ewm@mdavcr.UUCP (Eric W. Mitchell) (01/19/91)
In article <1991Jan17.230535.4356@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au> typ125m@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au (John Wilkins) writes: >jmp@frame.UUCP (Jeff Papineau) writes: > >>In reply to your question, the most elegant way to put landscape and portrait >>pages in the same document is to use FrameMaker. >>FrameMaker is a technical publishing program that will replace PageMaker, > >>For real Power Users, there is simply no other choice. Forget Ventura, >>and the other long document solutions. >>No other pacage offers so much, and is as easy to learn and use: Actually, I would say FrameMaker has a quite steep learning curve to be able to use it for large documents. I have been setting up corporate templates for documents, and there are some distinct difficulties. In particular, I find unforgivable: - the lack of heirarchical styles - storing all style sheets and templates with each file. (rather than having a common set for the whole document). Besides memory and storage overhead, this prevents simple formatting changes across an entire document. - page numbers of the form <chapter>-<page> (i.e., 3-1), can be created automatically at the bottom of a page, but they cannot be pulled automatically into the table of contents (only the page number can be done automatically). You also cannot reset the page number (to 1, for instance) anywhere within a single file. This makes it impossib These may not seem important, but they become extremely so when working with multi-section documents. >>Page layout within an authoring system, full Postscript functionality, >>Math editor, Hyper-Text, and many other features. >>And in the new version coming April '91, Tables, and Conditional Text. Don't take these dates too seriously, folks. I talked to Frame last week and they had no official date for the release of their next version. When I originally talked to them last year, they said these features would be released in December '90. >>IMAGINE: One document master for several differing versions of the same >>document. Tailor each document for the audience, verbosity, platform, etc. >>More power than most mortals will ever need. > >>GET A CLUE. Buy FrameMaker. >>MICROSOFT and CLARIS stay in business, and lead the market, because people >>use what they have heard of, not what is best for the job at hand. Get a life, Jeff. These companies stay in business because their product is the right one for many users. We are finding experienced engineering professionals and document production staff are finding Frame difficult to use effectively. I sure as hell am having second thoughts about throwing it at the secretaries. >>FINALLY, the best thing about this program is that Unix/SUN, DEC, and Mac, >>and soon Windows 3.0 will have one interchange format: MIF. >>Maker Interchange Format. Share formated text and graphics across all >>platforms known to mankind. True platform independance. Definitely one of the prodduct's pluses. >>The future is here, and it's name is FRAMEMAKER. Not quite yet. >>For ordering info call: >>Frame Technology, >>San Jose, CA. > >If this isn't an ad, I'll eat my FoxBase manuals. While it may be what >the poster says (and I believe it is), can we have a disclaimer as to >the relationship of this guy to Frame? > >-- >John Wilkins, Manager, Publishing & Advertising, Monash University >Melbourne, Australia - Internet: john@publications.ccc.monash.edu.au >Disclaimer: IF Standard(disclaimer) THEN Applies(disclaimer) ELSIF >Nonstandard(disclaimer) THEN PROBABLY (Applies(disclaimer)) ENDIF You can save yourself the fibre, John. Look at the "Organization" line in the poster's header. He works for Frame Technologies. By the way, folks - don't get the impression that I really dislike Frame. It's got some great features. But this guy is spouting a little too much propaganda to stomach. Especially while trashing other people's products. Oh, yeah. A disclaimer. I have no connection to any of the products discussed, except as a user. Eric disclaimer: My company doesn't listen to me, either.
