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Subject:Re: Fonts and other arguable issues From:Tim Altom <taltom -at- IQUEST -dot- NET> Date:Sat, 6 Jul 1996 20:04:00 EST
At 10:32 AM 7/6/96 -0500, you wrote:
>>
>Your choice of expanding a dialog on the use of Microsoft's fonts to a
>deriding of Microsoft Word as a composition tool (as you labeled as
>inappropriate and primitive and implied as not cost effective and
>troublesome) couldn't possibly be influenced by the fact that your
>company has a large stake in the success of FrameMaker? Does it?
>I like FrameMaker quite a bit and have used it on a few projects.
>However, it also has drawbacks. I found it slow, cumbersome, and
>non-intuitive. Getting things to print as the appear on screen
>(especially alignment of headers and footers) wasn't all that simple. I
>also had many crashes (often freezing my entire system) when I
>reoriented text/graphics on the master page.
>Mike Wing
My goodness, I detect a personal note of harshness here, Mike. Yes, we
depend heavily on FrameMaker, but we didn't pick a tool and then chase after
a few applications for it. On the contrary, we went to FrameMaker because
nothing else worked as well. FrameMaker effortlessly handles documents of
hundreds or thousands of pages in length. Word chokes and dies. Word's
indexing, TOC, cross-referencing, and other capabilities are primitive next
to FrameMaker's. FrameMaker is cross-platform compatible for almost every
operating system running on a workstation. There is only one other package
in its class, and that package is well out of the mainstream. If we're to do
the kind of high-power projects we enjoy and specialize in, FrameMaker is
the only tool that works well enough to keep us competitive. We're not a
company department that can afford inefficiencies in the name of conformity.
We stay healthy and fed only by being slick and quick. FM isn't perfect, but
nothing is, not even email. But on balance, it's the power choice.
May I suggest that if you were having problems with FrameMaker, that it
might be due to insufficient training in it? Most companies that offer
training only present canned knowledge, rather than company-specific situations.
Tim Altom
Vice President, Simply Written, Inc.
317.899.5882 (voice) 317.899.5987 (fax)
FrameMaker support ForeHelp support
Makers of DuoFrame, giving you online help and paper
documentation from a single parent FrameMaker document.
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