser, before placing orders. The web site prompts users for their custom information, then offers choices for font, point size, type style, color, vertical and horizontal positioning, and logo placement. The interface is designed to be extremely easy to use, assuming no particular knowledge of composition or publishing terminology, while at the same time offering a range of sophisticated composition options. Once the data is entered and composition choices are made, the information is passed to one of a bank of HNJ Engine servers that support the site. The custom imprint is generated in QuarkXPress and passed back for online preview to the web site user. The preview shows the selected product (business card, form, shirt, or other NEBS product) with the custom imprint the user has designed. Because it is based on an actual QuarkXPress-composed file, the preview represents the exact results the user will see on the final product.

With the goal of offering its customers unmatched on-line capabilities, NEBS unveiled its first interactive electronic catalog in February 1999, then debuted the HNJ Engine-based online preview of forms products in July 1999. In an April press release, NEBS announced record revenues and earnings for the third quarter of fiscal Year 2000. NEBS Chairman and CEO Robert J. Murray commented, "The promising Internet channel, which is now at an annual revenue run rate of nearly $6 million ... offers considerable growth potential and significantly leverages the strong capabilities we have in order fulfillment and customer service." - In its annual report for the year, NEBS also highlighted "composing on the web" as a major element of its e-commerce agenda going forward.

Since July, North Atlantic has continued to work closely with NEBS to integrate HNJ Engine with all NEBS product lines. The final component of the project, the instant composition and online preview for Work Wear products, was launched on the NEBS web site in December 1999. NEBS reports strong customer satisfaction with the results and expects more and more of its customers to adopt this mode of order placement. "This has been a highly successful project for both companies" said Peter Baumgartner, founder and President of North Atlantic Publishing Systems. "HNJ Engine is a unique product that lends itself to publishing workflows involving content developed outside the final layout followed by final composition in QuarkXPress, so it was the ideal choice to meet NEBS’ goal of accurate composition and on-line preview for its e-commerce customers."

North Atlantic Publishing Systems develops, markets, and supports software products for pre-press publishing. Its philosophy is to provide custom publishing systems built from standard components. NPS 2000™ and HNJ Engine™ are North Atlantic's latest products. They were developed in response to input from thousands of existing users of North Atlantic products, including Workflow Administrator, CopyBridge and CopyFlow. For more information about North Atlantic Publishing Systems and its products, visit the company's web site at www.napsys.com.

NEBS (NYSE:NEB) is a leading provider of business-building and management products and services to more than 2.5 million small businesses worldwide. A progressive business-to-business direct marketer, NEBS has demonstrated an unparalleled ability to reach and service the small business marketplace for nearly 50 years. NEBS maintains a broad array of distinct products and services designed to help small businesses manage and grow their companies such as business forms, greeting cards, workwear, shipping and packaging supplies and ad incentives. NEBS also offers a variety of web-based services, including interactive business- building and management tools and many free web-based services. NEBS distinct brands, services and resources can be accessed at its interactive website at www.nebs.com.

Alice Fackre

North Atlantic Publishing Systems, Inc.

(978) 371-8989

alice@napsys.com

© North Atlantic Publishing Systems, Inc. 2000. All rights reserved.