Re: Anyone Else Out There Like....

[Geoff Lane <geoff -at- GJCTECH -dot- FORCE9 -dot- NET>]

On 29 September, Pat Gantt asked:

> Anyone Else Out There Like....
>Corel Suite 8?
>
>Are there any other programs you favor
>for technical communications *besides*
>RoboHelp?
>
>Anyone?
>
>Cheers <smirking> Happy Monday to all.
>

Pat,

I wonder why you are smirking.  Perhaps you expect everyone to decry Corel
products in general.  Perhaps you've just heard about Corel's Q4 return.
Whatever:-

FWIW, I use Corel Office Professional 7 by preference.  The only reason I
haven't upgraded to version 8 is that I don't believe in fixing things that
are not broken.

If you want to produce Windows Help then you haven't much choice but use a
Word add-on (e.g. RoboHelp and D2H).  Of course, you can always do this
'raw', in which case WPWin7 produces a better RTF than does Word 8 <grin>.
Any developers out there care to produce a Help add-on for WPWin?

If you're into technical documentation, you're PC-based, and you don't want
to produce help then you should probably take a fresh look at Corel
products.  They have just about everything you need and you can build the
whole shebang *very* cheaply (for less than the cost of Frame).

WPWin handles word processing.  This is so much more versatile than Word or
Word Pro.  FWIW, I look on it as 'paragraph-based' DTP.  Heck, it even has a
good implementation of SGML!  Sure, it's a culture shock to Word users, but
persevere and you'll find an ease of use and a wealth of features that just
aren't available elsewhere.  WPWin will handle most of your documentation
needs but it does fall short with *very* long documents and where you need
colour separation.  Now this is where ...

... Ventura comes in.  This is a fully featured DTP package, complete with
Corel Script (for all the automation you need).  It produces good HTML and
has a very impressive import and export file format list.

Now, I hear cries of "What about ... ?"
Graphics?  -- you get the Corel Draw! 6 illustrator with OP7, and Photopaint
6 with VP7.
Presentations? -- you get Presentations 7 with OP7.
Portable documents? -- you get the full Envoy product with OP7.
Databases? -- you get Paradox 7 with OP7.
Spreadsheets? -- you get Quattro Pro 7 with OP7.
BTW, with Office Professional 7 and Ventura 7, Corel include a wealth of
other 'extras'.

Now for the costs.  I refer to ex-VAT prices in UK (where Framemaker 5.1
costs £399 and Framemaker 5.1 +SGML cost £715).  Office Professional 7
competitive upgrade costs £118 and a further £139 upgrades this to include
Ventura 7.  BTW, I've specified the upgrade price for OP7 because you can
upgrade from just about any word processor, spreadsheet, database, or
integrated package  --  the full cost (if you can't buy the upgrade) is only
£182.  This brings the total cost (in UK) to £257 for the upgrade route and
£321 otherwise.  This is less than half the price of Frame 5.1 +SGML (which
has much less functionality) -- 'nuff said?

Standing by for cries of indignation <grin>.

Geoff
geoff -at- gjctech -dot- force9 -dot- co -dot- uk

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