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From: jfr@locus.com (Jon Rosen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.apps
Subject: Re: Frame Propaganda (was Word 5 Wishes - Word SUX!)
Message-ID: <21399@oolong.la.locus.com>
Date: 22 Jan 91 16:13:37 GMT
References: <9617@frame.UUCP> <1991Jan17.230535.4356@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au> <1122@mdavcr.UUCP>
Distribution: comp.sys.mac.apps
Organization: Locus Computing Corp, Los Angeles
Lines: 43

In article <1122@mdavcr.UUCP> ewm@mdavcr.UUCP (Eric W. Mitchell) writes:
>
>Actually, I would say FrameMaker has a quite steep learning curve to be able
>to use it for large documents.  I have been setting up corporate templates for
>documents, and there are some distinct difficulties. 
>
>(lots of stuff deleted about Frame, its problems and blatant advertising)  
 
While I don't totally disagree with your criticisms of Framemaker and while
I COMPLETELY agree with your flame of the outrageous advertisement placed by
Jeff on behalf of his company, I want to add a few words on behalf of the
product.
 
You are correct on the lack of hierarchical style sheets which is a serious
shortcoming... However, Frame has something most other Mac products lack:
character style sheets... There have been far more times when I wanted to
change all of my highlighted Bold words to highlighted Italic or something
else... It is extremely difficult in MS Word to do this (you can do it one
word at a time or use Search and Replace but that is a real pain)... In
Frame, you highlight words by applying a character style... Changing the
character style sheet changes the characteristics of ALL words of that
style in the document...  
 
The integrated word processing/drawing/page publication product is far
more useful than having to combine MacDraw(nee SuperPaint nee Illustrator...
choose one) with MS Word and then pour all the stuff into PageMaker...
This is particularly true for large documents which PageMaker is pretty
abysmal on and MS Word lacks the page pasteup capabilities for... 
 
On the other hand, if you are doing short catalogs, newsletters, etc,
then PageMaker may be more flexible... Framemaker lacks easy run-arounds,
and its frame connections are harder to use (IMHO)...
 
Frame has an EXCELLENT hyphenation system as well as a great spell checker,
far better, in my experience, than MS Word... 
 
So, in all, Frame is (like most good products) useful for a great many
things, excellent in some areas, and lacking in others... We still await
the ultimate product, but then, when we get it, it might be so large that
no one wants to use it... 
 
Jon