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Monster Media 1994 #2
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STATS.TXT
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1993-01-17
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The following is the results of a survey conducted on the PAGEMAKR
Bitnet listserv in the fall of 1992. The survey form can be found in
the file SURVEY.TXT in the archives on the anonymous FTP site
WUARCHIVE.WUSTL.EDU in the misc\doc\pagemakr directory.
A quick note concerning the scoring processes. Many of the questions
asked to choose the best of several different options. Well -- as we
all know -- it is oftentimes hard to choose which one is the best.
Thus, if you said Corel Draw and Freehand were your favorite Draw
programs, each recieved an equal point. Thus, there may be some
questions that have more positive votes than the total number of
respondents.
On the first three questions (your favorite platforms) many of you
ranked the different platforms. To resolve this problem, I developed a
simple point system: 4 for first place, 3 for second, 2 for third and
1 for fourth. For all of you who listed more than one but did not
distinguish any preferences, each one received a value of 4. I think
everything will even out in the end.
If you have not filled out an application and would like to be part of
it, please let me know. I will mail you the form or you can get it from
the FTP site listed above.
Thanks again for all those people who contributed their time in making
this interesting survey!
Geof.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION #1 -- Which platform do you use?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Macintosh based : (196 points) 46 First Places, 4 Second Places
PC-based : (159 Points) 35 First Places, 5 Second Places
2 Third Place
Unix-based : ( 44 Points) 8 First Place, 4 Second Places
NeXT-based : ( 5 Points) 1 First Place, 1 Third Place
Comment: The clear winner here (as in the other questions) was the
Macintosh. The interesting aspect to this question is the high
number of people who do use PC and Macintosh bases simultaneously.
Compare the total number for the PC with this question to the total
for question #3. This suggests to me that, at least among our sample,
the Macintosh is the favorite platform even among people who use
both the PC and the Macintosh.
I apologize in not including other platforms such as VAX/VMS.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION #2 -- Which platform do you prefer for DTP?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Macintosh based : (194 Points) 47 First Places, 2 Second Places
PC-based : ( 78 Points) 16 First Places, 4 Second Places
1 Third Place
NeXT-based : ( 7 Points) 1 First Place, 1 Second Place
Unix-based : ( 7 Points) 1 Second Place, 2 Third Places
Comment: Its no major surprise that the Macintosh took the clear
lead here. I think the interesting item is that the Mac received
very few second place votes; if you use a Mac for DTPing, then it
is the favorite. Also note that Unix machines drop considerably from
the first question -- not many people on the list use the UNIX
stations for desktop publishing
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION #3 -- Which platform do you prefer overall?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Macintosh based : (184 Points) 43 First Places, 4 Second Places
PC-based : ( 86 Points) 18 First Places, 4 Second Places
1 Third Place
Unix-based : ( 17 Points) 3 First Places, 1 Second Place
1 Third Place
NeXT-based : ( 4 Points) 1 First Place
Comment: Notice that the PCs have a slight rise here in comparison
to the previous question. Evidently a slight number of people feel
that the Macintosh is best for DTP but the PC-based machine are
better overall.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION #4 -- Are you subscribed yet or plan to subscribe to Quark?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Yes : 10 votes
No : 48 votes
Comment: Roughly a fourth of the Pagemaker members are interested
in both lists.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION #5 -- Your favorite DTP program (Pagemaker, Quark, etc):
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Aldus Pagemaker : 59 votes
Framemaker : 4 votes
Ventura Publisher : 3 votes
QuarkXPress : 2 votes
Comment: I am somewhat surprised that Quark finished at the bottom
of the list.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION #6 -- Your favorite Draw program (Corel, MicroGraphix):
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Freehand : 20 votes
Corel Draw : 12 votes
Illustrator : 8 votes
Canvas : 7 votes
SuperPaint : 4 votes
MicroGraphix : 3 votes (Draw and Designer)
MacDraw : 3 votes (Pro and II)
HP Paintbrush : 1 vote
Windows Draw : 1 vote
Kid-Pix : 1 vote
Comment: This is pretty valuable for those of you in the market for
a draw program. I know that some are paint programs, but the
separation is becoming a little more uncertain. Personally, I am
surprised that MicroGraphix did not place higher -- with all the
hype they give themselves. I also like the Kid-Pix -- the person
said they use it for all of the simple stuff.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION #7 -- Your major in college (if you attended):
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Prenote: JEEZ! I am amazed at the wide range of majors available
here! This is a pretty diverse group. I have attempted to break down
the majors into general areas -- please forgive me if I have
misplaced your degree; some of them I have never even heard of.
