Re: conditional text without FrameMaker?

[Beth Friedman <bjf -at- WAVEFRONT -dot- COM>]

At 12:06 PM 7/2/99 -0400, Melissa Fisher wrote:
>Hi! Our marketing director just came by to ask about a problem he's having
>producing our price list. We produce different versions with their own
>variations of products and prices, and currently they are maintained as
>
>separate PageMaker documents. He asked me if he could use FrameMaker to
>produce all the
>versions from one source. Of course I told him he could, but considering
>this is
>the only document he'd need FrameMaker for, FrameMaker's steep price and
>learning curve make it more than a little unattractive (and I agree with
>that
>assessment).
>
>Ideally I think he'd like some kind of database tool to produce the list
>
>from. Does anyone out there have any ideas? This is not a high-gloss
>production, so as a word-processor or page layout application the tool
does
>not have to be very sophisticated.
>
>Anyone ever accomplished something like this before with a package other
>than FrameMaker?

It really depends on what sort of conditional text you need.  I've done
some pretty fancy stuff in Word, using a combination of bookmarks, field
codes, and hidden text.  I was even able to hand it off to someone else to
maintain -- though the someone else was pretty sharp; I'm not sure just
anyone could have managed it.

But in your case, it does sound like a database might be the way to go.
That way you can have consistent layout, but vary content as needed.


--
"UNIX is user friendly. It's just selective about who its friends are."
Beth Friedman
bjf -at- wavefront -dot- com

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