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- Newsgroups: comp.text.frame
- Path: sparky!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!csn!unidata!uso01
- From: uso01@unidata.com (Steven Owens)
- Subject: Re: Troff vs FrameMaker Productivity
- Organization: Unidata, Inc.
- Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 17:00:00 GMT
- Message-ID: <1992Jul24.170000.25476@unidata.com>
- Summary: Why the dichotomy? Use both!
- References: <1992Jul23.045118.27744@news.eng.convex.com> <1992Jul23.155833.4445@informix.com>
- Lines: 38
-
-
- I don't know much about Troff (aside from a little experimentation a
- few years ago), but the debate here really looks like it's focused
- on markup language vs. gui for document production.
-
- I thought I'd post a relatively "new" and hence (hopefully) somewhat
- objective view on this.
-
- I just started using Framemaker six or seven weeks ago. I was given
- eleven chapters of a manual, written in unformatted text, and asked
- to put them into Framemaker, formatted and pretty.
-
- I have ended up using a combination of the maker markup language
- (thanks to the advice of the people here!) to apply text styles and
- paragraph formats, and the Framemaker gui to design the styles and
- formats, and to make templates for the pages.
-
- MML could be better, of course; Frame officially is not supporting
- the new Framemaker features in MML, I was told. Still, it has come
- in extremely handy.
-
- I will undoubtedly "fine tune" the document with the gui before it
- goes out, but I think I got a large speed jump by working with MML at
- first.
-
- This seems (to me) to be the optimal approach.
-
-
- Btw, if you like and use Troff, isn't there a Troff filter for
- Framemaker? I remember seeing something posted about it here.
- Do the initial work in Troff and then import! :-)
-
- Disclaimer: I have programmed a little, so I may have something of
- the "batch mode" mentality, but I've also used other GUI layout
- packages, so they have an equal advantage on my prejudices :-)
-
-
- Steven J. Owens
-