Re: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare
While others have answered your question I too would add: FrameMaker used to have all these interfaces that you would open to perform work of various kinds, running as separate programs, kind of. TeX and friends do that too. In that sense, you can use whatever text editor/interface you prefer. There are commercial authoring tools available, such as Scientific Word and I prefer TeXShop on the Mac (it does all the things that Syed mentioned). For the two main platforms, MiKTeX is included for Windows and MacTeX for the Mac. The directory tree is almost identical but programs/binaries are compiled for each system. Some programs are available for several platforms, such as TeXWorks (an editor/interface) and all the core programs for parsing TeX files and generating (mainly) pdf's. There are also some different programs available for each platform for handling tasks like bibliography management. As Syed mentioned, TeXLive has become the most widely used distribution but that is because it provides a consistent directory structure and rules for management that are enforced by the team of volunteers who look after it. There are also a number of forks for more specific applications (such as automated print functions and print on demand). Alan On 30/10/13 8:46 PM, Shmuel Wolfson wrote: Are you saying that TeXLive is sort of a flavor of LaTex, not an editor like TeXstudio? Is it compatible with TeXstudio? Do you use an authoring tool with TeXLive other that a simple text editor? Regards, Shmuel Wolfson Technical Writer 052-763-7133 On 29-Oct-13 8:15 PM, Alan Litchfield wrote: Hiya, TeXLive is a distribution of the TeX, LaTeX, XeTeX, LuaTeX, etc. typesetting systems. It is multiplatform (that is, it can be used on vertualy all computer platforms). The main installation schemes are for Windows and Mac but many others also exist for various linux flavours. It is free and can be installed from the net, by downloading the iso and making a dvd or mounting and installing from there, or by joining TUG and getting a free DVD with your membership. Regular/constant updates are obtained from a range of ctan mirror sites around the globe. The LaTeX, etc. typesetting systems are really a composition of macros (packages) and various supporting binaries built upon the TeX typesetting system. The packages are binaries are all supported by and army of volunteers and there is a mechanism for additional packages to be contributed. That means if you area having issues with a package you can often email the maintainer direct or you can open it in a text editor and fix it yourself if you are skilled. Traditionally, TeX has used the ASCII character set but more modern systems now use all available font systems, for example LuaTeX and XeTeX are designed to use OpenType fonts. Other packages allow for output to multimedia players too. Alan On 29/10/13 9:54 PM, Shmuel Wolfson wrote: What exactly is TeXLiv? They don't explain it very well on the site. Regards, Shmuel Wolfson 052-763-7133 On 28-Oct-13 8:48 PM, Alan Litchfield wrote: Interestingly, Syed's comments mirror my own trajectory but I have been using LaTeX et al for as long as I have been using FrameMaker. I doubt I will be moving past version 10 unless my clients continue to request I upgrade (to match compatibility with their software). I doubt I will be taking any short term licensing options because files are not created for short term use. Importantly for me, TeXLive is free and has a strong and vibrant user base. Alan On 29/10/13 7:22 AM, Syed Zaeem Hosain (syed.hos...@aeris.net) wrote: Hi, Joseph. You are not the only one who is abandoning FrameMaker … if you look at my posts in the past months, I have done the same although I have been using it since 1988 off and on. I am still on the list for old times sake, though. J Please do send me your detailed reasons in an off-list e-mail – would like to know /your/ decision trigger! For me, it was the (a) recent over-pricing for some version upgrades that should have been done as free bug fixes, (b) the Adobe trend (albeit not yet announced for FrameMaker) to SAAS as the only licensing mechanism, and (c) their abandonment of small users (i.e., number of licenses) from their multi-year update licensing system. Today, *all* my new documents are no longer in FrameMaker. I am /only/ using it for maintaining and changing old documents, and if the change is large enough, I move it off FrameMaker. That takes a couple of days – even for the large documents – and then I am fine for the future! In time, all my old documents will be moved from FrameMaker. However, I have not chosen Flare as my platform, although it looks quite capable. Switching to it is expensive (of course, if they made me a $199 one-time offer to switch from FrameMaker to Flare, I would do it! J) For now, /for my needs (which may not apply to everybody)/, a combination of
