Re: Frame Deficiencies

Subject: Re: Frame Deficiencies
From: Tim Altom <taltom -at- IQUEST -dot- NET>
Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 14:19:00 EST

At 09:48 AM 7/8/96 -0500, you wrote:
>>From: "Wing, Michael J" <mjwing -at- INGR -dot- COM>
><snip>
>>If you are not inspired by a vested interest in FrameMaker, will you
>>honestly post what you consider the 5 biggest deficiencies of FrameMaker
>>to this forum?

>As a major advocate of FrameMaker, I'll willingly post one of the major
>problems with FrameMaker: its inability to perform editing tasks, other
>than globally applied styles, across booked files. For example, find and
>replace xx with yy throughout the entire book -- all seventeen chapters. I
>have complained about this lack since version 3.0.

>It's an inconvienence to be sure, but it won't make me switch to another
>package. The benefits far outweigh this drawback.

>___________________________________________________________________
>Carla Martinek (carlam -at- opentext -dot- com) | Open Text USA, Inc.
> Tel: (847) 267-9330 x213 | http://www.opentext.com
> Fax: (847) 267-9332 | business intranet solutions
>___________________________________________________________________

Actually, the question itself is meaningless, because the "5 biggest
deficiencies" is about as subjective as it can get. I could pick faults all
day with every package I've ever used. I suspect, however, that the question
was not designed to sort the wheat from the chaff, but to challenge those of
us who supposedly steal bread from the mouths of babes by championing
FrameMaker.

The question isn't which five features (or lack thereof) are the most
troublesome, but whether those are reason enough to leave behind the
benefits of the package. In this case, I have to agree that the answer is
no. In the world of page design, Word is a corporate jet, but FrameMaker is
a 777. Every pilot has faults to pick with an aircraft, but that doesn't
keep anyone on the ground. You merely pick the aircraft that serves your
needs and fly it as best you can. In our case, we so often need the power of
FrameMaker that we seldom recommend using Word. By the time we're called in,
the project has usually outgrown ANY word processor. It's a matter of
tradeoffs, and we gladly trade FrameMaker's quirkiness for its undoubted
horsepower. We simply learn to live with the drawbacks and work around them
when we need to.

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.

http://www.simplywritten.com/simply

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