Re: Whither FrameMaker? or, should they switch?

[Scott Turner <sturner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>A client asked me a multipart question about FrameMaker. I
>know some of the answer from the community's long and
>heated discussions about it: what is FrameMaker's future at
>Adobe's hands? Has Frame become a second-class citizen in
>their lineup? That's the first part. (I'm not bothering to
>subscribe to the other list for this effort but I know
>perfectly well that at least two Frame managers lurk there,
>which I consider a hopeful sign.) On the other hand, no one
>seems to have pounded the existence and market of Frame
>into their marketing-weenies' thick heads and rosy visions,
>so that's an iffy question. By way of hanging out a
>windsock, what's your current impressions on that front?

It will continue. Buy the product.

>Second part question is much simpler: if one were to
>migrate a training department's publications to another DTP
>product, what might be suitable? InDesign? QuarkXpress?
>Anything else? (Whatever it is should be available for the
>Macintosh platform and support it well.)

FrameMaker is still the best for this type of document.

>And finally, my own question to you all: if you had
>FrameMaker files & books that had started life as Frame 3
>files on the NeXT platform that used PostScript code for
>graphics (NeXT used Display PS onscreen), and had now been
>migrated to Frame 5.5 files on Windows NT 4.0 with OLE
>graphics, would you attribute such things as the regular
>and involuntary breaking of flows to the ghosts of the past
>buried in the files' code? Or is Adobe's stated non-support
>of OLE (per Frame/Windows tech support 1/14/2000) a more
>likely suspect for the fragility of these files, which
>incorporate an average of 20 half-page OLE graphics per
>file in the book?

Expect OLE to break, often, and with malice aforethought.

I don't have much respect for WinNT either.

Scott

---------------
Scott Turner
CSI, Inc.
Engineering Services, Senior Technical Writer
972-323-5532
scott_turner@csicontrols.com

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