RE: Revisiting Frame vs. Word in light of new capabilities

Subject: RE: Revisiting Frame vs. Word in light of new capabilities
From: "Jonathan West" <jwest -at- mvps -dot- org>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2005 13:20:54 -0000


Hi Nandini

> Between Word 2000 and FrameMaker 7.1, which is better
> for technical writers? I know the answer, but need to
> convince some folks who have received the following
> reasons to use Word (We use Word 2000, but may move to
> Word 2003 if such regressive improvement on tools is
> approved.)

It looks like you have already decided that the answer is Framemaker and are
playing a game of Jeopardy to produce the appropriate questions, but I'm not
sure it is as clean-cut as all that. I've added comments below in answer to
your questions about Word, and also where IMO your other statements are
incorrect or at least questionable.

>
> 5. Word will be more powerful than FrameMaker in near
> future. [Wow! Hurry up and buy the stock! Just
> kidding]

"More powerful" is a pretty much meaningless statement. Either the software
does the specific job you require it to, or it doesn't. Polemics & sarcasm
is not going to achieve clarity in your decision-making process and it's not
going to endear you to your superiors to whom you are trying to sell your
proposal. Deal with the facts.

Of course, the fact that *you* are familiar with Frame and will have less of
a learning process to continue with it is a significant and important fact,
and not one that should be lightly overridden. But don't try to claim that
because you don't know how to do soemthing in Word, that Word is inherently
incapable of the task.


>
> * Manuals range between 60 to 160 FrameMaker pages.
> Six have common content, which only FrameMaker can
> update with conditional text.

Phooey. It's true that there's not a "conditional text" feature in Word
named as such, but there are plenty of means by which you can organise Word
documents to insert common text into multiple manuals. They have been there
for several versions. Take a look at the INCLUDETEXT field, for instance.

>
> * Over 70 screen-shots in each document that need to
> have repetitive numbered steps and slightly different
> corresponding information. An excellent conditional
> text and cross-reference play. Word does not support
> conditional text and cross-references between
> chapters, let alone between separate manuals.

No cross-references between chapters? What have you been smoking? Look up
the REF field. For cross-references between documents, look up the
INCLUDETEXT field.

> Has
> anyone heard of such capabilities in the new
> incarnation of Word?

Yes, in this and the past several versions.

> I checked a few articles, but
> they do not talk about formatting the cross
> references, or about going from one chapter to the
> next.
>
> * TOC, TOF, Index (ouch! The Word documents have none)

That is easily rectified. Word includes all those features.


>
> * Stable formats (styles in Word)

You need to take care of the design of these, but yes, Word can manage
stable styles. Do yourself a template first and put all the styles in tht
you need.

>
> * Output to clean HTML

The latest versions of Word have the option to produce HTML without Word's
round-tripping code. For Word 2000, you can download an HTML filter from the
Microsoft website that strips out the roundtrip stuff.

>
> * Output to XML (nice to have)

Word 2003 has XML capabilities, though I haven't explored them much. But
this article provides you with a good overview

Getting into XML with the Microsoft Office System
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/?url=/library/en-us/dno2k3ta/html/ODC_OFXM
L_in_Office2003_jrd.asp


>
> * Does Word support page numbering and automatic
> updates of the book after deletion or addition of
> pages and chapters? How about TOC, TOF, numbering of
> figures, chapters?

Yup, Word handles all of that. Has done for several versions.


>
> * How well does the Publisher (or whatever it takes to
> make a book with chapters and TOC, TOF, Index,
> Glossary, and so on) function work (I hear you could
> put chapters together, but when I tried to use it, I
> gave up)?

Avoid Master Documents like the plague - the feature has been broken in Word
since it was introduced 5 versions ago. If you want to build a consolidated
TOC for a document spread across several files, and have consecutive page
numbering through the complete set, take a look at this article.

Creating a Table of Contents Spanning Multiple Documents
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID=148

>
> * Does index work smoothly and efficiently?

Define the terms. You can mark any word or phrase as an index item, and Word
will build you an index accordingly.


> 4. Does Word support Rubi (Japanese) text?

I'm pretty sure the answer to this is Yes. Certainly there is a Japanese
version of Word.

One final comment on all this. Long documents need careful design.
Framemaker pretty much insists that you put this into your documents. Word
allows you to type away merrily without a thought to design & layout. But if
you treat Word properly, being careful about styles, numbering, references
etc, then there's nothing stopping you from producing stable Word documents
of over a thousand pages in a single file. I know, I've done it.

In other words, for doing long documents in Word, forget all about the "ease
of use" features, and do the design work that you are required to do in
Frame. If you do this, you will get results that match most needs.


Regards
Jonathan West


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