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Subject:Re: InDesign vs. Frame From:Peter Gold <knowhowpro -at- gmail -dot- com> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Fri, 25 May 2007 05:28:39 -0500
Rumor, speculation, guesswork, incompletely-researched
assertions, and opinions based on experience with earlier
versions of InDesign or incomplete recollection, aren't
acceptable in professionally-written documentation, - yet,
IMO, these unreliable reporting techniques characterize many
recent postings on this topic.
Perhaps these notes will help when comparing FrameMaker and
InDesign.
Some new or improved features in InDesign CS3 (aka InDesign 5)
include:
* Paragraph auto-numbering and numbered lists that can be
maintained independently of each other, and can be
interrupted, nested, and carried across files in a book.
* Book files are no longer limited to 100 documents.
* Variables that can be used for running headers.
* Quick keystroke invocation of named paragraph, character,
table, cell, and object styles; invocation of scripts, and all
menu commands.
* Improved XML abilities.
* Ability to export HTML for use in Web-creation tools
* Importable master pages.
* Find/Replace now supports GREP operations - regular
expression matching and manipulation, saved search queries,
and finding object styles.
* Importing of InDesign documents into InDesign documents; the
imported document can contain nested InDesign documents.
Changed source documents are updated in the container documents.
Some features that were implemented in earlier releases include:
* Nearly-infinite multiple undo
* Story editor for text entry and editing
* Multiple document window views
* Platform-specific and platform-independent scripting
languages - AppleScript, Visual Basic, and JavaScript
* Unicode and OpenType support
* "Smart" auto-page numbers that display and update "continued
on page..." and "continued from page..." references for text
flow jumps.
* Saved workspaces (arrangements and visibility of tools and
panels.)
* Saved user-defined keystroke command sets.
The term "long document features" is vague and confusing. It's
more useful and accurate to simply name the features.
For examaple, InDesign has these features and abilities that
are often considered "long-document" tools:
* Books that manage multiple component files
* Tables of contents and indexes across books
* Spelling check and find/replace across books
* The ability to synchronize paragraph, character, table,
cell, and object styles across books
* The ability to hide or display notes (InCopy plug-ins)
* Bookmarks and hyperlinks that export to PDF
* Multiple-page spreads
Some "long-document" features that InDesign currently lacks are:
* Cross-references (a free third-party script implements
updatable page-number cross-references, using InDesign's
hyperlinks)
* Finely-granular variables for running heads (no
FrameMaker-like building blocks)
* Multiple indexes
* Automatic new-page creation when typing fills a page.
However, when placing (importing) content, one option is to
automatically create as many new pages as are needed to hold
the content with one click.
* Equation editor
* Conditional text
* Tools to directly create help systems. However, some
help-system creation tools can work with exported XML, HTML,
or RTF.
One's ability to master FrameMaker can't be "built in a day."
It's not just because FrameMaker is a large and complicated
application, but also because the range of technical-writing
tasks it's used for is also large and complicated.
The same holds true for InDesign. You can judge its
suitability for your needs by working with the free evaluation
download and joining an Adobe InDesign User-to-User forum.
HTH
________________
Regards,
Peter Gold
KnowHow ProServices
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