I agree with most of what you have said about Word. For large documents, you are often better off using a piece a cardboard and a crayon than having to resort to Word. However, I've found that Word's autonumbering feature works better than most people (including me) have complained about. I used to get extremely frustrated with it until I quite literally had an epiphany one day and realized how it actually works. After some testing, I was able to set up a 300-page document with paragraphs that were autonumbered six levels deep: x., x.x, x.x.x,----, x.x.x.x.x.x that also included autonumbered figures and tables. It was also quite stable, things didn't magically mess up. I was so happy with my new discovery that I almost took the rest of the day off.
The biggest problem I have found with Word's autonumbering feature is that it is documented so incredibly poorly and isn't very intuitive. And, although it does work, the same feature is so much easier to understand and use in FrameMaker. -----Original Message----- From: framers-bounces+jharvey=cambridgesoft....@lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-bounces+jharvey=cambridgesoft.com at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Diane Gaskill Sent: Friday, May 19, 2006 8:12 AM To: framers at FrameUsers.com Subject: RE: Career advice--which application to focus on: FM or Word? Word is also a memory hog. It uses more than twice as much RAM as FM at launch and sucks up more as time goes on. It often runs out of memory and sends error messages about no longer letting you undo anything. If you are working in a Word doc over 150 pages or so, you are definitely taking chances and are likely to experience Word literally slowing down and eventually grinding to a halt. The Word autonumbering bug is horrendous to put it nicely. Bulleted and numbered lists are reformatted for you while you sleep (whether you want them to be or not). When you open the doc again, numbers have changed to bullets, numeric lists are now alpha lists and start with e instead of 1, or if you are lucky and they are still numbered, they start with 430 instead of 1. This is not a joke folks, I see this every day at work. We have created some workarounds, but to answer Steve's question, it is NOT worth it. Fortunately, we have also have FM, and are beginning to convince the powers that be how much more stable and efficient FM is. Diane -----Original Message----- From: framers-bounces+dgcaller=earthlink....@lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-bounces+dgcaller=earthlink.net at lists.frameusers.com]On Behalf Of Steve Rickaby Sent: Thursday, May 18, 2006 2:39 AM To: framers at FrameUsers.com Subject: Re: Career advice--which application to focus on: FM or Word? At 16:15 -0400 17/5/06, Ron Miller wrote: >If I experiment with style changes, Word creates a new style like Body + blue font + 6 pt line spacing. It handles numbered lists very poorly and it is quirky and seems to lack any coherent use model. Frame on the other, while not perfect (what software is) and certainly less intuitive at least does what you want it to do and doesn't try to do so many things you wish it wouldn't. I think the key difference can be summed up by saying that Word takes a lifetime to master to the degree at which it can be used to produce results comparable to those that can be produced quite easily with Frame. It can be done, but is it worth it? -- Steve -----Original Message----- From: Ron Miller Sent: Wednesday, May 17, 2006 1:15 PM To: John Posada Cc: Framers at frameusers.com Subject: Re: Career advice--which application to focus on: FM or Word? I agree with John, tools are always changing, but that said, if you have a choice, Frame is just so much more solid than Word. I've been working on two projects recently. In one I'm in Word and I'm having the hardest time just sticking to a template. If I experiment with style changes, Word creates a new style like Body + blue font + 6 pt line spacing. It handles numbered lists very poorly and it is quirky and seems to lack any coherent use model. Frame on the other, while not perfect (what software is) and certainly less intuitive at least does what you want it to do and doesn't try to do so many things you wish it wouldn't. Ron _______________________________________________ You are currently subscribed to Framers as jharvey at cambridgesoft.com. Send list messages to framers at lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscribe at lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/jharvey%40cambridges oft.com Send administrative questions to lisa at frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.