(For instance, philosophy -- is it a science or an art?)
The Sciences / Engineering (27)
(12) Computer Science/MIS
(2) Mathematics
(2) Psychology
(2) Urban Studies/Planning
(2) Zoology
(1) Anthropology
(1) Biology
(1) Electrical Engineering
(1) Geography
(1) Library Sciences
(1) Medical Laboratory Sciences
(1) Physics
(1) Social Sciences
(1) Sociology
The Arts (26)
(8) English
(7) Communications / Journalism
(4) Foreign Lang. (1 each in German, Spanish, Japanese, French)
(2) History/Government
(2) Philosophy
(2) Religion
(1) Music
(1) Painting
(1) Technical Writing
Education (8)
(3) Education
(1) Education Administration
(1) Education Counseling
(1) Health Education
(1) Instructional Technology
Business Related (6)
(3) Business
(1) Accounting
(1) Management
(1) Advertising
The big majors are Computer Science, English and Journalism.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION #8 -- What one (or two) capabilities do you feel that
Pagemaker should possess in the next release?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Prenote: You guys and gals offered an endless number of suggestions.
I have tried to include and organize them below. The most often
responses were (with the number of votes):
(19) Better Text and/or Graphic Rotation
(12) Multiple Documents capabilities
(7) Grouping and locking capabilities.
(4) Better color separation
(4) More drawing features (Polygons, Freehand, etc.)
(3) Better page numbering capabilities
(3) Decent internal macro/automation/scripting language
(2) View more than 2 pages at once
(2) Suspend Screen Redraw
It is good news that Aldus is (rumored to be) addressing several of
these items with PageMaker 5.0. Of the remaining suggestions, each
was mentioned only once. A few are for capabilities already
available! My comments are in [brackets]. Here they are:
Improvements
-------------
1) A *REAL* drops caps capability
2) Better import filters, better ascii export filters
3) Faster
4) Better Tab Rulers
5) More helpful manual
6) Better Internal accuracy (0 doesn't equal 0 but 0.01!)
7) Ability to search/replace for hard returns.
8) Scroll-down Pull down menus, as in the type menu when you
have a lot of fonts.
9) Better ability to handle long tables such as ones that are
more than one page long
10) Swift on-screen thumbnail display to correspond with the
printer version
11) More additions!
12) Decent Kerning
13) Erase text using the Del key instead of only the backspace
14) Multiple master pages
15) Better Table handling
16) Either seriously release Table Editor or don't include it!
17) Better file translations between Mac and PC.
18) To be able to select all the text from the curson position
to the end of the text, or from the cursor position to the
beginning of text. [This can be done currently, but not at
a keystroke.]
19) Apply fills to text
Advancements
-------------
1) Ability to lock the order of layers. (So that even if you
edit an object it will stay in its layer.)
2) Connecting a text block of one style with text of another
style. [I think that this can already be done -- perhaps
they mean to have multiple styles in paragraphs.]
3) Auto figure numbering
4) Page copy option
5) Copy Guides from Page... option
6) Printing to be subprocessesed so that you can continue
to work instead of waiting for it to print.
7) Inter-Application Connection [Not sure what this means]
8) Read my mind [not too much to ask, no?]
9) Importing of Word Tables, Equations
10) Tear off pull-down menus
11) Context sensitive menus -- such as in MS Excel 4.0 for PC
12) New Menu with all the shortcuts on it
13) SGML capability
14) Dynamic references to figures and pages
15) Context sensitive headers. (Headers that continue until
a specific tag, such as can be done in Ventura)
16) A real page imposition system for making booklets
17) Allow different page sizes in the same document
18) Color-coded numbers to allow you to figure out how
multiple text blocks of the same document are linked
together. (Go beyond the hearts and +'s).
19) Convert a character or text block to support Text Wrap
on them. (Like drop caps)
This is a great bunch of suggestions. If you have any other ones,
please do not hesitate to contact me and I will add them. I hope
that we can create a group letter to Aldus to relay these messages
sometime in the near future.
That is the end of the survey portion. I am going to try to also
add a summary of the different professions from your biographies
when I get a chance. I hope this has been informing...
Geof.