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Subject:replacing Word - Framemaker vs Indesign? From:T K <tvk_tw -at- yahoo -dot- ie> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Tue, 1 Feb 2005 10:58:20 +0000 (GMT)
The company I work for is considering a move to a tool
other than MS Word for creation of documentaion (user
guides, manuals, service bulletins, operator and setup
guides etc.) primarily because Word becomes unstable
when document size gets large - the inclusion of
complex AutoCAD drawings increases our file size
greatly.
Framemaker is one option and I have already posted to
this forum asking for further information regarding
the rumours surrounding the future of Framemaker (many
thanks to all who contributed to that discussion).
Another option may be Indesign. I would appreciate
input from anyone who has knowledge or experience of
Indesign. Some of the contributors to my previous post
(Are the Rumours About Framemaker True?) mentioned
that Indesign is where Adobe is concentrating its
efforts for future development.
My boss wants a report "yesterday" outlining the pros
and cons of a suitable replacement for Word.
Is Indesign working well at present, or has Adobe more
work to do with it? Is there much of a learning curve
to get up to speed on Indesign? Would Indesign be
compatible with AutoCAD .dwg files?
One of the concerns here is that if we go with
Framemaker it may no longer be the documentation tool
of the future. Would Indesign be that tool? We could
produce our documentation for a long long time to come
with Framemaker as it now stands. However, while we
usually just provide customers with hard copies of
documents, there are occasions when they also require
electronic copies for in-house touching up. The last
thing we want is to be providing customers with files
from outdated software in a few years time if
Framemaker was to become obsolete.
Thanks,
Tom.
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