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Subject:Re: The case against M$ Word From:"Peter Gold" <peter -at- knowhowpro -dot- com> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Wed, 29 Oct 2008 06:34:33 -0500
quills -at- airmail -dot- net wrote:
> [snip] And if FrameMaker is more than your company needs, then
> (and I say this without knowing just what your company needs)
> InDesign is probably more than it needs too. [/snip]
I agree.
Gary Schnabl <gSchnabl -at- LivernoisYards -dot- com> wrote:
> My guess is that FrameMaker is nearing its EOL, and that
> InDesign will
> eventually totally replace it.
IMO, it's unlikely that ID will replace FM at least not before the
range of help-authoring formats stops evolving. FM and RoboHelp play
very well together in Adobe's current Technical Communications Suite,
and will likely improve further in future TCS releases.
FrameMaker and other component tools of TCS are under active development.
> Those FrameMaker areas/functions
> that InDesign couldn't do are disappearing fast as InDesign CSx
> gets further and further developed.
Again IMO, the main differentiation between FM and ID, especially
since the introduction in ID CS4 of conditional text,
cross-references, and automatic new-page creation (like word
processors), is that ID's main users - designers and print-production
workers - have little need for help authoring. It depends upon whether
Adobe sees a good ROI case for developing a HAT within ID.
Regarding typographic quality differences between FM and ID, the
reason is that FM, like all word-processors and almost all DTP tools,
computes H&J line-by-line, and ID's default method computes H&J over
all the lines in a paragraph (though it can be dumbed-down to
line-by-line.)
Regards,
Peter
__________________
Peter Gold
KnowHow ProServices
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