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Subject:Re: old subject--converting Interleaf to Frame From:Nora Merhar <nmerhar -at- charlesindustries -dot- com> To:TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Tue, 14 Dec 1999 09:32:13 -0600
Elna's post just happened to make me think of this, which relates to an
old topic:
You can do this (assemble a variety of files into different books) with
Interleaf. You can
also use effectivity to suppress/show information within a document
depending on what
catalogs you use.
I have only tried to use Framemaker once or twice, and didn't find it
all that easy to
learn, although I didn't have a project going at the time that I needed
to use it on (I
know if I had needed it, I would have picked it up FAST). I have used
Interleaf for years
(on UNIX and now on PC) and like it just fine--but I think if you are
already heavily
invested in one DTP, with lots of legacy documentation, it's not really
worth it to move
to another one unless the one you have is going away (which doesn't seem
to be happening
in Interleaf's case, although I know it's not as popular as Frame). I
generally get
excellent technical assistance as well, although I wish their on-line
documentation was
better.
One thing--I had a TERRIBLE time getting some text/drawings out of
Framemaker and into RTF
(to move in to Interleaf). The drawings did not come over AT ALL.
Interleaf's Leaf to RTF
filters seem to work a whole lot better, and I can provide documentation
(including fairly
complicated drawings done in Interleaf) to salespeople who need to
integrate it into other
stuff fairly easily.
Nora
> Frame's ability to create books out of any combination of files makes it one
> off-the-shelf answer for this problem. If you have chapters A, B, C, and D for
> customer X, and chapters A, B, D, and E for customer Y, and A, C, D, and F for
> customer Z, Frame can handle them all. Simply create one book file with A, B, D, and D
> and print it; then create another book file with the next combination you need. You
> can make the chapters as big or small as you need them to be towork with your modular
> organization.
>
> On the other hand, if you want to take modularity even further, you can also use
> Frame's conditional text option to tag selected pieces of a file for this
> configuration or that. If you use colors to differentiate the conditional settings
> while you're constructing the files, be sure to re-set the colors to black before you
> print, or you'll get greyed text wherever you used color.
