Re: What software are you using?

[Steve Fouts <sfouts -at- ELLISON -dot- SC -dot- TI -dot- COM>]

|} I am buying a new computer soon (a Mac Performa 630cd, probably, with 8 MB of
|} ram & a 250 MB hard drive). The goal, aside from playing, is to keep my
 skills
|} current with the changing job market and to set myself up so freelancing is
 an
|} option. I do scientific & technical editing, substantive editing and some
|} writing on technical subjects, and also nontechnical stuff like resumes and
|} newsletters. I have done some computer documentation, but not much.
|}
|} With those goals in mind, would I be smarter to get Pagemaker, Framemaker, or
|} something else? Is any one package used significantly more in the field than
|} the others?

Yowza! Last time I dispensed advice on a topic like this I got my shorts
scalded by a guy with a 68000 on his shoulder, but here I go again. I have
PageMaker, I use Interleaf professionally, I have done competitive tools
evaluations of Frame, but never used it. I would, however, reccomend Frame
over Page. Why?

Both are binary file compatible over all supported platforms, but Frame
supports more platforms, including the ubiquitous Unix boxes, Sun, HP,
and CGI.

The biggest problem with PageMaker, in my view of it, is that it doesn't
play well with others. Suppose you have a file in PageMaker, and you
want to filter it into Word. Easy? No. Everybody and their dog has an
RTF (Microsoft's tagged ASCII language) filter, there are a lot of miff
(Frame's tagged ASCII language) filters. But look for a pm filter and
you'll still be looking next month.
    _______________   _____
   /  ___  __/__\  \ /  / _\    Steve Fouts
  /___ \|  |  ___\  |  /  __\   sfouts -at- ellison -dot- sc -dot- ti -dot- com
 /   /  \  |      \   /      \
/_______/__|_______\_/________\ "She understood, as he did, that all writing
was infernally boring and futile, but that it had to be done out of respect
for tradition"                  --Stanislaw Lem