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I used to be an avid Ventura user (Xerox version 2 through Corel version 7).
However, when 7 was released, I was working for an international company and
needed reassurance that European and Asian versions of the programme (not
just dictionaries and hyphenation) would be available. Corel told me that
they would not even think about that in the first year. So much for European
support.
I know the UK has some Ventura users, Corel Europe is based in Ireland, I
think. In other Western European countries, though, I found Ventura to be
very scarce. I have found quite a few users, in Western Europe, of
FrameMaker, which is available in several Western-European
languages--although, Adobe's distribution seems poorly implemented. However,
in Europe, as here, Word is far and away the favourite tool for tech writing
(perhaps more so than here).
Aside from the lack of international commitment, another reason I jumped
ship from Ventura to FrameMaker was my personal disappointment with the
target audience of Ventura 7 and the stability of the software. I had been
disappointed with Ventura 5, the previous release, and had lived with what I
considered increasing bloat and instability of CorelDRAW! from version 2 to
8. With the introduction of version 7, I surmised that Ventura was headed to
the same place as DRAW!
Indeed, I cannot agree more that Ventura boasts an excellent feature set and
a great price. Furthermore, I cannot speak for the latest version of this
venerable DTP software tool. However, my experience was that advertised
features failed to work and cut into productivity big-time.
Nonetheless, maybe the current service release of the current Ventura
version is bucking that trend. I must agree that you ought consider the
Ventura package. From experience, though, I recommend you don't believe the
features all work as advertised and I recommend you test, heavily.
FrameMaker has a smaller feature set. FrameMaker 6 won't expand on the
feature set much. However, I have found FrameMaker's productivity to be very
much better than Ventura's.
Best regards,
Sean
sean -at- quodata -dot- com
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chris Kowalchuk [SMTP:chris -at- bdk -dot- net]
>
>
> Since your options appear to be open, may I suggest that you also look
> seriously at Corel Ventura instead of FrameMaker.
>
> -it is just as powerful in most repects, if not moreso in some
> -it is much cheaper to buy
> -it includes a utility for formatting and publishing information
> directly from a Database (over 20 database formats supported--Corel
> Database Publisher)
> -it can import/export just about any graphics format under the sun
>
> Anyway, you don't need the promo from me, but might want to check it out
> at Corel.com. I see very little mention of it on the list, but that is a
> shame because it really is a powerful program (especially version 8). I
> suspect it might be used more commonly in Europe than it is in North
> America, as Corel seems to have a stronger European presence for some of
> its products.
