Re: OK, Frame's the obvious choice for long documents BUT...

[Margaret Penman <Margaret -dot- Penman -at- ITS -dot- CSIRO -dot- AU>]

On Wed, 18 Jan 1995, Patrick O'Connell wrote:
> I read with disbelief the results of Mike LaTorra's Frame-vs.-Word survey.

First of all, thanks Mike's, I found your survey very informative. I think
that like all things in life, it's a case of "horses for courses".

I find Word 6 quick and easy to use, which is probably a reflection of
the type of work I do.  Word has one huge advantage over FrameMaker,
well at least for me.

In conjunction with a package called HDK, I can write Windows style on-line
doco VERY QUICKLY and VERY, VERY, easily.

I can even convert existing Word documents, e.g. I can convert a 100 page
document in under 3 minutes.  HDK:
  -  uses Words standard headings to define where a "topic" starts and ends
     and to create the hypertext Table of Contents,
  -  converts all the index references to "search" keys, and
  -  converts your cross references to hypertext links.

So after writing the text I just press a few buttons and WHAMO, 3 minutes
later I have an on-line document.

This means I can write the hard copy product, take a razor to the same text
and edit to make it "suitable" (although not ideal) for on-line
presentation and convert it in a matter of minutes.

Now, I don't want to start an argument about the problems in trying to write
one document to serve both hardcopy and on-line mediums. This is not a
perfect world and when the budget is tight, this Word/HDK combination provides
a reasonable compromise.  What I'm trying to say is that for some writers
Word 6 might actually have some advantages.

BTW, you can also use Word/HDK to produce context sensitive help for
Windows packages but that's not applicable to my present work.

Regards,
Margaret Penman (From Oz)
margaret -dot- penman -at- its -dot- csiro -dot- au