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Subject:Re: Rumor about FrameMaker - is it true? From:David Neeley <dbneeley -at- gmail -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Wed, 12 Jan 2005 19:02:31 -0600
Barry,
Yes, InDesign is available as a thirty-day trial.
Since it is not a word processor but a layout/publishing program, it
goes far beyond Word's capabilities. For those shops that use both,
though, it is generally best to take any Word docs as unformatted text
and to format them in InDesign...which offers far more flexibility and
power in these tasks than Word can ever offer. (This is not a
criticism of Word, but of the different nature of the products.)
I am not at all sure that Phillip isn't talking through his hat on the
numbers of users, though, since InDesign is rapidly becoming the tool
of choice for doing tasks that have previously been the province of
Quark Express. In fact, InDesign was originally targeted to be a
"Quark Killer" and, as of version 2.0 and later, it seems to have
become so.
>From a tech pubs perspective, of course, InDesign is not yet much
used. As various long-doc features are added, though, I think that may
change greatly. In shops that use InDesign for their marketing
materials, for instance, it would be considered a "good thing" if they
can also use it in tech pubs.
However, there are quite a few areas in which it definitely needs
added functionality to compete with Frame as a production tool for
tech pubs. I think it is likely to get there, but the timeframe
involved is another matter. Knowing Adobe, that is highly variable...
IIRC, you should be able to download the trial copy you asked about.
If you've got an Adobe rep locally, you should also be able to get a
CD.
David
On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 09:18:42 -0500, Cliver, Barry
<CliverBarry -at- praintl -dot- com> wrote:
>
> >>InDesign is very new and still has very little following thus far
> compared
> to 20 years of
> dedicated users in the global tech pubs community. And I like
> InDesign...
> They are not nearly the same products though...>>
>
> Is InDesign available for trial use? Is it somewhat compatible with
> Word?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Barry Cliver
> Technical Writer
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