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.
Jennifer C. Siler asks:
> Has anyone out there had experience using a product from Infodata called
> "Compose"? It works with Acrobat to streamline a lot of the processes of
> making a PDF. My question is, does it save a lot of time? For
> $1000, I'd
> like to get some first-hand experiences.
I used "Compose" in my previous position. For my workflow there, it was
definitely worth the money. I had 5000 pages of documentation in about 200
little Word files (one file per menu or function). I had an in-house tool
for printing that helped me generate the 200 separate PDF files. Compose was
necessary to make the Table of Contents PDF linked to all the separate PDF
documents. I could select all the number on a page of the table of contents,
and load the list of files for that manual, and Compose would link
everything up. It was slow and was annoying that it could only do this one
page at a time, but it was quicker than manually maintaining all those
links.
Compose has a lot of little tools with it, so it depends on your situation
what tool(s) you need. I found some of the other tools useful, but not a
necessity for my situation. Some tools can be used in batch mode (e.g.,
adding the same security settings to many files), but a few (such as the
"page linker" that I used for linking the TOC to individual PDFs) can't.
You might want to download the demo from them (http://www.infodata.com I
believe) and try it out for yourself. I think you can download the manual,
as well.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Develop HTML-Based Help with Macromedia Dreamweaver 4 ($100 STC Discount)
**WEST COAST LOCATIONS** San Jose (Mar 1-2), San Francisco (Apr 16-17) http://www.weisner.com/training/dreamweaver_help.htm or 800-646-9989.
Sponsored by ForeFront, Inc., maker of ForeHelp Help authoring tools
for print, WinHelp, HTML Help, JavaHelp, and cross-platform InterHelp
See www.forehelp.com for more information and free evaluation downloads
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