RE: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare
Fred, You have described TeX Live very well, so I will only add a few more words based on my recent experiences with it. 1. Although there are a few distributions listed on the CTAN web site, the TeX Live package has proven effective for me, even though they recommended a different one for Windows. 2. The download is large. 3. It was easy to install. 4. You can get confused about which packages to install - my solution was simple: install everything! :) 5. Periodically running the TeX Live manager to update packages is simple. It hides the complexity of maintaining versions, etc. a. Updates are incremental - only the packages that have changed are downloaded and added. 6. After installing TeX Live, I used the included TeXworks editor for a few days and chose to look for an alternative. 7. I settled on TeXstudio because of a few reasons (which may not apply to everybody, of course): a. Has an excellent mechanism to manage "included" input files - conceptually similar to a "book" in FrameMaker. b. Very easy addition of simpler LaTeX commands into the input files using menu buttons. c. As you type, an "entry completion" system allows finding and adding the LaTeX instruction and parameters very easily. d. The "usual" color-coded GUI editor to separate LaTeX commands from your own text. e. Rapid PDF generation. On my year-old laptop, generates PDF from 100 page docs in 1 or 2 seconds. The screen automatically splits to show source and PDF side-by-side instantly. f. Super-fast ability to see the PDF output from changes to the input source text. g. Mouse menu items to "jump to the source for this line of PDF output" and "jump to the PDF for this line of source text". Hope this helps, Z From: framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Fred Ridder Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2013 5:52 AM To: shmu...@excalibur.co.il; Alan Litchfield; framers@lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare No, he's saying that TeX Live (the name is officially two words, BTW, which is kind of refreshing in the CamelCaseWorld of TeX and LaTeX) is a *distribution* of TeX, in the same sense that Debian and Ubuntu and Fedora (from Red Hat) are distributions of Linux. TeX Live is a collection of non-proprietary tools, utilities, and "packages" (the official TeX name for macro add-ons that enhance functionality by adding new commands, options, and formatting capabilities) from diverse sources that is wrapped up as a unified installation. TeX Live includes an editor, but it is not their own tool; for the Windows and OS X TeX Live distributions, the included editor is TeXworks. TeX Live is probably the most widely used TeX distribution because it is the default TeX distro in most of the major Linux distributions and several Unix distributions. But there are other popular TeX distros, too. For example, some groups at my current employer have a Doxygen-based document generation process used that is built around the MiKTeX distribution, which uses the TeXnicCenter editor. And there is a kind of super-distribution for Mac OS X (MacTeX) that includes the whole TeX Live distro along with an alternative editor (TeXShop), a bibliography manager, and some other Mac-specific TeX tools. Distros don't make it as simple as keeping track of a version number and a patch number for a single tool, but at least they provides some consistency and coordination in the TeX chaos of hundreds of separate pieces of software from dozens of different sources... -Fred Ridder > Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2013 09:46:18 +0200 > From: shmue...@gmail.com<mailto:shmue...@gmail.com> > To: a...@alphabyte.co.nz<mailto:a...@alphabyte.co.nz>; > framers@lists.frameusers.com<mailto:framers@lists.frameusers.com> > Subject: Re: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to > Flare > > Are you saying that TeXLive is sort of a flavor of LaTex, not an editor > like TeXstudio? > Is it compatible with TeXstudio? > Do you use an authoring tool with TeXLive other that a simple text editor? > > Regards, > Shmuel Wolfson > Technical Writer > 052-763-7133 > > On 29-Oct-13 8:15 PM, Alan Litchfield wrote: > > Hiya, > > > > TeXLive is a distribution of the TeX, LaTeX, XeTeX, LuaTeX, etc. > > typesetting systems. It is multiplatform (that is, it can be used on > > vertualy all computer platforms). The main installation schemes are > > for Windows and Mac but many others also exist for various linux > > flavours. > > > > It is free and can be installed from the net, by downloading the iso > > and making a dvd or mounting and in
RE: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare
