Re: TECH/TOOLS: Need more opinions (long-ish)

[Sarah Carroll <sarahc -at- INDIGO -dot- IE>]

Hi Paul,
At 16:06 26/11/97 -0500, Branchaud, Paul wrote:
>I was also told to evaluate the possibility of migrating the
>Technical Writing department (all two of us) from our current
>Windows 95 to Macintosh.

Why? IMHO, when working with tech docs, there's little difference
between the two.  Also, what are the other departments using? What
about your network? Archiving? Comms? And tech support?

>We will be delivering online docs first (~1000 pages) with the
>possibility of print manuals later. Color printing is still undecided at
>this time. We might also be creating multimedia presentations to
>demonstrate the product to customers. Macromedia Director and Quark
>Imedia have been mentioned as possible programs (I know Imedia is Mac
>only...).

Will your readers (of the online docs) be working on Mac or PC? For me
this would be the critical issue, you will need to test on whatever platform
you will be delivering on. Ditto, with some reservations about the multimedia
presentations. I'm stuck with a PC these days, and find using Director a bit
of a pain on PC, much prefer to do any graphic or visuals on the Mac, but
if the presentation will run on PC's mainly, and you create it on the Mac, you
will need to test on PC to ensure font compatibility, colour, jumps etc.

>What I would like to know (ASAP to boot!) is how will productivity and
>performance be affected with either of these platforms. I would be
>especially interested in hearing from people who have worked in a Mac/PC
>environment. I know Adobe products are supposed to be fully "binary
>compatible" (go from Mac to PC to Unix with the same file), so how would
>we be affected if our print shop had a different platform from us. Both
>local Adobe vendors seem to have a Mac inclination (one is a confirmed
>Mac hugger/PC detractor), although one admitted that performance would
>probably be equal between a P2 and a PowerPC.

In terms of productivity, you need to add in the human element before
the software - how long will it take you and your co-worker to get right up to
speed doing the everyday things - like backups, file management, comms,
etc. The software works the same on both platforms, mainly. Your print shop
should go with what you want. If you're sending them FrameMaker files, you're
probably better off sending them postscript files in any case. You don't have
to try and convert them, nor they you.

Enjoy! Best
Sarah
sarahc -at- indigo -dot- ie

	http://www.documentation.com/, or http://www.dejanews.com/