TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:R: Word vs. Pagemaker From:Alessandro Bottoni <albo -at- CADLAB -dot- IT> Date:Tue, 13 Jan 1998 09:25:48 +0100
Answering to
Mike Johnson
OEC Medical Systems
Salt Lake City, UT=20
michaelj -at- oecmed -dot- com
about Word vs PageMaker comparison:
it is not fair to compare a Word Processor like MS Word with a much more
powerful and expensive DTP system like Adobe PageMaker.
Word WAS NOT designed to manage large and complex documents, that is the
reason why it is not good at doing it.
Word grew up from a simple text processor to a fairly complex and powerful
text editing system. IMHO it is doing much more than I would expect from a
system like that.
The real mistake (or fraud) is not in Word's source code or in MS marketing
policy (MS try to sell as many copies of its programs as it can, of course,
and it does not promise you anything that Word cannot do) but in the
unjustified expectations of customers.
We should understand that if we want to make publishing (not text
processing), we need a publishing system, not a word processor.
I hope to not having hurt you with my considerations...
