Re: Ventura vs. Framemaker

[joemiller -at- canberra -dot- com]

Paul Moloney asked if Ventura is a viable choice for "printed/online
documentation needs".  Ventura has always been and still is the best
candidate for long document publishing.  It has the ability to
automate or semi-automate many of your everyday publishing needs.  The
included robust and feature rich scripting (macro) language is
supported by both peers and Corel's volunteer C_Techs in the Ventura
newsgroup at:
http://www.corel.com/support/options/online_newsgroups.htm#ventura

Version 8 is much, much better than any previous version of Ventura,
and is far more stable than the ill designed version 7, and with the
best designed and easiest to use interface.  Despite the rumors of its
demise, version 8 has had two updates in the last couple of years, is
still sold and still has Corel's ongoing support.  Though there's not
been any official word yet, there's a very strong likelihood that
there's another version in process, even as we speak.

Creating a fully functional PDF from a Ventura file, complete with
bookmarks and hyperlinks is, despite what you may have heard, a simple
two-button process  (I may be exaggerating here; it might be three
buttons  <g>).

To be sure, FrameMaker is very stable... because it has far fewer
features and the last several updates have primarily been bug fixes,
rather than new features which might not work well in their first
release.  If it does little, there's little that can go wrong.

FrameMaker's HTML output is so poor that you have to by another
application, Quadralay's Webworks Publisher ($500) and either learn
how to program it to convert Frame's HTML to usable HTML or hire a
consultant to do it for you.

Ventura's HTML output, on the other hand, is without question the best
among the major publishing packages, and includes:

General
  Base font size
  Point to HTML size
  Convert tabs to selected number of spaces (yes/no)

Header
  Title
  Comment
  Base URL
  Meta Information

Frames
  Create frames (yes/no)
  Specify frame properties
  Select frame background, if desired
  Create Ventura "combobox", including:
    ToC (yes/no)
    Index (yes/no)
    List of chapters (yes/no)
    List of figures (yes/no)

Cascading Style Sheets
  Use CSS (yes/no)
  If yes, select:
    Link to generated style sheet
    Embed style sheet in each file
    Link to external style sheet

Text
  Change the default HMTL tag for any Ventura tag
    Font size, color and bold, italic, etc. attributes
    Alignment and spacing
    Above and below rules
    Icon before or after
    Set list item to bulleted or numbered and numbering style
    Define custom opening/closing HTML tags

Pictures
  Publish (yes/no)
    If yes, convert to GIF, JPG or PNG
  Copy linked GIF, JPG
  Show inline image or thumbnail link or text link
  Set border thickness and above and below space in pixels.

Links
  Create ToC from Ventura ToC (yes/no)
    If yes, as bulleted/numbered list
  Create Index from Ventura Index  (yes/no)
  Convert Ventura cross-refs to hyperlinks


Caveat:  Though you can convert Ventura's HTML output to HTML help via
a help authoring tool (such as ForeHelp, as we do), it's not as
straightforward as running Frame's HTML output through a Webworks
Publisher carefully programmed conversion routine.

Best Regards,
Joe Miller
Senior Publications Editor
Canberra Industries, Inc.
(Connecticut, USA)
joemiller -at- canberra -dot- com

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