On 3/6/01 11:29 PM, Allen Watson said:
> Anyone have any other suggestions for doing book-length documents? I also
> have Nisus Writer 5.1.3, but I've run into similar problems with that. In
> fact Word 5.0 did better with very long docs, I think. I suppose I could
> bite the bullet and buy Quark or Pagemaker...any recommendations there?
>> On 06-03-2001 17:58, "Sherman Wilcox" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>>> But yes, I agree: Word 2001 is the best (since 6, anyway).
>
> Since 5.0, you mean? 6 was <terrible>
Well, I meant since 6, but only because I was trying not to directly compare
Word 5 and Word 2001 because they seem so different. I liked 5.1a a *lot*,
and I'm starting to like Word 2001 too. Word 5 seemed to let me do what I
want and was transparent about it; I notice that Word 2001 is in my face
much more.
I partially gave my answer to your question in another post. For my
writing/publishing, I use a combination of Word 2001, Nisus 5.1.3, and
FrameMaker 6.
I use Word whenever I have to be compatible. But I am using it more and more
when I don't. For one thing, I really like the way EndNote mates with Word,
and I use EndNote to store/format my bibliographies (I also use it as a
front-end to my university's online catalogs). But for some reason, Word
bogs down when I use them together, too. These are not exceptionally long
documents -- 30-40 page papers, with some graphics, and lots of EndNote
material (which I guess is put into Word as variables? I don't really pay
attention to how it works). Scrolling, navigating through text starts to get
really sluggish. See: it's that love/hate thing again.
I use FrameMaker for large documents, books, etc., and when I know I don't
have to be compatible with other people, so I can work in the environment I
want. For example, National Science Foundation has online grant submission
now, via this fancy combination of PDF and HTML forms; I use FrameMaker for
that just because it feels good to me. I always end up with gobs of figures
in my work (I do sign language research and so we have to have pictures of
signs to make the point), and FrameMaker's ability to float a graphics
frame, its powerful cross-reference feature, etc. is a godsend. (To use FM
with EndNote you have to export the FM doc as MIF, do the EndNote thing, and
then import back into FM.)
I don't use PageMaker any more, but if I did it would feel sort of like the
role that FrameMaker takes for me (yeah, yeah, not really the same beast,
but...)
I use Nisus for heavy-duty word crunching. I'm not a programmer, haven't
learned to use perl or grep, etc. Nisus' "grep for the rest of us"
implementation is great for me. When people send me text that is a mess, I
put it in Nisus for clean up (a friend has developed some amazing macros
that do all kinds of elaborate text-munging to get typography correct).
And as Dennis pointed out, and it's true: I actually do a fair amount of
writing in Entourage! (trying to keep this post somewhat appropriate for the
Entourage list).
-- Sherman
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