No, he's saying that TeX Live (the name is officially two words, BTW, which is kind of refreshing in the CamelCaseWorld of TeX and LaTeX) is a *distribution* of TeX, in the same sense that Debian and Ubuntu and Fedora (from Red Hat) are distributions of Linux. TeX Live is a collection of non-proprietary tools, utilities, and "packages" (the official TeX name for macro add-ons that enhance functionality by adding new commands, options, and formatting capabilities) from diverse sources that is wrapped up as a unified installation. TeX Live includes an editor, but it is not their own tool; for the Windows and OS X TeX Live distributions, the included editor is TeXworks. TeX Live is probably the most widely used TeX distribution because it is the default TeX distro in most of the major Linux distributions and several Unix distributions. But there are other popular TeX distros, too. For example, some groups at my current employer have a Doxygen-based document generation process used that is built around the MiKTeX distribution, which uses the TeXnicCenter editor. And there is a kind of super-distribution for Mac OS X (MacTeX) that includes the whole TeX Live distro along with an alternative editor (TeXShop), a bibliography manager, and some other Mac-specific TeX tools. Distros don't make it as simple as keeping track of a version number and a patch number for a single tool, but at least they provides some consistency and coordination in the TeX chaos of hundreds of separate pieces of software from dozens of different sources... -Fred Ridder > Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2013 09:46:18 +0200 > From: shmue...@gmail.com > To: a...@alphabyte.co.nz; framers@lists.frameusers.com > Subject: Re: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker > to Flare > > Are you saying that TeXLive is sort of a flavor of LaTex, not an editor > like TeXstudio? > Is it compatible with TeXstudio? > Do you use an authoring tool with TeXLive other that a simple text editor? > > Regards, > Shmuel Wolfson > Technical Writer > 052-763-7133 > > On 29-Oct-13 8:15 PM, Alan Litchfield wrote: > > Hiya, > > > > TeXLive is a distribution of the TeX, LaTeX, XeTeX, LuaTeX, etc. > > typesetting systems. It is multiplatform (that is, it can be used on > > vertualy all computer platforms). The main installation schemes are > > for Windows and Mac but many others also exist for various linux > > flavours. > > > > It is free and can be installed from the net, by downloading the iso > > and making a dvd or mounting and installing from there, or by joining > > TUG and getting a free DVD with your membership. > > > > Regular/constant updates are obtained from a range of ctan mirror > > sites around the globe. > > > > The LaTeX, etc. typesetting systems are really a composition of macros > > (packages) and various supporting binaries built upon the TeX > > typesetting system. The packages are binaries are all supported by and > > army of volunteers and there is a mechanism for additional packages to > > be contributed. That means if you area having issues with a package > > you can often email the maintainer direct or you can open it in a text > > editor and fix it yourself if you are skilled. > > > > Traditionally, TeX has used the ASCII character set but more modern > > systems now use all available font systems, for example LuaTeX and > > XeTeX are designed to use OpenType fonts. > > > > Other packages allow for output to multimedia players too. > > > > Alan > > > > > > On 29/10/13 9:54 PM, Shmuel Wolfson wrote: > >> What exactly is TeXLiv? They don't explain it very well on the site. > >> > >> Regards, > >> Shmuel Wolfson > >> 052-763-7133 > >> > >> On 28-Oct-13 8:48 PM, Alan Litchfield wrote: > >>> Interestingly, Syed's comments mirror my own trajectory but I have > >>> been using LaTeX et al for as long as I have been using FrameMaker. > >>> > >>> I doubt I will be moving past version 10 unless my clients continue > >>> to request I upgrade (to match compatibility with their software). I > >>> doubt I will be taking any short term licensing options because > >>> files are not created for short term use. > >>> > >>> Importantly for me, TeXLive is free and has a strong and vibrant > >>> user base. > >>> > >>> Alan > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> On 29/10/13 7:22 AM, Syed Zaeem Hosain (syed.hos...@aeris.net) wrote: > >>>> > >>>> Hi, Josep
Re: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare
Lots of structured authoring tools, including FrameMaker, offer a WYSIWYG presentation. I don't see people moving away from that since it's a lot more efficient to fix formatting problems on the fly. On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 8:30 AM, Rick Quatro wrote: > Mike's comment is interesting light of the fact that many people are moving > away from WSIWYG "in this century." The whole XML-authoring world, with DITA, > S1000D, DocBook, etc., is a move away from WSIWYG authoring tools. > Increasingly, authoring content is being separated from rendering it for > output (for example, with applications like Flare). In a sense, we are going > full circle back to the division of labor that existing in the typesetting > era. That is why there may be a revival in the LaTex world: it has always > separated authoring and rendering. ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
