Re: InDesign vs. Frame

["John Cook" <john -dot- cook -at- gmail -dot- com>]

I worked for five years producing large manuals in FrameMaker 6 & 7.
I currently produce a space opera magazine in my spare time using
InDesign CS2.  I have not tried CS3 yet, and would look into that
before making a definite decision one way or the other as it sounds
like they addressed some of my minor nits with ID CS2.

With that said, I used Frame for five years, and loved it for long,
text-based docs.  For shorter, graphics-intensive docs, I use InDesign
CS2, hands-down, no-question.

I liked Frame's method of handling variables and cross-references and
conditional text.  InDesign CS2 didn't have a clean way of handling
those things, although I did find a work-around to get a variable-like
element in my page headers using Section Markers - it's not an elegant
solution like Frame's page variables, but it does the job.

I personally dread having to parse in a large text-based doc into my
magazine template.  I have to flow the text into each new page (click
the red X and load the cursor with the text flow and tell it where to
pick up on the next page).

I was able to be efficient in Frame mostly from the keyboard but
InDesign requires a very mouse-centric functionality (speaking to the
font-fiddling comment).

For me, if I'm going to write something mostly text-based, I use
Frame.  For the magazine, InDesign really is the right tool, but I'm
very interested in the improvements in CS3, as I'm going through some
FrameMaker withdrawal with regard to handling larger blocks of text.
I think it depends on what you're going to be doing.  If you're
handling primarily text, stick with Frame.  If you're ever going to
want to provide Help based on your docs, match Frame with ePublisher
from Quadralay and you're good-to-go.  If you're going to be doing
anything where you want to frequently manipulate text around graphic
elements and won't need provide Help from your doc as well, InDesign
is your clear pick.

(If you're interested in seeing the fruits of my labors, hit me up
offline and I'll give the link to the free space opera e-zine that I
produce in InDesign.)

-- 
John Cook
Technical Writer / Help Author
john dot cook at gmail dot com
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