TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Demo versions of FrameMaker are kind of useless, IMHO, because there is no
Save option. Aside from the obvious limitations of that, you are also
prevented--I believe--from creating indices, generated tables, like TOC, and
cross-references. I'm not sure these limitations make the demo worthwhile
for a classroom environment. The best path, I think, is to buy as many seats
as you need using Adobe's very generous educational discounts </jealousy>.
I am concerned about the length of the class described by the original
poster. FrameMaker does not have a Windowsy look and feel, that makes the
learning curve a little steeper. Folks who have experienced Corel Ventura,
Interleaf, or even PageMaker and Quark will have a leg-up on the Microsoft
Word set. Nonetheless, the class might be short enough just to frustrate the
students.
In short, FrameMaker is a tool that is commonly used in tech writing. I
recommend if you are considering teaching a class on FrameMaker, that you
buy the software, get Adobe's Classroom in a Book for FrameMaker and
FrameMaker for Dummies, and get comfy with the software create some
documents. After that, I recommend you wrap up by taking a beginner and
intermediate class in FrameMaker from an Adobe certified trainer. After all
of that investment, I think a teacher would have enough information to
determine what students could learn in how much time.
Best regards,
Sean
sean -at- quodata -dot- com
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ridder, Fred [SMTP:Fred -dot- Ridder -at- Dialogic -dot- com]
> Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2000 9:28 AM
> To: TECHWR-L
> Subject: RE: Framemaker vs. Pagemaker
>
> In responding to Jessica's query about whether to teach FrameMaker
> vs. PageMaker, Patty Ewy <pewy -at- GreatPlains -dot- com> wrote (in part):
>
> >You might also see if you can get a trial version of Frame, so that at
> least
> >the students can see how it works.
>
> If you know anyone who owns a copy of FrameMaker and who
> is willing to loan you their product CD for a while, you can install demo
> versions of FrameMaker on as many computers as you want to.