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Subject:Word to Frame From:Lynda Shindley <LShindley -at- ANGEION -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 2 Oct 1997 13:47:21 -0500
I have to agree with John Lord et al who do not favor the idea of going from Frame to Word. I have created manuals in Word Perfect and Word. I switched to FrameMaker 4 years ago, and I never want to go backward. Yes, Frame is more difficult to learn, but it handles large documents in a way that Word and WordPerfect cannot. It's worth taking the time to learn.
We have a FrameMaker User Network that recently formed in the Twin Cities. By the attendance, I would say many tech writer's are making the switch to Frame. Anyone I know who has switched to Frame has never regetted the decision.
I forgot who made the original post about switching. But, I can only say it will be less expensive (dollar and time-wise) to convert documents to PDF for distribution. The new FrameMaker has that capability. Adobe Reader is free to distribute among reviewers in the company. We have started sending our manuals out for review by placing them on the network as a PDF. Yes, we still have to provide hard copies for some of those reviewers who do not turn on their computers, but converting to PDF is so easy. It literally takes only a couple of minutes to convert a large manual with graphics.
Only I can only imagine the nightmare of converting Frame docs to Word. One more thing...our manuals are translated. Our translation vendor PREFERS FrameMaker documents because of the language handling capabilities. We give them FM files, and we get back all tranlated manuals in the FM format.
I've made my point, so will sign off for today.
Lynda Shindley
lshindley -at- angeion -dot- com
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