TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
First, you need *substantially* more memory on your Wintel PC to work
with Frame documents. You need 64MB just for NT to not swap to
virtual memory (disk). Go for 128 or 196MB--you are dealing with a
much bulkier and more cumbersome OS than the Mac, and the programs are
fatter because they need to be able to do more of the graphics work
themselves.
Second, you probably need a faster graphics card. In NT shops, the
workhorse tends to be the Matrox Millenium II 8MB, although if you're
doing full color at high resolution pop for one of the memory
upgrades. Windows relies more heavily than the Mac on graphics cards
to trap and accelerate screen drawing instructions, as there are more
layers of "monkeywork" that has to happen to draw anything but ascii
characters to the screen.
Third, if your saving times are lethargic, upgrade to a faster SCSI
card and drives. The standard disk systems in the typical Wintel PC
are slower than those in the typical Mac of equivalent vintages.
Fourth, consider upgrading to a faster CPU. You cannot directly
compare Apples and oranges...er, PowerPC and Pentium processors at the
same speed, because their revision cycles are out of synch.
Currently, the 400mhz Pentium II produces performance *as seen at the
Frame API level* equivalent to the 233mhz PowerPC 604e. It is not
fair to compare the Pentiums to the PowerPC 750 (aka G3) chips because
the 750 is optimized for the most common MacOS instructions, giving it
an unfair advantage.
If you get the idea that by the time you equip a PC to run publishing
applications at the same speed as an equivalent Mac, you'll have spent
*more*, you'd be right. But you can always comfort yourself with
having spent less on the basic box. Sort of like buying a stripper
Volkswagon and then adding all the parts and systems to produce a
BMW--you can do it, but wouldn't you be better off having bought the
integrated system in the first place?
Companies like Intergraph *do* produce machines that are better
integrated and designed for the publishing environment than the
average corporate Wintel PC, but they still represent a costly
compromise.
Macintosh Uber Alles!
David T. Warren
(opinionated) Pubs. Mgr., Nextel
______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Framemaker questions (long)...
Author: Dan Schmitz <djs -at- GENE -dot- COM> at INTERNET
Date: 6/9/98 9:46 PM
Hi, all!
These are my first technical questions to this listserve, so please bear
with me, and apologies for the length of this posting. So far, I have been
able to figure out a lot of the intricacies of FrameMaker on my own, but I
have seen many useful tips on this listserve, so it's time to ask for help.
I'm positively stumped on a few things!
Background on my document
I'm working on a project to document several Human Machine Interfaces
(HMIs) that will control an automated pharmaceutical filling plant. I have
to develop what is known in engineering (at least where I work) as a "flip
chart" style of manual. This consists of some narrative text sections that
describe the facility and system overall, followed by a detailed
description of all operation sequence screens that the technician will
encounter.
Each sequence screen flipchart consists of a full-color screenshot taken
directly from the HMI screens themselves. Below each screenshot is a table
that lists the sequence steps, step description, and advance conditions for
each step. Each table has content unique to the sequence screen it
describes. There will be over 100 such flipcharts in the manual.
I originally undertook to do this project in Word 8/Office97, but I soon
learned just how limited and slow Word becomes when there are lots of color
graphics, autonumbering, and tables involved. I have since switched to
Frame 5.5 for Windows NT.
My questions:
1) Anchored frames, tables & graphics
Most of my sequence screens can be fully described in one page (graphic +
table). However, some of them have many steps, causing the table to
continue across two or more pages. One of the requirements I have is that
the relevant graphic for each table always be shown, even if it has to
repeat several times.
I have been placing the graphic inside of an anchored frame, which is
itself inside of a table heading cell, so that when the table continues
onto another page, the graphic automatically repeats. This has worked fine
so far. However, when I need to add an additional sequence flipchart on a
new page between existing flipcharts which are autonumbered, I find that
the new flipchart does not autonumber, but instead restarts from 0.
Reading Frame's Help, I understand that the only way to insert a blank page
that is not at the end of the document is to insert is as disconnected
text. I suspect that this is why the autonumbering doesn't work. Can anyone
confirm this, and recommend a better way to insert blank pages?
2) Inserting a blank page that's not at the end of the document
For a manual consisting of lots of graphics and tables that has to include
autonumbering and table continuation text, am I using Framemaker correctly
to do this? I am placing tables directly into the text flow, adding an
anchored frame to one of the heading cells, and then pasting in my
screenshots. Is this the best way to do it, or is there a better way?
3) Color graphics causing huge file size, long saves
Each of my screenshot graphics is inserted into the document as a
"device-independent bitmap." So far, my document is less than 25 pages, but
has an uncompressed size of 17mb. Hence, saves take a REALLY long time. Am
I handling graphics correctly, or is there a way to use them that doesn't
create such a large file size?
4) Frame seems slow on NT; what's the best platform to run it?
I recently switched from a PowerMacintosh to a 200mhz PC running Windows
NT4. I have 64mb of RAM installed, and have increased the virtual memory
size to its maximum. In addition to the long time required for saving large
documents (mentioned above), I find that Frame is slow to open and scroll
through very large docs with color graphics. This might be addressed by
answers to my #3 question, but can anyone comment in general on the best
platform on which to run Frame?
Thanks in advance for your help!
Dan Schmitz
Technical Writer
Process & Automation Engineering
Genentech, Inc.
djs -at- gene -dot- com
