Re: word processing vs. desktop publishing

[Stephanie Goble <Stephaniex_goble -at- CCM -dot- CH -dot- INTEL -dot- COM>]

"Kamela J. Salyers" <kjsalyer -at- prairienet -dot- org> wrote:

{snip}
> The new manager is questioning WHY we need to use DTP software and why a word
> processing package won't meet our needs. (BTW, WordPerfect is the company-wide
> package. Ventura is our DTP; however, approval was given to switch to
> FrameMaker. Of course the switch is depending on whether or not we
> actually need a DTP system.)

> Can anyone help me with advantages and disadvantages? IMHO, we should use
> DTP software.

Kammi -
  You should probably be using DTP software IF your manuals are
large (can you get the ENTIRE manual into a single file for WP
without crashing), heavily illustrated, heavily crossreferenced,
have lots of tables.
or if you could simplify your task by using "conditional" text
(useful if you have two or more manuals with large areas of
similarity because you can treat them as a single manual until you
print).
  Despite their claims to be DTP-strength, WP, Word, Ami, etc. are
not designed to handle the special demands of the typical large,
fully cross-referenced, heavily illustrated technical manual.  I can
load 12 MEGABYTES of plain text into Word for Windows ... but it gets
flakey and slow when asked to manipulate more than 50 pages of formatted text
 with
tables in landscape format.

Stephanie