TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
I was where you are, four months ago. When I was hired for a start-up, I
was given full responsibility for the documentation department. One of my
decisions involved which documentation tool to standardize on. I can tell
you, InDesign was never one of the choices. It is a great tool and it is
part of my personal Adobe Cloud package but I wouldn't use it for anything
more than marketing literature.
Considering my ten year background with FrameMaker, I was going to choose
the tool I was familiar with but this company required single source
documentation to PDF and Web... FrameMaker isn't quite up to that task! My
final decision was MadCap Flare. It was a risk, accompanied by a bit of a
learning curve but I do not regret my decision. I love how Flare's source
is all plain text web based HTML, XML, XHTML, and css. With little effort,
you can output documents to many different formats and it is just brilliant
for single sourcing.
Check out their marketing videos... if anything you'll get a laugh out of
them.
madcapsoftware.com <http://www.madcapsoftware.com/>
On Mon, Sep 23, 2013 at 5:24 AM, Rick Quatro <rick -at- rickquatro -dot- com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am new to the list and work with both FrameMaker and InDesign. I am
> working with a client that is looking at using InDesign for their technical
> documentation. They want to know if other tech writers are using InDesign,
> as opposed to FrameMaker or Word, etc. Does anyone know of any data or
> surveys that might show where InDesign stands in the technical publications
> world? Thank you very much.
>
> Rick
>
> Rick Quatro
> Carmen Publishing Inc.
> 585-283-5045
> rick -at- frameexpert -dot- com
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
Shawn Connelly
technical writer
<http://convergent.io> <shawn -at- convergent -dot- io>
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
New! Doc-to-Help 2013 features the industry's first HTML5 editor for authoring.