richard@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Richard Foulk) (11/11/88)
*** Help! What should we buy to do desktop publishing? *** I'm in the process of evaluating various desktop publishing systems and software for use in writing papers pertaining to neurobiology. These papers will contain some figures and plots of data, waveforms, etc. Many of the people at our lab are currently using ibmpc's with various wordprocessors. Though we do have two Sun 3/60 workstations. The question is what is the best hardware/software solution for WYSIWYG editing and figure manipulation. Some have suggested the purchase of a Macintosh. Assuming we're going to buy another machine for this purpose, should we buy a Macintosh or another Sun? What's the best software currently available? I've looked at Interleaf and Framemaker on the Sun a bit. Is there something better? Thanks Richard Foulk richard@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu
zeke@eta.unix.ETA.COM (Robert K. Scott) (11/14/88)
In article <2612@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu>, richard@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Richard Foulk) writes: > > *** Help! What should we buy to do desktop publishing? *** > > I'm in the process of evaluating various desktop publishing systems > and software for use in writing papers pertaining to neurobiology. > These papers will contain some figures and plots of data, waveforms, > etc. > > Many of the people at our lab are currently using ibmpc's with various > wordprocessors. Though we do have two Sun 3/60 workstations. > IBM PC's? Don't even consider them for DTP, unless you have mighty powerful AT or 386 outfits and want to stand for neanderthal user interfaces and flexibility. > The question is what is the best hardware/software solution for > WYSIWYG editing and figure manipulation. Some have suggested > the purchase of a Macintosh. > > Assuming we're going to buy another machine for this purpose, should > we buy a Macintosh or another Sun? What's the best software currently > available? > > I've looked at Interleaf and Framemaker on the Sun a bit. Is > there something better? > I have used a Macintosh & Pagemaker for 2 years now (I own it). At work, we have both Apollo and SUN workstations running Interleaf TPS, and I have used both WPS (the TPS predecessor) and TPS. First, consider the price. A Macintosh SE with Microsoft Word, Pagemaker 3.0, Microsoft Excel (for data manipulation and charting) and perhaps Cricket Graph if you don't like Excel's graphs, will cost you about 3500-4000 without printer (I think. School discounts may get you more for less). I'm not current on the price for TPS, but my guess is that it would cost you about $3000 per workstation for a license (again, maybe less for academia). Now, on the functionality side of things, there is no question in my mind that the Mac is a superior machine for doing presentation quality materials of just about any sort. My primary justification for this is based on the fact that you can (almost) seamlessly integrate bitmapped (paint) art, object oriented (draw) art, scanned images of various sorts, charts, and processed words from various sources. In your case, you could probably import text and numeric data from the PCs and SUNs, convert it to the package of choice on the Mac, and be able to prepare superb quality documentation. As far as TPS goes, you are very limited in what you can import, and putting various types of art or graphs in to your publication is not a particularly simple operation. Perhaps my long held bias about the functionality of the Mac being one of its chief selling points, but my experience with TPS also guides me to this conclusion. Good luck with your evaluation. -- %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% From the Final Frontier %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% These are my opinions, of course. Why the hell would my company want them? Robert K. "Zeke" Scott internet: zeke@sunfun.eta.com ETA Systems, Inc. ETC03J uucp: {amdahl,rutgers}!bungia!eta!sunfun!zeke 1450 Energy Park Drive, St. Paul, MN 55108 voice: (612) 642-3493
david@io.UUCP (David Weinberger x5563) (11/17/88)
Let me add some information to Robert Scott's message. (I work for Interleaf.)
o TPS on Sun, Digital and Apollo goes for $2,500 for the Core version (text
and graphics.)
o Interleaf Publisher is available on 386's and on the Macintosh II for
$2,495. It is feature-for-feature the same as TPS 3.0. (We've just shipped TPS
4.0.) That means it combines full word processing, diagramming, data-driven
charts, automatic page layout, network workgroup tools, long document
management capabilities, tables and even a line art image editor.
o Interleaf products are "seamlessly integrated," to use Scott's words. That is,
you work on a WYSIWYG view of a document. The system gives you the appropriate
editor depending on where you cursor is -- text editor, diagramming editor,
image editor, etc. To put a diagram into an Interleaf document, you just copy
it, point, and paste -- two menu picks.
o Interleaf imports a wide variety of text and graphic formats, including
WordStar, troff, Scribe, CalComp, HPGL, TIFF, DCA, RTF, MacDraw, MacPaint,
PICT, and lots more.
Admittedly I'm biased. But it's an honest bias, if you know what I mean ... I
like this software a lot.
----
David Weinberger UUCP: ..!{sun!sunne,mit-eddie}!ileaf!david
Interleaf, Inc. Internet: david@ileaf.com
10 Canal Park, Cambridge, MA 02141 Phone: (617)577-9800 x5563