Re: Writing tools: Quark, FrameMaker and others

[Sybille Sterk <sybille -at- wowfabgroovy -dot- net>]

At 22:37 06/03/2001, you wrote:

I've just started to get acquainted with FrameMaker (coming from Word 2000) 
and find FrameMaker very awkward and difficult to use. In my humble 
opinion, it is not very intuitive and the learning curve is very steep 
indeed! An additional problem is the documentation that, again im my humble 
opinion, is utter crap! There are no straightforward tutorials, there is 
not straightforward information at all, everything is kept very general and 
there are no detailed instructions on how to do certain things, e.g. how to 
change a template. For example, coming from Word, I expected the templates 
to have a different extension, but they don't have one, they're just 
documents... At the moment I am not a very happy bunny and have to force 
myself to go back to learning FrameMaker every morning. :-(

I've never used Quark for any length of time, but I wasn't too impressed 
with that either... At the moment I wish MacroMedia would bring out a DTP 
program, because their programs are usually brilliantly documented and 
don't have as many bugs as Microsoft products. In addition, they look and 
feel "up-to-date", something that can't really be said about FrameMaker or 
Quark.

Word's fine, if your documents aren't too long and if you don't want cross 
references between different "books" or manuals and as long as you don't 
want to create "clean" HTML from it. I am used to its quirks and they 
usually don't shock me any more. I've probably just learned to live with 
them, and I even use Word to create manuals with 200+ pages. Word also has 
the advantage that everybody can review your documents easily - however, 
you can easily use Adobe Distiller to create PDF files for reviewing. 
That's what I do anyway, if I don't want people to make changes in the 
document itself.

Hope this helps,

Sybille
Sybille Sterk
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Email: sybille -at- wowfabgroovy -dot- net
Web Site: www.wowfabgroovy.net
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"This writing business. Pencils and what-not.
Over-rated, if you ask me. Silly stuff. Nothing in it." -- Eeyore
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


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