resnick@cogsci.uiuc.edu (Pete Resnick) (01/19/91)
ewm@mdavcr.UUCP (Eric W. Mitchell) writes: >In article <1991Jan17.230535.4356@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au> typ125m@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au (John Wilkins) writes: >>jmp@frame.UUCP (Jeff Papineau) writes: >> >>>For ordering info call: >>>Frame Technology, >>>San Jose, CA. >> >>If this isn't an ad, I'll eat my FoxBase manuals. While it may be what >>the poster says (and I believe it is), can we have a disclaimer as to >>the relationship of this guy to Frame? >You can save yourself the fibre, John. Look at the "Organization" line in the >poster's header. He works for Frame Technologies. This has been gone over a million times. Usenet is not for advertisement, especially this blatently. If a user asks "what will do this", a calm, non-advertising message saying "BTW, Frame Maker does alot of these things, and if you want more info, e-mail me here at the company who makes it" is appropriate. An overt disclaimer at the end of the message is a must anyway. This one, however, was ridiculous. The amount of text in these messages wastes my bandwidth. If you want to announce a new product, put in in newprod or mac.announce. This isn't the place for it, with or without discliamer. pr -- Pete Resnick (...so what is a mojo, and why would one be rising?) Graduate assistant - Philosophy Department, Gregory Hall, UIUC System manager - Cognitive Science Group, Beckman Institute, UIUC Internet/ARPAnet/EDUnet : resnick@cogsci.uiuc.edu BITNET (if no other way) : FREE0285@UIUCVMD
jfr@locus.com (Jon Rosen) (01/23/91)
In article <1122@mdavcr.UUCP> ewm@mdavcr.UUCP (Eric W. Mitchell) writes: > >Actually, I would say FrameMaker has a quite steep learning curve to be able >to use it for large documents. I have been setting up corporate templates for >documents, and there are some distinct difficulties. > >(lots of stuff deleted about Frame, its problems and blatant advertising) While I don't totally disagree with your criticisms of Framemaker and while I COMPLETELY agree with your flame of the outrageous advertisement placed by Jeff on behalf of his company, I want to add a few words on behalf of the product. You are correct on the lack of hierarchical style sheets which is a serious shortcoming... However, Frame has something most other Mac products lack: character style sheets... There have been far more times when I wanted to change all of my highlighted Bold words to highlighted Italic or something else... It is extremely difficult in MS Word to do this (you can do it one word at a time or use Search and Replace but that is a real pain)... In Frame, you highlight words by applying a character style... Changing the character style sheet changes the characteristics of ALL words of that style in the document... The integrated word processing/drawing/page publication product is far more useful than having to combine MacDraw(nee SuperPaint nee Illustrator... choose one) with MS Word and then pour all the stuff into PageMaker... This is particularly true for large documents which PageMaker is pretty abysmal on and MS Word lacks the page pasteup capabilities for... On the other hand, if you are doing short catalogs, newsletters, etc, then PageMaker may be more flexible... Framemaker lacks easy run-arounds, and its frame connections are harder to use (IMHO)... Frame has an EXCELLENT hyphenation system as well as a great spell checker, far better, in my experience, than MS Word... So, in all, Frame is (like most good products) useful for a great many things, excellent in some areas, and lacking in others... We still await the ultimate product, but then, when we get it, it might be so large that no one wants to use it... Jon
mmt@client2.DRETOR.UUCP (Martin Taylor) (01/24/91)
Jon says: However, Frame has something most other Mac products lack: character style sheets... There have been far more times when I wanted to change all of my highlighted Bold words to highlighted Italic or something else... It is extremely difficult in MS Word to do this (you can do it one word at a time or use Search and Replace but that is a real pain)... ========== (Neither I nore Jon are jOn of Nisus, but this is another "Try Nisus" blurb. But the disclaimer is that I have no relation with Nisus except as a satisfied customer...) In Nisus it is extremely easy to do a replace-all command that simply changes the bold-italic-helvetica to plain-times-12pt. If in Word, Search and Replace to do that is a pain, then indeed "Try Nisus." Also, if, as Jon suggests, it is a question of changing stuff in style "highlight" from one shape to another, that is even easier in Nisus than the replace-all. -- Martin Taylor (mmt@ben.dciem.dnd.ca ...!uunet!dciem!mmt) (416) 635-2048 There is no legal canon prohibiting the application of common sense (Judge James Fontana, July 1990, on staying the prosecution of a case)