RE: Exploring new documentation options

Subject: RE: Exploring new documentation options
From: "Keith Hansen" <KRH -at- weiland-wfg -dot- com>
To: <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2008 10:24:16 -0500

Shannon wrote:
<<We are currently in the process of exploring new software to write our
manuals. We are users of Word 2007. We find it horribly inadequate to
meet our documentation needs. Can any of you that work for software
companies (or write software) offer any information?>>

We used to use Word for our documentation. We switched to Frame several
years ago. The main issue was the size of our documentation: nearly
1,000 pages for some books. Word works OK for a smaller book (under 200
pages, for example). I don't think it's good for 1,000 page books. I
think Frame is specifically designed to handle books of this size.

I've never regretted our move to Frame. It's made my job easier and
improved the quality of our documents.

Keith Hood wrote:
<<I think the only real intrinsic advantage of using Frame is its
demonstrably greater stability. In every other way I find it much more
limited than Word.>>

Frame is more stable (crashes less frequently). For actual word
processing, Word is probably better. (Example: For me, it seems easier
to create and format tables in Word than Frame.)

So, if your documents are very large, Frame is probably a better choice.
If your documents are not large, perhaps Word is OK, you just need to
work around the problems you are having. (However, finding the work
around is not always easy!)


Keith
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References:
Exploring new documentation options: From: Shannon Wade
Re: Exploring new documentation options: From: Keith Hood

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