Tech. writing list

[Geoff Hart <geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

     Douglas Thayer <douglas_thayer -at- smtplink -dot- syscom -dot- com -dot- tw> asked about
     portable document software. I've tried a few programs, and here are
     my results:

     1) Adobe Acrobat seems to be great if you're working across
     platforms (e.g., Windows, Mac, Unix) and publishing using
     Postscript. If you want to see the results, Adobe offers a "free"
     CD ROM ($15 shipping and handling fee, perhaps more overseas) to
     show off the technology, and I was fairly impressed.

     2) No Hands Software Common Ground seems to get better reviews in
     the press (PC Magazine, MacUser and MacWorld have all reviewed it
     as better than Acrobat). However, I tried a few Windows print jobs
     and found it to be acceptable but not on a par with Acrobat. This
     is subjective, as I haven't performed in-depth destructive testing.

     3) WordPerfect Envoy subjectively feels the best: fast, efficient,
     and reliable. But again, I haven't tested it extensively, and some
     magazine reviews of older versions (1.X) ranked it below Acrobat
     and Common Ground.

     Note that the situation is changing rapidly. Common Ground and
     Envoy have new releases that are competitive with the new version
     of Acrobat. My advice: each company offers free demos for the price
     of a phone call or letter, so get a copy and test it for your
     specific application. All magazine reviews test under specific,
     controlled situations that won't match yours, and I've often found
     surprising omissions in their testing when I tried a product
     myself.

     --Geoff Hart  #8^{)}   <---got these specs from reading too much
     online info!