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If the people running your startup really want to save money on software, why
aren't they using OpenOffice.org instead of Word? Free is very cheap. Perfect for
startups. If they're willing to shell out $500 per person for MS Office for a
whole bunch of engineers, but not $1000 (appr.?) for Framemaker for a few
techwriters, that's, well, inconsistent..
Plain old reasons to use Frame include:
- Much better ability to mix and match content and reuse a chapter here and
there, since Frame book files actually work.
- Likewise, better ability for approaching singlesourcing, with conditional text.
Got three products with different navigation and two other things that are
different? Frame handles it no problem. I haven't used Word in a while but I
don't imagine it can do it as well.
- You can get more done more efficiently with Frame, if only because it's not
crashing and doing bizarre things all the time. If they're paying you anything
above minimum wage, they'll make back the money in productivity if not actual
cash.
- If you want to send around online edits, you can send PDF and the reviewers can
add annotations. No need to send the editable source in Word.
- If you have Frame and Webworks, you have major power for HTML docs that are
quick to produce and look very professional and un-startupy. These can be put on
the web (like BEA, http://edocs.bea.com ) or included as the online help or be
slightly interactive tutorials or whatever. Huge amount of power.
Btw, OOo has a really nice drawing program built in, somewhat like Corel Draw or
Canvas with some pretty gnarly 3D tools. Not sure if you've already tried it but
I'd definitely suggest doing so, since it seems unlikely that your employer would
want to spend the money for Illustrator, Photoshop, etc. It's great for technical
diagrams since it has Visio-like connector lines, and it outputs to not just GIF
et al but SVG and EPS (File > Export, not File > Save As). Simple download page
at my site, www.getopenoffice.org/download.html
My $.02, HTH,
Solveig
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
solveig -at- getopenoffice -dot- org
OpenOffice.org Training and Books
www.getopenoffice.org
"OpenOffice.org Resource Kit"
>
>
> At 04:27 PM 6/11/2003 -0700, Charles J. Reid wrote:
>
> >Greetings, Folks!
> >
> >Does anyone know approximately (ball park) how many Framemaker users there
> >are in the US and perhaps world wide? In a start up where most engineers
> >use Word, technical communicators have to present the facts to justify the
> >expenditure for the Adobe doc production suite. Appreciate it if anyone
> >has any info on this.
>
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>
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