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From: chuck@melmac.harris-atd.com (Chuck Musciano)
Newsgroups: comp.text,comp.text.desktop
Subject: Re: Which is better?  Textprocessing langs or DeskTop publishing pgms?
Message-ID: <2671@trantor.harris-atd.com>
Date: 12 Sep 89 17:15:43 GMT
References: <509@mjbtn.MFEE.TN.US> <2650@trantor.harris-atd.com> <5258@uqvax.decnet.uq.oz>
Sender: news@trantor.harris-atd.com
Reply-To: chuck@trantor.harris-atd.com (Chuck Musciano)
Organization: Advanced Technology Dept., Harris Corp., Melbourne, Fl.
Lines: 43

In article <5258@uqvax.decnet.uq.oz> ccmiguel@uqvax.decnet.uq.oz writes:
>I would be very interested if you could describe those "niches"
>in more detail. I like The Publisher but don't know how it measures
>up against Frame and Interleaf. Please?

     One big niche is the corporate standard document production center.
In this scenario, you have several predefined formats, and just pour text
into them on a regular basis.  Frame, Interleaf, and Publisher are good at
this.  Frame even has a tool which only allows text entry, and prevents
modification of the existing format.

     Another niche is the "lots of different formats" person.  I fall into this
group.  Frame excels at this.  You can create and modify formats faster in
Frame than in any other tool, I think.  Interleaf and Publisher view format
management as a systems administration function, rather than an individual 
function.

     If you are heavily into TeX, you should probably stick to Publisher, since
it can understand some LaTeX documents.

     If CALS is important to you, look at Frame or Interleaf.  Its really
too early to tell, but these two are battling it out for the upper hand in
managing CALS documents.

     Certain specialty formats, like newsletters and other "multi-flow"
documents, are nearly impossible in Publisher and Interleaf, but are a snap
in Frame.  If you are doing newsletters, you need Frame.

     Some tools have non-WYSIWYG capabilities.  Interleaf and Publisher
use SGML, Frame uses MIF (Maker Interchange Format).  This might be important
for sites with only a few workstations but lots of data entry stations.

     Interleaf has the most complete set of drawing tools, including some
nifty text effects, but it is expensive ($15,000 for the whole shebang).
If you need this stuff, that's something to consider, too.

Chuck Musciano				ARPA  : chuck@trantor.harris-atd.com
Harris Corporation 			Usenet: ...!uunet!x102a!trantor!chuck
PO Box 37, MS 3A/1912			AT&T  : (407) 727-6131
Melbourne, FL 32902			FAX   : (407) 727-{5118,5227,4004}

Gee, Beaver, everything that's fun can get you in trouble.  Haven't you
learned that yet? --Gilbert