RE: Novice tech writer seeking advice on tools.

["technical writing plus" <doc-x -at- earthlink -dot- net>]

You could also try OpenOffice.org, which is free. Version 2 came out last
December and works pretty well with Word. The program includes a text
processing component (Writer), a drawing component (Draw), a spreadsheet
component(Calc), and a database component (Base). Some components let you
build pdfs too (Writer does). They used to have a good presentation about
OOo, on their marketing page. 
  Bruce Byfield , who used to be a member of this list, would often have
good things to say about the program. He also wrote an article (which still
may reside on sourceforge.net) that compared OOo and Framemaker.
  OOo also has some xml features. It allows you to save in Word doc format
too. 

Jim Jones	http://tinyurl.com/4arjc

-----Original Message-----
... to consider is where you want to be one, two, or five years from now
with your documentation.  I think moving away from Word is a good idea since
you're already experiencing the wonderful crashing feature that it has when
you start to get more complex documents.

Do you ever plan to move your content into regular XML or DITA XML?  What
about a content management system?  If so, those should figure into your
plans before you make any kind of switch.  You could still choose to use
Frame (Structured Frame if you're going to XML), or you could choose to move
to an XML-authoring package like XMetal.

If you have to make a decision NOW, with what you are describing, I would
say to use FrameMaker.  I suggest going through some training for it to
bring you up to speed quickly.  The three days invested in that will save
you considerable time later on.  You can also use the Framers list @
www.frameusers.com as a great reference and help source...

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