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Isn't Corel's main European office in Ireland? Maybe that proximity will
help you with Ventura? Rumors of Ventura's demise have been ongoing since
the Xerox days, and are just as speculative as similar rumors of
FrameMaker's demise. Don't believe the rumors.
I switched from Ventura to FrameMaker full-time at Ventura 7. I have found
Ventura to offer a tonne of features, at an excellent price. The gotcha is
that I have personally found Ventura's features to not work as advertised
and the product to be generally unreliable. However, while I do have Ventura
8, I have no experience with it, so it is possible that the latest version
of Ventura is more reliable and it is certainly possible that more than 50%
of the advertised features now work. FrameMaker is pretty bullet-proof, but
offers fewer features than Ventura and an uglier interface. FrameMaker
suffers a lack of import/export filters in comparison to Ventura. However,
my workflow is and has been much, much, much more productive with FrameMaker
because of FrameMaker's stability. Adobe support for FrameMaker and
peer-to-peer support for FrameMaker is also, in my experience, much better
than that for the Corel product. Another reason I switched was
foreign-language support. That is, when Ventura 7 was released, I asked
about and needed Western European versions of the product, not immediately,
but in 12 months or so. Corel had no plans to translate the Ventura
interface and doc set into anything other than US English and Canadian.
Adobe did and does translate the FrameMaker interface into several Western
European languages--although you should note that FrameMaker does **not**
support Unicode, which can be a major hindrance for supporting some
non-Romance languages.
Also, for a software guy like me, FrameMaker publications migrate better to
HTML/XML, PDF, and online help (via WebWorks Publisher Professional and
ForeHelp) than do Ventura publications.
If print is a deliverable you need, then ForeHelp and Dreamweaver are not
contenders, IMHO. I'd pick Ventura and FrameMaker before either of these.
HTH,
Sean
sean -at- quodata -dot- com
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Moloney [SMTP:paul -dot- moloney -at- seprobilling -dot- com]
> I'm currently reviewing several
> applications, including FrameMaker, Forehelp
> Premiere and Dreamweaver, for
> our printed/online documentation needs.
> One other option is Ventura; however,
> I've heard that these days, it isn't
> very good, not used by many, and
> quite likely for the chop. Is this true?
> Should I devote some time to it?
> Thanks,
>
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