lachac@seagulls.rutgers.edu (Gerard Lachac) (01/11/89)
HELP NEEDED: I am researching the Macintosh to use as a desktop publishing tool for the company I was recently hired at. We write technical manuals, eg firmware instruction/protocol, board instalations, programming manuals... Currently work is being done solely using PC MSWORD (sometimes a little help from Ventura) Yes, it's a horrible thing to work with. Pictures and drawings are artist produced and physically (scissors and tape) patched into the document. We are looking at Suns and Mac II's. We have been dissappointed in the Sun software/hardware performance for the price. I have earned the opportunity to lease a Mac II for a couple of weeks w/rented software to enable me to review it. I am soliciting for suggestions on the BEST (oh-boy, here it comes) packages in word processing, pagelayout, draw program and monitor(paperwhite or color). An integrated and powerful combination wp/layout (like Frame on SUN, but more wp power)is the ideal, if one exists, but a MSWord/Pagemaker solution is still OK. (Not great, but OK) Important wordprocessing features to us are Revision Marks, style sheets and real WYSIWYG. Much thanks in advance... -- ------------------------ Gerard Lachac |-------------\ lachac@topaz.rutgers.edu|-------------/ "Mommy, where's Fluffy?" ------------------------
bmug@garnet.berkeley.edu (BMUG) (01/12/89)
Frame Technology is preparing to release a FrameMaker for the Mac, which
is supposed to work over a network in concert with their workstation
products. This will be version 2, (which, BTW, will be the NeXT version).
As yet the product should be considered quite vaporous, though it could
see the light of day in the second quarter of 1989. If they're at
MacWorld Expo, ask them (if you can't make it, I'll ask them for you).
If you must purchase something *now*, the Word/PageMaker combo is quite
useful, as is Quark XPress, but they embody two quite different working
styles. If you have a local dealer who will let you work with the
possible combinations for a few hours before plunking down megabucks,
take advantage of the opportunity before deciding, and take all advice
with a grain of salt before you experience the software yourself.
John Heckendorn
/\
BMUG ARPA: bmug@garnet.berkeley.EDU A__A
1442A Walnut St., #62 BITNET: bmug@ucbgarnet |()|
Berkeley, CA 94709 | |
(415) 549-2684 | |chuq%plaid@Sun.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) (01/12/89)
>Currently work is being done solely using PC MSWORD (sometimes a >little help from Ventura) my sympathies. >Pictures and drawings are artist produced and physically (scissors and >tape) patched into the document. Tape? I prefer wax, myself (stop kibbitzing, chuq....) >I am soliciting for suggestions on the BEST (oh-boy, here it comes) >packages in word processing, pagelayout, draw program and >monitor(paperwhite or color). >Important wordprocessing features to us are Revision Marks, style >sheets and real WYSIWYG. Hmm. Is everyone ready for a religious war? Hee-hee. First, here's what I use for my DTP work: o Microsoft Word (used to be release 3.01, currently working with 4.0beta) o Ready, Set, Go! 4.0a (4.5 under evaluation. So far, so so) o Aldus Freehand 2.0 (neat stuff!) The reason I've been using RSG instead of Pagemaker is that, prior to PM 3.0, it wasn't really that useful with long, text oriented documents. Aldus has removed that restriction as of 3.0. I've also been having problems converting to RSG4.5, so I'm not yet willing to recommend RSG. Looking at RSG4.5 and PM3.0, I'm not convinced that RSG is the better deal these days, anyway. (Ask me again in a month when I've worked with RSG some more). I don't have enough experience with other packages to discuss them rationally. Word processors: hyper-religious. I use Word because it lets me get my work done. FullWrite Professional will handle a lot of the stuff you want (it's the only thing with change bars on the market right now) but it has performance problems. I used it exclusively for a number of months, but switched back to Word -- and in a semi-controlled productivity test I did on myself, tripled my throughput. WriteNow's probably your third possibility (I don't go near wordperfect), but if you're using Word on the PC, Word on the Mac will be familiar -- and better. (come to think of it, an advantage of PM3.0 is you can also get PM for the PC, so you don't obsolete all that hardware right away....) Drawing programs: Freehand meets Illustrator. Freehand has much stronger text manipulations, especially FH2.0. Illustrator is somewhat stronger in graphic manipulations. Depends on what you need. Lots of graphic designers have both and switch back and forth depending on the job. I really like Freehand. I like Illustrator, too, but I don't need it. Yet. Chuq Von Rospach Editor/Publisher, OtherRealms chuq@sun.COM And now a message for the eyes of only those people with Commander Chuqui Secret Decoder Rings: 7-3-6-27-24-4-10-6-27-3-2-23-27-23-10-7-27-3-24-24-4-20-11-7-24
