PageMaker popularity

[John Glenn <sfarmh1 -at- SCFN -dot- THPL -dot- LIB -dot- FL -dot- US>]

In the beginning there was PM on the Mac and VP on the pc.
Period. End of story.
PM did (and does) short, layout-intensive documents very
nicely.
Ventura did OK with long docs.
Over the years, PM gained some Ventura attributes and vice
versa. PM also came to the pc/Windows platform.
Meanwhile, FrameMaker came ''down'' to Windows and Mac
machines from Unix; likewise Interleaf (albeit abandoning
the Mac shortly after arriving). Intergrief (cq) is a very
powerful, very, very expensive app. FrameMaker seems to be
the application of choice for most long, multi-chapter,
publications with lots of graphics, tables, xrefs, etc.
Neither VP nor PM does the same job as well as FrameMaker.
Moreover, FrameMaker seems to do must of the jobs
traditionally performed by PM.
For dollar value and efficiency, I think you'll find
FrameMaker is the ''coming'' application. If you need
multiplatform, FrameMaker is (I think) your only choice ...
or is PM available on Unix boxes?
This is NOT to say PM, VP, 'Leaf, and even Quirk (cq) don't
have a place in the DTP world. Only that based on techwr-l,
MOST Q-n-As use the FrameMaker word, giving some indication
that this is the currently most popular product. Tomorrow?
Who knows.

John Glenn  <sfarmh1 -at- scfn -dot- thpl -dot- lib -dot- fl -dot- us>
====================================================
...do not make a statement that cannot be easily
understood on the grounds that it will be understood
eventually. (Hillel)

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