Ventura vs. FrameMaker

[Heather Lum <lum -at- MED -dot- PITT -dot- EDU>]

I am trying to decide whether to stick with Ventura Publisher, or switch
to FrameMaker 4.0. I work on a PC running Windows. If any of you have
switched from Ventura to Frame, please tell why, and how it has worked out
for you. I would appreciate detailed information, so you can send it to me
rather than take up space on the list.

I've been evaluating a copy of Frame, and several features--especially
conditional text and character tags--seem invaluable. But here are my
concerns:
o  The Ventura conversion feature doesn't work well. I can see I'll
have to spend lots of time fixing my existing publications after
converting them.
o  Frame doesn't appear to allow the typographical control Ventura does.
o  Frame tags do not use the parent-child model, which would make
global changes to related tags really easy. (Ventura doesn't do this
either. Word does it, but isn't efficient for long documents.)
o  I use direct printing, and my vendor doesn't have Frame.
o  It would take months (or more??) to learn Frame as well as I know Ventura.

My concerns about staying with Ventura:
o  Based on advertising literature and Corel! magazine, I don't get the
impression Corel is DOING anything with Ventura.
o  Ventura has always been buggy.
o  Its quirks, like width tables, are
annoying.
o  It doesn't handle graphics well. For example, when I print
bitmaps (which print out OK in other applications), Ventura adds white
grid lines to them. Has anyone else experienced this? Printing on
different printers hasn't made any difference.

Thanks,
Heather Lum
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|       Heather Lum             |       Technical Writer                   |
|       lum -at- med -dot- pitt -dot- edu        |       Blue Cross of Western Pa.          |
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