sobiloff@thor.stolaf.edu (Blake N. Sobiloff) (01/12/89)
As far as your software goes, if you really need revision marks (?) and style sheets my best guess would be Word (real WYSIWYG supposedly coming w/ 4.0) or possibly Nisus (new from Paragon Concepts, Inc.). I prefer quick and easy- WriteNow 2.0, though. For page layout, go for Tex or Interleaf (if you REALLY need tons of power and don't mind STEEP learning curves (plus $$$)). Drawing goes to FreeHand AND Illustrator (most pros say you need both because they end up complimenting eachother well.) Monitors are a little tougher yet, so I'll let you make your own choices concerning brand, but unless you put together color productions stick with a greyscale (or even monochrome if you use few photos). What do I use? WN 2.0, PageMaker 3.0, Illustrator '88, on a IIx with a NTX printer for an ~30 page monthly newsletter (small-time stuff). Hope it helps... Blake "Hey, where's MY fancy footer?" Sobiloff
u545731798ea@deneb.ucdavis.edu (Greg DeMichillie) (01/13/89)
[we no join our regularly scheduled religious discussion of DTP already in progress...] In article <932@thor.stolaf.edu> sobiloff@thor.UUCP (CP^ZAZPPPYPYXU zQYhBYPYoZO) writes: > What do I use? WN 2.0, PageMaker 3.0, Illustrator '88, on a IIx with a >NTX printer for an ~30 page monthly newsletter (small-time stuff). Hope it >helps... > >Blake "Hey, where's MY fancy footer?" Sobiloff I would also recommend WriteNow 2.0, and PageMaker 3.01. As for the Illustrator/Freehand debate, I've always like FreeHand. Illustrator's handling of type is absolutely brain damaged. Any given block of text must be the same type, style and size! You want to boldface a single word, you've got to create 2 blocks of text and meticulously align them. No thanks. Freehand also allows you to edit in the preview mode unlike Illustrator. All this comes at a price of course. Freehand 2.0 is one of the slowest graphics program ever created. I wouldn't even consider using on a 68000. You might be able to find Freehand 1.0 somewhere. It's only missing a few of the newer versions features (Pantone color, shape transformation, auto- trace...) and runs quite nicely on a vanilla Plus/SE. Well, that's my 2 cents worth anyway. ----- Greg DeMichillie Apple Student Rep - UC Davis lgdemichillie@ucdavis.edu AppleLink: ST0178 Disclaimer: If you've seen one disclaimer, you've seen them all.
steve@violet.berkeley.edu (Steve Goldfield) (01/13/89)
In article <3486@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> lgdemichillie@ucdavis.edu (Greg DeMichillie) writes: #>In article <932@thor.stolaf.edu> sobiloff@thor.UUCP (CP^ZAZPPPYPYXU zQYhBYPYoZO) writes: #>> What do I use? WN 2.0, PageMaker 3.0, Illustrator '88, on a IIx with a #>>NTX printer for an ~30 page monthly newsletter (small-time stuff). Hope it #>>helps... #>I would also recommend WriteNow 2.0, and PageMaker 3.01. As for the For what it's worth, I use and recommend the same combination. I use Word occasionally and can't stand it; I can get it to do what I want but it seems very cumbersome, lots of key strokes to do common functions. I've tried Ready-Set-Go; it's easier to use and to learn to use but doesn't have some of the features of PageMaker 3.0 that I find important. Also, my guess is that PageMaker has become the most widely used program and thus necessary for compatibility in exchanging files, the way dBASE became standard for CP/M machines not because it was the best database program but because more people chose it and more word processors were compatible with it. In fact, I went ahead and bought PageMaker (although I already had access to Ready-Set-Go) because an outside contractor had prepared some graphics in PageMaker. PageMaker is a sort of Rube Goldberg kind of program with lots of cranks and whistles, but unlike Word, these features don't generally get in the way of more routine work. Steve Goldfield
wingbean@blake.acs.washington.edu (wingbean) (01/13/89)
In message: <84845@sun.uucp> Re: Desktop Publishing on Mac - HELP The author talks about RSG4.0 vs. PM3.0. I was a solid RSG user until I found that RSG doesn't work well with TIFF scans. Further, RSG's use of the Apple prep driver limits the accuracy of its printing function.