RE: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare
My biggest kvetch about all the structured doc tools I've seen (and I've been using them as far back as IBM's "BookMaster") is that they generally output like sausage machines. All the text is simply extruded onto the page, with no awareness of how people read documents or process information. It is true that s ome output processors/digesters can be "instructed" on how to handle things such as widows and orphans, and even some semi-intelligent hyphenation. But none of them (in my experience) produce layouts anywhere as near good as what even a moderately-educated human can do. (kerning, leading, knowing what chunks need to stay together to be useful, etc. ) Their output is "OK" for very small chunk information like help pages, but dreadful for any document that requires more than that. I'm not completely opposed to them; using such tools helps writing teams standardize things --- and DITA (as a philosophy of information organization) does help rationalize what can otherwise be messy organization. And they can help with reuse (but not as much as you might think, once you start factoring in the overhead of finding the resuable chunks, and then writing around them so that they don't read like an undigested lump in the middle of your prose!) Grant > On October 29, 2013 at 9:30 AM Rick Quatro wrote: > > > Mike's comment is interesting light of the fact that many people are moving > away from WSIWYG "in this century." The whole XML-authoring world, with DITA, > S1000D, DocBook, etc., is a move away from WSIWYG authoring tools. > Increasingly, authoring content is being separated from rendering it for > output (for example, with applications like Flare). In a sense, we are going > full circle back to the division of labor that existing in the typesetting > era. That is why there may be a revival in the LaTex world: it has always > separated authoring and rendering. > > Rick Quatro > > ➢ Isn't LaTex a non-WYSIWYG application, though? I can't imagine working that > way in this century. I don't think I've done that since Wordstar. :) > > ➢ Mike Wickham ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Re: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare
Are you saying that TeXLive is sort of a flavor of LaTex, not an editor like TeXstudio? Is it compatible with TeXstudio? Do you use an authoring tool with TeXLive other that a simple text editor? Regards, Shmuel Wolfson Technical Writer 052-763-7133 On 29-Oct-13 8:15 PM, Alan Litchfield wrote: Hiya, TeXLive is a distribution of the TeX, LaTeX, XeTeX, LuaTeX, etc. typesetting systems. It is multiplatform (that is, it can be used on vertualy all computer platforms). The main installation schemes are for Windows and Mac but many others also exist for various linux flavours. It is free and can be installed from the net, by downloading the iso and making a dvd or mounting and installing from there, or by joining TUG and getting a free DVD with your membership. Regular/constant updates are obtained from a range of ctan mirror sites around the globe. The LaTeX, etc. typesetting systems are really a composition of macros (packages) and various supporting binaries built upon the TeX typesetting system. The packages are binaries are all supported by and army of volunteers and there is a mechanism for additional packages to be contributed. That means if you area having issues with a package you can often email the maintainer direct or you can open it in a text editor and fix it yourself if you are skilled. Traditionally, TeX has used the ASCII character set but more modern systems now use all available font systems, for example LuaTeX and XeTeX are designed to use OpenType fonts. Other packages allow for output to multimedia players too. Alan On 29/10/13 9:54 PM, Shmuel Wolfson wrote: What exactly is TeXLiv? They don't explain it very well on the site. Regards, Shmuel Wolfson 052-763-7133 On 28-Oct-13 8:48 PM, Alan Litchfield wrote: Interestingly, Syed's comments mirror my own trajectory but I have been using LaTeX et al for as long as I have been using FrameMaker. I doubt I will be moving past version 10 unless my clients continue to request I upgrade (to match compatibility with their software). I doubt I will be taking any short term licensing options because files are not created for short term use. Importantly for me, TeXLive is free and has a strong and vibrant user base. Alan On 29/10/13 7:22 AM, Syed Zaeem Hosain (syed.hos...