Re: FrameMaker Replacements

[balson <balson@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

	OpenOffice (OO) vs Frame. I did an evaluation and found OO to be lacking 
in several areas, and I'm not even a professional writer, although I do write as 
part of my profession.
	
	2 things were killers for me when doing this comparison and both had to 
do with PDF creation.
	
	- OO does not do PDF bookmarks (at least not in the version I am 
	  using)
	- OO could create PDF files with clean graphics in them. Very 
	  unprofessional.

	As an example of this, I have created a one page web site that provides 
examples of the bad graphics conversions when using OO.


	
	http://home.comcast.net/~xperf//frame/OO_vs_Frame.html


	OO looks and feels more modern. But Frame just gives me more control 
with what I am working with. It was a no brainer to go with Frame.


Jim (long time listener, but this is my first post to the group)




>X-Originating-IP: [161.58.11.94]
>Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 15:13:34 -0800
>From: Chuck Hastings <cwh2@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.9 (Windows/20041103)
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>MIME-Version: 1.0
>To: Rick Quatro <frameexpert@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
>CC: framers@xxxxxxxxx
>Subject: Re: FrameMaker Replacements
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>X-Mail-Loop: 1
>
>Hello Framers,
>
>My expertise is modest compared to that of many of you.  I will report 
>on my experience so far with
>two authoring tools that I've recently tried out:  Open Office 1.1, and 
>LyX.  Both are open-source
>and may be downloaded FREE, and may not be well-known to Windows users.
>
>Open Office, as I understand it, was originally developed by Sun but was 
>released by Sun into the
>freeware world as competition for Microsoft Word.  It handled a 2Mbyte 
>novel as a single file, quite
>well, for me recently.  It is much more like Word than like FrameMaker.  
>It can deal well with .doc files
>and with .rtf files, so there's more than one path from FrameMaker to 
>Open Office and back.  I'm
>running it under Ubuntu Linux, a recent South African import  (and also 
>freeware)  which is designed
>to be friendlier and less geekoid than some other versions of Linux, and 
>more similar in some ways
>to Windows in its look and feel.  Open Office has a somewhat different 
>look and feel than Word, but
>it can do most of the same things except for Word Count.  It comes with 
>a somewhat restricted set of
>fonts, but   (after some expert advice)  I was able to greatly expand 
>its fonts repertoire.
>
>LyX is a more human-friendly/less-geekoid front end for LaTeX, which is 
>in turn a more human-friendly/
>less-geekoid front end for TeX  (the typesetting program created by 
>Donald Knuth).  Shockingly, the
>LyX community seems utterly ignorant of the existence of FrameMaker, and 
>LyX tutorials are full of
>annoying geekoid putdowns of Word and of WordPerfect.  LyX is most of 
>the way to word-processor
>convenience, but not quite all the way;  and an author's freedom is 
>severely restricted with respect to
>such matters as spacing, which the geekoid contingent touts as an 
>ADVANTAGE!.  On the plus side,
>the LyX/LaTeX/TeX machinery WORKS.  And it's very strong in its ability 
>to handle math and equations.
>
>
>My comments:  I can foresee FrameMaker being thrust into the freeware 
>domain by Adobe, as Open
>Office was sent out into the world by Sun.  I'd love to see Linux 
>FrameMaker revived, and consider its
>abandonment by Adobe to have been a classic business booboo comparable 
>to VW abandoning the original
>Beetle, AMC abandoning the Javelin, and now GM abandoning the Camaro.  
>(All of these were cars with
>a ferociously loyal cult following.) 
>
>Most of the things claimed by LyX partisans as extra capabilities, 
>beyond those of Word and WordPerfect,
>are things that FrameMaker DOES.  The astonishing zero overlap between 
>the FrameMaker community and
>the LyX/LaTeX  community is partly sociological;  FrameMaker is largely 
>used in the for-profit world, and
>LyX/LaTeX is mostly  (and very widely)  used in academia. 
>
>But both Open Office and LyX/LaTeX do have two huge advantages:  (1)  
>They're FREE, and once you have
>either of them no company can try to take it away from you.  (2)  They 
>run under Linux, like Mozilla Firefox and
>Mozilla Thunderbird which shield you against viruses and spyware 
>incomparably better than do Windows and
>Internet Explorer respectively.
>
>The original question was about handling long documents.  FrameMaker of 
>course does this without even
>breathing hard;  I used it for most work on my novel, and I didn't even 
>bother separating chapters into files
>and using the slick FrameMaker  'book'  feature.  I realize that perhaps 
>some of you may not consider a
>2Mbyte novel as a  'long document,' but it's long enough to have 
>occasioned some hiccups when edited using
>Microsoft Word.
>
>
>Chuck Hastings                 Vintage Silicon Logic, 
>Seattle                         cwh2@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>
>=============================================================================
>
>
>Rick Quatro wrote:
>
>>Hello Framers,
>>
>>With the recent discussion about the future of FrameMaker, perhaps a
>>FrameMaker Replacements thread may be useful. Is anyone experimenting with
>>other long-document programs out there? Can you give any information on
>>pros, cons, features, etc., especially as they relate to FrameMaker?
>>
>>One particular interest I have is how other programs support scripting and
>>automation.
>>
>>Note that this post is not meant to be an anti-Adobe rant or to further
>>speculate on FrameMaker's future.
>>
>>Rick Quatro
>>Carmen Publishing
>>585 659-8267
>>rick@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>www.frameexpert.com
>>
>>
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>
>
>
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-----------------------
Jim
balson AT comcast DOT net



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