sklein@cdp.UUCP (01/13/89)
Depending on the level of drawing that you need, MacDraw II can be an excellant tool. It supports color. If a WYSIWYG display is important for things like Columns, the word processor to get is FullWrite Professional. I happen to like MSWord myself. As for integration, get 5 Megs and use multifinder. There you have it. Oh, and Pagemaker for page layout. Though I've heard many good things about Quark, I've never actually used it. MacDraw II Pagemaker MSWord or FullWrite Pro -Shabtai Klein ____________________________________________________________________ | | UUCP: uunet!pyramid!cdp!sklein \ | A Woman who tries | Internet: cdp!sklein@arisia.xerox.com | | to be equal to a man | BitNet: cdp!sklein%labrea@stanford | | lacks ambition! | PhoneNet: (301) 270-2250 | \___________________________________________________________________/
kehr@felix.UUCP (Shirley Kehr) (01/13/89)
In article <932@thor.stolaf.edu> sobiloff@thor.UUCP (CP^ZAZPPPYPYXU zQYhBYPYoZO) writes:
<As far as your software goes, if you really need revision marks (?) and style
<sheets my best guess would be Word (real WYSIWYG supposedly coming w/ 4.0) or
<possibly Nisus (new from Paragon Concepts, Inc.).
Word doesn't do automatic revision marks like FullWrite, but I don't see
that as a disadvantage. If you let the computer do revision marks, you'll
get them for spelling corrections, style changes, etc. And this would
happen even if you changed it back to the original. I can't see burdening
users with having to identify changes like that.
What you can do with word is put a bar to the left of an entire paragraph.
This isn't as accurate as identifying the specific lines in which changes
occurred, but would identify any paragraph you updated. But you would have
to remember to put them in manually. Personally, that would be my
preference.
Luckily, we don't have to do change bars (yet). But the time may come
when we decide to send change pages instead of entire chapters. (The
problem isn't change bars - it's identifying the list of pages that
comprise an up-to-date manual.)
Shirley Kehrfrank@mnetor.UUCP (Frank Kolnick) (01/14/89)
In article <3486@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> lgdemichillie@ucdavis.edu (Greg DeMichillie) writes: >[we no join our regularly scheduled religious discussion of DTP already >in progress...] > >I would also recommend WriteNow 2.0, and PageMaker 3.01. As for the >Illustrator/Freehand debate, I've always like FreeHand. Illustrator's >handling of type is absolutely brain damaged. Any given block of text >must be the same type, style and size! You want to boldface a single word, >you've got to create 2 blocks of text and meticulously align them. No thanks. >Freehand also allows you to edit in the preview mode unlike Illustrator. > ... >Well, that's my 2 cents worth anyway. I'll see your 2 cents and... I like the combination of Word and XPress. I find Word fast and logical (for my own perverted sense of logic, let me hasten to add) for text, and I use XPress for flexibility (and it's even more logical). In particular, XPress understands Word very well, including its styles, and uses many of Word's short-cuts. So the transition is easy and smooth. I still favour Illustrator although I have a half dozen other drawing programs, none of which is ideal. Illustrator is great for real illustrations, such as circuit boards, PCs, etc. especially if you need fine detail and even more especially if you want several sizes or views of the same subject. I'll agree with the statement about it's text handling, but then I never use its text for anything other than labels. (Well, ok, for some fancy titles or when I need text in perspective, I'll use Illustrator with the outline fonts in the Adobe Collection. These letters and symbols, etc. can easily be rotated, stretched, shaded, etc. If I could afford it, I'd look at LetraStudio for this purpose.) -- Frank Kolnick, consulting for, and therefore expressing opinions independent of, Computer X UUCP: {allegra, linus}!utzoo!mnetor!frank