[geeks] From a local mailing list

[velociraptor]

On 5/3/05, Jonathan C. Patschke <jp at celestrion.net> wrote:
> > Big documents suck in Word.
>
> Especially if you go the master-document and your subdocuments get out
> of sync.

What I hate is that they re-arranged Word's close to 10-yr old menu
trees in, iirc, Office 2000--in both the Windows and the Mac versions.
So now they both annoy equally.  Although Office under Aqua sure is
purdy! <rolls eyes>

> > NASA uses Word, but when I was there, I couldn't help but notice
> > really big documents were still done with Maker.
>
> Dumping FrameMaker for Word would be like dumping a Peterbilt tractor
> and box for a wheelbarrow.

More like a wheelbarrow with an almost flat tire.  FrameMaker rules,
pure and simple.

The key to being more productive in Maker, I think, even for short docs
is to do your input in some other "editting friendly" text input program
(say, emacs or vi, or maybe BBEdit if you are into that kind of thing).
Then import it.  If you have done your layout properly with linked styles,
the majority of your work will be done. People complain about Quark-
Express's "weak" editting tools, but the party line from Quark was
always, "QE is not a word processor, it's a page layout program."

Anyone remember WriteNow! for the Mac?  I fondly remember
figuring out how to use RAM disks on the Mac SE30's so I
wouldn't have to play the floppy swap game when saving documents.

=Nadine=