@aeris.net) wrote: Hi, Joseph. You are not the only one who is abandoning FrameMaker … if you look at my posts in the past months, I have done the same although I have been using it since 1988 off and on. I am still on the list for old times sake, though. J Please do send me your detailed reasons in an off-list e-mail – would like to know /your/ decision trigger! For me, it was the (a) recent over-pricing for some version upgrades that should have been done as free bug fixes, (b) the Adobe trend (albeit not yet announced for FrameMaker) to SAAS as the only licensing mechanism, and (c) their abandonment of small users (i.e., number of licenses) from their multi-year update licensing system. Today, *all* my new documents are no longer in FrameMaker. I am /only/ using it for maintaining and changing old documents, and if the change is large enough, I move it off FrameMaker. That takes a couple of days – even for the large documents – and then I am fine for the future! In time, all my old documents will be moved from FrameMaker. However, I have not chosen Flare as my platform, although it looks quite capable. Switching to it is expensive (of course, if they made me a $199 one-time offer to switch from FrameMaker to Flare, I would do it! J) For now, /for my needs (which may not apply to everybody)/, a combination of Word 2013 for short documents (less than 10 to 20 pages), and LaTex (for large multi-hundred page specifications) is proving quite workable. Not perfect, and not as flexible as FrameMaker, but the costly “upgrades” of FrameMaker is not acceptable, and the trend to equally costly SAAS is a deal-breaker. BTW, LaTeX in particular allows me to achieve **complete** look-and-feel consistency in my specifications – formatting is separate from text entry – and I value that highly. It was my reason for selecting FrameMaker over Word about 12 years ago for my current company. Regards, and good luck! Z *From:*framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] *On Behalf Of *Joseph Lorenzini *Sent:* Saturday, October 26, 2013 10:13 AM *To:* FrameMaker Forum; tcs-us...@googlegroups.com *Subject:* So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare Hi all, I have used FrameMaker for over 5 years. I have used it to produce thousands of pages of documentation. And I honestly thought that FM was a great tool...for a time. Plus, the community was super helpful. So its with some regret that I am telling you that I am leaving this community and the TCS suite. I am adopting Flare as a replacement. Please note I am no evangelist of Flare nor do I th
RE: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare
Uh dummy me - hyperref is what I am already using. Just haven't explored all the options yet ... Z > That looks good indeed - the description is exactly what I want! I will have > to try it out. > Thanks much, > Z On 30/10/13 7:25 AM, Syed Zaeem Hosain (syed.hos...@aeris.net) wrote: > PDF generation with intra-document references is one of the limitations in > Adobe Acrobat equivalents from other sources (when used with FrameMaker) - > Rick Quatro had mentioned this in a response to one of my earlier posts too. > > However, from TeXstudio (i.e., when using LaTeX), I can get intra-document > references to work sufficiently well (not perfectly, I admit) in PDF output, > so I stopped searching for an alternative to Adobe Acrobat. FWIW, now, the > only reason Acrobat gets used on my system is because I have been too lazy to > remove it as the "default" app when I look at a PDF, or when I generate PDF > output from an old FrameMaker doc. hyperref is your friend :) http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/hyperref/ Alan -- Dr Alan Litchfield AlphaByte PO Box 1941 Auckland, New Zealand 1140 ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as syed.hos...@aeris.net. Send list messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/syed.hosain%40aeris.net Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
RE: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare
That looks good indeed - the description is exactly what I want! I will have to try it out. Thanks much, Z -Original Message- From: framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Alan Litchfield Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2013 11:46 AM To: framers@lists.frameusers.com Subject: Re: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare On 30/10/13 7:25 AM, Syed Zaeem Hosain (syed.hos...@aeris.net) wrote: > PDF generation with intra-document references is one of the limitations in > Adobe Acrobat equivalents from other sources (when used with FrameMaker) - > Rick Quatro had mentioned this in a response to one of my earlier posts too. > > However, from TeXstudio (i.e., when using LaTeX), I can get intra-document > references to work sufficiently well (not perfectly, I admit) in PDF output, > so I stopped searching for an alternative to Adobe Acrobat. FWIW, now, the > only reason Acrobat gets used on my system is because I have been too lazy to > remove it as the "default" app when I look at a PDF, or when I generate PDF > output from an old FrameMaker doc. hyperref is your friend :) http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/hyperref/ Alan -- Dr Alan Litchfield AlphaByte PO Box 1941 Auckland, New Zealand 1140 ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as syed.hos...@aeris.net. Send list messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/syed.hosain%40aeris.net Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Re: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare
