[Hidden-tech] Framemaker

[Roger Williams]

>>>>> Linda Taylor <lintaylor at verizon.net> writes:

  > Thank you for your comments on Framemaker. As I feared you just can't do a
  > lot of things I want to do. Although there are loyal users who value it
  > for long books, I think other layout programs are catching up and are more
  > commonly used by publishers...

Amazingly, Framemaker is still the sole product Adobe suggests for technical
communication.  The irony is not lost on folks actually involved in technical
communication, who are still shaking their heads over Adobe's decision to
effectively kill FM five years ago when they decided not to port it to OSX and
dropped all other non-Windows platforms.

Unfortunately, I have yet to talk to a technical writer who has come up with a
suitable alternative; if you want an app that will do both authoring and
publishing, like FrameMaker, there simply isn't one.  We've evaluated inDesign,
Ragtime, Papyrus, KWord, Mellel, and OpenOffice, and none of them quite fit
the bill.  For now, we're running Windows FM7 under Parallels (or Wine), which
is quite painful.

I'd be very interested in hearing what solution other technical writers -- and
technical publishers! -- have come up with!

-- 
Roger Williams <roger at qux.com>
Chief Technical Officer, Qux Corporation
433 West Street, Suite 8, Amherst, MA 01002, USA
Tel +1 413 253-6400 * Fax +1 508 302-0230 * GSM +1 508 287-1420