Re: A Good Word for Word 6

[David Demyan <concord -at- IX -dot- NETCOM -dot- COM>]

Richard Davenport wrote, in response to Susan Kloster's plea for favorable
responses about Word (vs. FrameMaker):

>Microsoft Word 6.0 is a terrific word and document processor. It is also an
>adequate desktop publishing package for projects that are consistently and
>minimally formatted.

(snip)

>Going to Word is a good move. Higher-end desktop publishing packages are
>terrific. But for a wider company audience, they make your documents more
>difficult to access.

Richard has some good points here that really fill in some of the gaps (on
the Word side) from my own response to Susan, where I essentially said that
Word is good for letter writing and mass mailings, Frame was much better
at technical documents that require Frame's many and sophisicated features.

Richard's letter reminded me of another point, one that is thoroughly
discussed in another thread on this list: Word is a convenient (and some-
times required) step in the evolution to Windows Help creation. Without
belaboring the different approaches to creating WinHelp, I think it is
easier to do if the documents you are excerpting for your Help files
exist in Word, rather than, say, FrameMaker. This assumes, of course, that
your aim is to create executable Windows Help files, not Frame's version,
FrameViewer, which requires the user to buy reader software.

I digress. I agree with Richard's point that using Word for Windows in a
corporation that has standardized on that platform can make life easier
on the output side of the equation. Further, it likely makes it easier to
evolve to WinHelp.

Dave Demyan                   ***                 Mendem Concord, Inc.
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