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Re: Justifying FM (was About The Cloud: Quick-Read Suggestions)
Subject:Re: Justifying FM (was About The Cloud: Quick-Read Suggestions) From:Chris Morton <salt -dot- morton -at- gmail -dot- com> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Wed, 10 Apr 2013 19:58:13 -0700
Thanks, all, but at this point it's a complete non-issue. I'm staying where
I am, and I use InDesign. (FrameMaker would be complete overkill here.)
As for control of Word docs, I would think anyone faced with this would
want to distribute their work in PDF format, with commenting turned on.
This is how I distribute my InDesign work, first exporting as PDF and then
opening the result in Acrobat Pro to engage the Allow For Commenting (or
whatever it is) option.
> Chris
On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 7:12 PM, William Sherman
<bsherman77 -at- embarqmail -dot- com>wrote:
> You don't say, but I bet the options at the time of the previous writer
> were Word or FrameMaker.
>
> If you want everyone to mess with your document, you use Word. If you want
> to maintain control, you use FrameMaker.
>
> I cannot count the number of times I have had to repair manuals that were
> final release ready because someone reviewing them decided to make a change
> using their normal template and mess up the styles.
>
> Now I believe your desire to use InDesign is a secondary issue, and not
> part of the issue that the previous writer faced. So the real question is,
> should I stay with FrameMaker which the company is using or should I
> convince them to drop it and go with InDesign.
>
> Since I haven't used InDesign, I can't comment on the advantages of FM
> over InDesign or the advantages of InDesign over FM.
>
> I can say that it has been a rare event for me to get a company to change
> the documentation tools to what I wanted. Unless you can come up with a
> very good business reason, I doubt you will get them to just dump FM.
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chris Morton" <salt -dot- morton -at- gmail -dot- com>
> To: <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
> Sent: Friday, April 05, 2013 4:53 PM
> Subject: Justifying FM (was About The Cloud: Quick-Read Suggestions)
>
>
> Thanks again for all who replied. It was a bit of fire hose, but then what
>> did I expect? Good stuff!
>>
>> My next question pertains a small startup and their very basic
>> documentation. Their former techwriter used FrameMaker, which truly seems
>> to be overkill for their needs. I think it may have been initially chosen
>> because that's what the engineering veep thought was required for "real"
>> documentation. He doesn't use it himself. Or perhaps the original
>> techwriter (who I'm doing to replace) chose it because it thought it would
>> impress, or else he just wanted to be able to put that on his resume. Who
>> knows?
>>
>> I last used FrameMaker 7 five years ago and found its UI to be very
>> unfriendly.Yes, I know the application's genesis and also know that Adobe
>> isn't about to retool FM to be more like other Windows apps (I see the
>> same
>> issue with other Adobe apps). If I am forced to comply, FM it is. But if I
>> have a choice, I'd rather use InDesign. The company is not a manufacturer
>> and is not affiliated with the gubmint, so I don'tt see them repurposing
>> document elements anytime in the next several years (if then).
>>
>> So what's the case *FOR* FM?
>>
>> Chris
>>>
>>
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