On 30/10/13 7:25 AM, Syed Zaeem Hosain (syed.hos...@aeris.net) wrote: PDF generation with intra-document references is one of the limitations in Adobe Acrobat equivalents from other sources (when used with FrameMaker) - Rick Quatro had mentioned this in a response to one of my earlier posts too. However, from TeXstudio (i.e., when using LaTeX), I can get intra-document references to work sufficiently well (not perfectly, I admit) in PDF output, so I stopped searching for an alternative to Adobe Acrobat. FWIW, now, the only reason Acrobat gets used on my system is because I have been too lazy to remove it as the "default" app when I look at a PDF, or when I generate PDF output from an old FrameMaker doc. hyperref is your friend :) http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/hyperref/ Alan -- Dr Alan Litchfield AlphaByte PO Box 1941 Auckland, New Zealand 1140 ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
RE: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare
PDF generation with intra-document references is one of the limitations in Adobe Acrobat equivalents from other sources (when used with FrameMaker) - Rick Quatro had mentioned this in a response to one of my earlier posts too. However, from TeXstudio (i.e., when using LaTeX), I can get intra-document references to work sufficiently well (not perfectly, I admit) in PDF output, so I stopped searching for an alternative to Adobe Acrobat. FWIW, now, the only reason Acrobat gets used on my system is because I have been too lazy to remove it as the "default" app when I look at a PDF, or when I generate PDF output from an old FrameMaker doc. I don't plan to upgrade Acrobat past my current version ... since I _think_ (no specific knowledge though) that the next version is likely to use a subscription model. Z > I'm in that crowd, too. My books go to press and I use Acrobat to generate my > PDF. I'm sure third party choices could work well, too, but I prefer Acrobat. > (That could change if Adobe takes it to a subscription-only model.) > Mike Wickham On 10/29/2013 10:14 AM, Steve Rickaby wrote: > At 21:02 -0500 28/10/13, Mike Wickham wrote: > >> Nobody needs PDF unless they want to create documents that will retain fonts >> and formatting to display identically on every computer. But if you want >> that, you want PDF-- and you probably want Acrobat because it is the most >> stable and full-featured. > Those of us who take books to press are tied to PDF/Acrobat, as it's become > pretty much the mandatory pre-press format. ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Re: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare
Unless/when print technologies change, then you might need that step. Until then your existing Acrobat will continue to work with the old license. I still run a #8 version on an old computer. Alan On 30/10/13 5:54 AM, Mike Wickham wrote: I'm in that crowd, too. My books go to press and I use Acrobat to generate my PDF. I'm sure third party choices could work well, too, but I prefer Acrobat. (That could change if Adobe takes it to a subscription-only model.) Mike Wickham On 10/29/2013 10:14 AM, Steve Rickaby wrote: At 21:02 -0500 28/10/13, Mike Wickham wrote: Nobody needs PDF unless they want to create documents that will retain fonts and formatting to display identically on every computer. But if you want that, you want PDF-- and you probably want Acrobat because it is the most stable and full-featured. Those of us who take books to press are tied to PDF/Acrobat, as it's become pretty much the mandatory pre-press format. ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as a...@alphabyte.co.nz. Send list messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/alan%40alphabyte.co.nz Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. -- Dr Alan Litchfield AlphaByte PO Box 1941 Auckland, New Zealand 1140 ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Re: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare
