Re: cross reference between documents

[Tim Altom <taltom -at- IQUEST -dot- NET>]

At 01:52 PM 11/14/97 EST, you wrote:
>Ooops! I think I just re-posted Tim Altom's entire message. Sorry about that;
>I'm still getting used to the email here.
>
>What I meant to do was express my opinion that Tim's response isn't
>particularly helpful to the original poster. There's a way of referencing
>text in external documents with Word (I don't remember the specifics); if I
>were the one asking the question, I'd expect suggestions on how to do it in
>Word (there's probably a Word-specific list, though), not a recommendation to
>throw away what I have, spend a bundle on Frame, learn how to use it, convert
>everything over...
>
>The Frame vs. Word war can't be won by either side. If there's a way to do
>what you need to do with the tool you already have and know how to use,
>there's absolutely no reason to throw it away.
>
>Just my two cents' worth. My opinion only.
>
>John R. Sullivan
>Stratus Computer
>
>
Sorry, John, but I'm afraid it won't wash. You can't make a slide rule work
like a computer. Yeah, I've tried to push Word to the wall doing external
reference updates, but it's always fragile and shaky. It never works
completely right, and the time and effort you spend trying to design it,
tinker with it, and wrestle with it are better spent on a tool that does the
job right out of the box. And if external reference updating is only the
beginning, then Frame is the only common tool that's going to have the
capabilities to do the advanced stuff. There's no war involved. Word is good
for Word's limited purposes. I use it, and so do many of our clients. But
it's a slide rule. It won't do what the poster was asking it to do, not
reliably. And the poster didn't say "I have to do this in Word." She asked
for advice. And my advice, for what it's worth from somebody who's run a
billy blue million pieces of layout and WP software, is that Word isn't up
to her job.



Tim Altom
Vice President, Simply Written, Inc.
317.899.5882 (voice) 317.899.5987 (fax)
FrameMaker support  ForeHelp support
FrameMaker Conversions
PDF Consulting and Production


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