carter@ferrari.mst6.lanl.gov (Dave Carter) (11/07/90)
i am in the market for desktop publishing software for our DECstations (5000 and 3100's) running Ultrix and MIT's X windows. we do a lot of technical reports, and require the ability to import graphs and data from other sources, such as raw data files or postscript files, or even from a separate graphing program. we currently use lotus products; manuscript, freelance and 123, and would like a software package with these capabilities. the two i've heard about are frame and decwrite. is frame available for this platform? will decwrite run under X11R4? does anyone have opinions on the pros/cons of this or other similar software? thanks. - dave
fgreco@dprg-330.GOVt.shearson.COM (Frank Greco) (11/07/90)
Forget about decwrite. Use Framemaker. I use it on X11R4 (2.1X) on a SPARCstation. Although I'm also a Ventura/CorelDraw user on my PC, Frame on X combines features of both (although typographic controls on Ventura are a bit finer than Frame). A side note, the NeWS version of Frame looks *real* nice. They showed it at Seybold and at Unix Expo. Uses the Epub features of NeWS, ie, scaleable Folio Fonts, inherent Postscript handling, O-O toolkit (TNT), etc. I suggest you take a look at it to see where they're headed. Frank G.
carter@ferrari.mst6.lanl.gov (Dave Carter) (11/08/90)
thanks for all the reponses. i received tons of mail, half of which recommended frame and the other half recommended interleaf. (nobody recommended decwrite; in fact i received many negative comments about decwrite.) i've called and requested a demo copy of both frame and interleaf, and hopefully will evaluate each in the next few weeks. - dave
mf@ircam.ircam.fr (Michel Fingerhut) (11/11/90)
Interleaf -- a very good DP package for technical stuff, is available under Ultrix and X11. You should check it. I used to use it on Suns (SunOS) and got to test it under Ultrix 3.0 on DEC3100. Michael Fingerhut
CLAR@FRESE51.BITNET (11/12/90)
We are using DECwrite since one year and we are very pleased with
it. The students have learned it very easily and they are making very good
reports.
Daniel Clar
Computer Operations Manager
Ecole Superieure d'Electricite
Plateau de Moulon
91192 GIF-SUR-YVETTE Cedex
FRANCE
E-mail : clar@frese51.bitnet
[EOB]taylor@qtp.ufl.edu (Charles Taylor) (11/14/90)
You might want to take a look at The Publisher from ArborText.
ArborText Inc.
535 W. William St.
Suite 300
Ann Arbor, MI 48103
(313) 996-3566
or contact mec@arbortext.comrichard@pegasus.com (Richard Foulk) (11/18/90)
>Interleaf -- a very good DP package for technical stuff, is available under >Ultrix and X11. You should check it. > >I used to use it on Suns (SunOS) and got to test it under Ultrix 3.0 on DEC3100. > Unless it's changed since I evaluated it (about a year ago, on a Sun), Interleaf has got one of the most god-awful user interfaces known to man. Menued to death (six or eight deep, maybe more), poorly organized, and very error-prone. I tested it on a medium size project and had someone else do the same to get two opinions. We both hated it. Framemaker was a god-send after that. Interleaf makes no attempt to fit into the surrounding window system, its interface works in a completely different, alien way. -- Richard Foulk richard@pegasus.com -- Richard Foulk richard@pegasus.com
dcox@ssd.kodak.com (Don Cox (253-7121)) (11/19/90)
In article <1990Nov18.014103.20227@pegasus.com> richard@pegasus.com (Richard Foulk) writes: > <<Interleaf -- a very good DP package for technical stuff, is available under <<Ultrix and X11. You should check it. < <Unless it's changed since I evaluated it (about a year ago, on a Sun), <Interleaf has got one of the most god-awful user interfaces known to man. < <Menued to death (six or eight deep, maybe more), poorly organized, and <very error-prone. I tested it on a medium size project and had someone <else do the same to get two opinions. We both hated it. Framemaker <was a god-send after that. < I have to totally agree with the above comments. It was a pleasure installing FrameMaker in a matter of minutes after wrestling with Interleaf for hours in the past. -- Don Cox Phone (716) 253-7121 KMX (716) 253-7998 INTERNET dcox@ssd.kodak.com
sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) (11/28/90)
In article <1990Nov18.014103.20227@pegasus.com> richard@pegasus.com (Richard Foulk) writes: > >Unless it's changed since I evaluated it (about a year ago, on a Sun), >Interleaf has got one of the most god-awful user interfaces known to man. >... I tested it on a medium size project and had someone >else do the same to get two opinions. We both hated it. Framemaker >was a god-send after that. We did essentially the same thing a while back on a larger scale, and reached the same conclusion. Framemaker is *much* easier to use than Interleaf. (I certainly like it). My only real complaint is that it rather tends to be a memory hog. But then I suppose so is Interleaf, so I doubt there is much difference there. -- --------------- uunet!tdatirv!sarima (Stanley Friesen)