Hiya, TeXLive is a distribution of the TeX, LaTeX, XeTeX, LuaTeX, etc. typesetting systems. It is multiplatform (that is, it can be used on vertualy all computer platforms). The main installation schemes are for Windows and Mac but many others also exist for various linux flavours. It is free and can be installed from the net, by downloading the iso and making a dvd or mounting and installing from there, or by joining TUG and getting a free DVD with your membership. Regular/constant updates are obtained from a range of ctan mirror sites around the globe. The LaTeX, etc. typesetting systems are really a composition of macros (packages) and various supporting binaries built upon the TeX typesetting system. The packages are binaries are all supported by and army of volunteers and there is a mechanism for additional packages to be contributed. That means if you area having issues with a package you can often email the maintainer direct or you can open it in a text editor and fix it yourself if you are skilled. Traditionally, TeX has used the ASCII character set but more modern systems now use all available font systems, for example LuaTeX and XeTeX are designed to use OpenType fonts. Other packages allow for output to multimedia players too. Alan On 29/10/13 9:54 PM, Shmuel Wolfson wrote: What exactly is TeXLiv? They don't explain it very well on the site. Regards, Shmuel Wolfson 052-763-7133 On 28-Oct-13 8:48 PM, Alan Litchfield wrote: Interestingly, Syed's comments mirror my own trajectory but I have been using LaTeX et al for as long as I have been using FrameMaker. I doubt I will be moving past version 10 unless my clients continue to request I upgrade (to match compatibility with their software). I doubt I will be taking any short term licensing options because files are not created for short term use. Importantly for me, TeXLive is free and has a strong and vibrant user base. Alan On 29/10/13 7:22 AM, Syed Zaeem Hosain (syed.hos...@aeris.net) wrote: Hi, Joseph. You are not the only one who is abandoning FrameMaker … if you look at my posts in the past months, I have done the same although I have been using it since 1988 off and on. I am still on the list for old times sake, though. J Please do send me your detailed reasons in an off-list e-mail – would like to know /your/ decision trigger! For me, it was the (a) recent over-pricing for some version upgrades that should have been done as free bug fixes, (b) the Adobe trend (albeit not yet announced for FrameMaker) to SAAS as the only licensing mechanism, and (c) their abandonment of small users (i.e., number of licenses) from their multi-year update licensing system. Today, *all* my new documents are no longer in FrameMaker. I am /only/ using it for maintaining and changing old documents, and if the change is large enough, I move it off FrameMaker. That takes a couple of days – even for the large documents – and then I am fine for the future! In time, all my old documents will be moved from FrameMaker. However, I have not chosen Flare as my platform, although it looks quite capable. Switching to it is expensive (of course, if they made me a $199 one-time offer to switch from FrameMaker to Flare, I would do it! J) For now, /for my needs (which may not apply to everybody)/, a combination of Word 2013 for short documents (less than 10 to 20 pages), and LaTex (for large multi-hundred page specifications) is proving quite workable. Not perfect, and not as flexible as FrameMaker, but the costly “upgrades” of FrameMaker is not acceptable, and the trend to equally costly SAAS is a deal-breaker. BTW, LaTeX in particular allows me to achieve **complete** look-and-feel consistency in my specifications – formatting is separate from text entry – and I value that highly. It was my reason for selecting FrameMaker over Word about 12 years ago for my current company. Regards, and good luck! Z *From:*framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] *On Behalf Of *Joseph Lorenzini *Sent:* Saturday, October 26, 2013 10:13 AM *To:* FrameMaker Forum; tcs-us...@googlegroups.com *Subject:* So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare Hi all, I have used FrameMaker for over 5 years. I have used it to produce thousands of pages of documentation. And I honestly thought that FM was a great tool...for a time. Plus, the community was super helpful. So its with some regret that I am telling you that I am leaving this community and the TCS suite. I am adopting Flare as a replacement. Please note I am no evangelist of Flare nor do I think that there's One Right Tool. FrameMaker can be a great solution for some and if works for you then great. The reasons why I made this choice were driven by a specific business and use case There are many reasons for this but that would cause this post to grow quite large and I didn't want
Re: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare
I'm in that crowd, too. My books go to press and I use Acrobat to generate my PDF. I'm sure third party choices could work well, too, but I prefer Acrobat. (That could change if Adobe takes it to a subscription-only model.) Mike Wickham On 10/29/2013 10:14 AM, Steve Rickaby wrote: At 21:02 -0500 28/10/13, Mike Wickham wrote: Nobody needs PDF unless they want to create documents that will retain fonts and formatting to display identically on every computer. But if you want that, you want PDF-- and you probably want Acrobat because it is the most stable and full-featured. Those of us who take books to press are tied to PDF/Acrobat, as it's become pretty much the mandatory pre-press format. ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
