Re: InDesign -opinions and long document template?
bounce-techwr-l-106467 -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com wrote on 01/21/2005 10:51:13 AM:InCopy, an Adobe ID companion product, however, is
intended to be used
by authors, such as writers, correspondents, and
reporters, to create
content that InDesign workers incorporate into
publications for final formatting and output.
Can anyone comment on the XML capabilities of InCopy? The brochure
(http://www.adobe.com/products/incopy/pdfs/incopy_ds.pdf) mentions very
little in way of specifics.
InDesign has some XML capability in the current release, and like most modern applications will probably improve in each version. I believe that consistent use of styles in InCopy permits content imported to InDesign to use all its XML abilities. In other words, InCopy isn't something you'd use for creating and exporting XML.
Maybe THAT's the future of FM users. A department with multiple InCopy
licences and a single InDesign licence.
Still means there's probably a lot more development needed in the two to
make for an FM equivalent.
Of course! ID isn't a satisfactory FM replacement yet. I believe that as ID improves in any features, the ability to prepare content for transfer into IC keeps pace.
In this regard, if your Word documents are created with
consistent use of styles and other features
ROTFL!!!
I long-ago stopped ridiculing Word. Some of the most awful aspects of Word (like master document failures) are likely due, at least in part, to underlying weaknesses in Windows. Specific problems of inconsistency and difficult of moving Word-authored documents into other applications in a workflow, are usually the result of insufficiently-trained authors, or insufficiently-planned workflow requirements. Word-to-FrameMaker and InCopy-to-InDesign workflows have the same requirements - that authors be provided with proper training in the use of the products and in the use of a well-planned workflow.
The specific long-document features that InDesign lacks atthis timeheaders/footers linked to
(InDesign 3.x, AKA InDesign CS) include footnotes,
sequential numbering abilities, cross-references, running
bookmarks in text, are the ones that come to mind quickly.
Which could be overcome with scripting or other assembly methods before or
during the import of source files into InDesign.
"It's not that the dog can stand on its hind legs, yet sing so badly, it's that it can do it at all." The value of scripting and assembly approaches, depends upon how revisions need to be done. FM offers real-time revisions, updates, and output, but scripting is usually a post-processing step. The success of scripting on import, as you suggest, would depend on even stronger adherence to consistent and unambiguous markup/tagging by authors, or humongous error-checking operations in the scripts, to assure proper interpretation and conversion.
In some cases it resembles a return to the cycle of authors-who-type, typesetters-working-from-typed-pages, processing-of-encoded-typesetting, authors-reviewing-output, etc., even if one person wears all the hats. FM at this time has nearly all the desirable features for the technical publishing tasks its commonly applied to.
One fabulous feature of the new Adobe publishing products (other than FM and PageMaker) is their design, based on a central product engine (that's becoming more and more common across products) and modules (like FM API clients) that provide features. Here's where strong solution modules, rather than scripting, can work efficiently. Good design takes a long time, but well-designed modules can be easily replaced by better-designed more simply than rebuilding a large core-code base, such as the one that is the FM we know.
Not having seen or used either product, this is all pure conjecture.
That doesn't make it less valuable.
Eric L. Dunn
Senior Technical Writer
Regards,
Peter Gold
KnowHow ProServices
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