Conditional text in FrameMaker

[Larissa Neumann <neumannl -at- DSCLTD -dot- COM>]

Hi!

I've been lurking until now and have really enjoyed the postings. Thank
you all.

I work at a manufacturing company as an in-house technical writer. Most
of the manuals we produce are relatively short (under 60 pages) due to
printing constraints. So far, we have been using PageMaker for all our
manuals, and it has worked out fairly well.

The problem: We have many products, some of which have several versions
(i.e.. product AA for North America, product AB for Mexico, product AC
for Europe, etc.) and each version requires a separate manual. For
example, one of our products has 14 versions (and this doesn't include
languages other than English)!

With PageMaker, we must create a separate publication for each version.
This is VERY frustrating when we need to make revisions (which seems to
be just about every day).

I understand that FrameMaker has conditional text and document
comparison features. These features SOUND like they would make our lives
much easier. My boss has said that we could get FrameMaker if it would
simplify the process.

My question is...  how well do these features work? Are they "robust"
enough to handle many versions? Or do they only work if you have a
couple of versions?

Would having the above features be worth the cost of a new software
package (ie. software + training + conversion hassles)?

If people reply to me off-list, I will summarize and post the results.

Thank you (in advance) for your help.

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Larissa Neumann         neumannl -at- dscltd -dot- com

DSC Ltd.
1645 Flint Road
Toronto, Ontario Canada

All opinions are my own and do not reflect the opinions of DSC Ltd.
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