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Subject:RE: The Old Argument: FrameMaker vs. MS Word From:"Smith, Martin" <smithmr -at- encorp -dot- com> To:TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 20 Jan 2000 17:10:07 -0700
Technical writing is also about managing change. Does anyone besides me need
to document complex, inter-related products requiring a high percentage of
redundant documentation. Do these redundant bits of information also evolve
on a continuous basis. Do you need to track these changes and be able to
produce a manual, on demand, for a given product variation, at a given
revision level?
If your answers to these questions are yes, then you may be interested in
Frame + SGML. Or, if you can't afford to go this route, you may be
interested to know that a forthcoming version of FrameScript allows one to
integrate Microsoft Access and other compatible databases with Frame's API.
It then becomes feasible to track revisions to various text blocks in
Access, and feasible to generate manuals for specific product variations and
revisions.
I am already doing this now, minus the Access component. And I also use this
language to extract a great deal of information out of our source code,
though one could use PERL for the same task.
Martin R. Smith
Technical Writer / Audiophile
ENCORP: The Energy Automation Company, http://www.encorp.com
(970) 686-2017 x 223
