RE: InDesign versus FrameMaker (versus Word)

["McLauchlan, Kevin" <Kevin -dot- McLauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com>]

Dan Goldstein noted:

> The caveat regarding "multiple authors" is a big clue here. A 
> contractor
> might *think* s/he's the sole author for a deliverable -- but if the
> customer wants to revise it in the future, then the contractor's only
> one of multiple authors.
> 
> With a PDF file, the tool and the deliverable can be separate 
> entities;
> in that case, InDesign and FM are great. When the deliverable 
> has to be
> editable in the future by the recipient, the contractor's 
> probably stuck
> with a commonly known tool -- i.e., MS Office.

[...]

Or, as Gene implied, something like OpenOffice.org.

It's open-source AND does a very good job of handling 
MS Word files (as well as other Office file types, though 
sometimes not with as much aplomb as it does the Word stuff). 

We're not goobermint, but here at my company, I 
routinely use OOo now, and export/Save-as Word 
format if some other employee really needs it. 
Otherwise, it's OOo Writer to PDF. 

I also get a lot of my source material in Word, 
and if it can be re-used with just a bit of 
editing, then I import it. Otherwise, I just 
read the other document and rewrite in my words 
(and tables, and graphics, and...) using OOo.

Of course, more than half of what I do is 
WebHelp, created in Flare, but we were talking 
about non-help stuff. 

Before I got CS4 Design Standard, I was starting 
to tinker with Scribus, but the learning curve for 
InDesign is enough for now.

 - Kevin

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