Re: FrameMaker vs. Interleaf

[Richard Frederick <fred_ri -at- ENG -dot- PRINTRONIX -dot- COM>]

I agree with Krista in all of the response directly to the question that Chris posed. I will disagree with one point. This is not one of those
"this tool is better than that tool" strings. And I don't want to start one. I
do want to point out what I feel is an insight that has been pounded into my
department by reality.

>Both are good and both do the job. I prefer Interleaf because
>I think it's more powerful, but it would probably make no
>difference to someone buying for the first time, except that
>I guess it's more expensive than FrameMaker.

Interleaf support and new tool development is lacking. I have used Interleaf for
the last 16 or 17 years. I know it well. I like it a lot. I use it today. But
the future is tomorrow and I don't think Interleaf is ready for it. Interleaf,
the company, IMO is not well focused on the whole picture. They let customer
support go while working on a small niche product. Their file exchange filters
are coming up to speed, but were really lacking for a long long time. The way
their software handles SGML and online documentation "hot links" is cumbersome
and far inferior to many programs available today. My department is making the
change to FrameMaker 5.5 on NT machines. This is a huge investment, since we are
currently working Interleaf 6.1 on Unix boxes. We are chucking the entire system
and building a new one. (I had a Freudian slip and typed "...building a now
one." It works too.)

We do a lot of translation here and the SGML will be a tremendous help and
decrease our overhead.

TTTTThhhhhaaaaatttttt'ssssss all folks  <-- From cartoons here in the US for
                                        all of my foreign associates!

Richard

This is not a testimonial!!