RE: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare
Mike's comment is interesting light of the fact that many people are moving away from WSIWYG "in this century." The whole XML-authoring world, with DITA, S1000D, DocBook, etc., is a move away from WSIWYG authoring tools. Increasingly, authoring content is being separated from rendering it for output (for example, with applications like Flare). In a sense, we are going full circle back to the division of labor that existing in the typesetting era. That is why there may be a revival in the LaTex world: it has always separated authoring and rendering. Rick Quatro Carmen Publishing Inc. 585-366-4017 **NEW** r...@frameexpert.com ➢ Isn't LaTex a non-WYSIWYG application, though? I can't imagine working that way in this century. I don't think I've done that since Wordstar. :) ➢ Mike Wickham ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Re: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare
At 21:02 -0500 28/10/13, Mike Wickham wrote: >Nobody needs PDF unless they want to create documents that will retain fonts >and formatting to display identically on every computer. But if you want that, >you want PDF-- and you probably want Acrobat because it is the most stable and >full-featured. Those of us who take books to press are tied to PDF/Acrobat, as it's become pretty much the mandatory pre-press format. -- Steve ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
RE: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare
? Isn't LaTex a non-WYSIWYG application, though? I can't imagine working that way in this century. I don't think I've done that since Wordstar. :) ? Mike Wickham Absolutely correct that it is non-WYSIWYG for the text input. So, it does require a change in thinking when writing. However, (a)There are plenty of editors that allow the input text files to be simply previewed ... almost as you type, with full support for automated instruction entry, so that you can see the expected final output (which is PDF in my case) in a hurry. With today's fast computers, the regeneration of the PDF output on my system - even for multiple hundred page documents - takes less than 5 to 10 seconds, and usually far less. a. I am sure that there are more options, but what I have found to work very well is: TeXstudio available at http://texstudio.sourceforge.net/. This editor handles all the language issues of LaTeX cleanly and allows me to focus on the writing. With pdftolatex support built into TeXstudio, I can preview the PDF side-by-side to the input text, almost as fast as WYSIWYG editors! (b)Far too often, people - particularly novice writers and the engineers we like to pejorate (is there such a word? :)) - spend more time on paragraph and document formatting and less on the content. Using a text editor to create the content is actually a better approach. a. When I first started using FrameMaker, I would start by editing the text and then later add the formatting where I wanted. Later, when I had a set of documents already written, I could simply re-use one to get the correct look-and-feel. b. If anyone now provides me input for one of my documents - usually in Word - I simply save it as a text file, bring it into my LaTeX document as an include file, and then can quickly add the LaTeX instructions to make it have the correct headers, formatting and the like. Quick and easy! So, for me, the advantages of LaTeX, particularly when used with an editor that handles adding the instructions (like TeXstudio), are very workable. I used to use LaTeX decades ago with more pain, but today's amazing community support (from the millions of users it has) and fast computers (to preview the output in almost real-time) has made it a simple re-adoption. As Mikey says, "Try it, you'll like it!". :) Z It's nice to know there is a free alternative to FrameMaker, which has become very overpriced lately. They went from $400 for an upgrade every 2 or 3 versions to $400 to upgrade only one version. ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Re: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare
Isn't LaTex a non-WYSIWYG application, though? I can't imagine working that way in this century. I don't think I've done that since Wordstar. :) Mike Wickham It's nice to know there is a free alternative to FrameMaker, which has become very overpriced lately. They went from $400 for an upgrade every 2 or 3 versions to $400 to upgrade only one version. ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Re: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare
Thanks for the tip on LaTex. It's nice to know there is a free alternative to FrameMaker, which has become very overpriced lately. They went from $400 for an upgrade every 2 or 3 versions to $400 to upgrade only one version. Regards, Shmuel Wolfson Technical Writer 052-763-7133 On 28-Oct-13 8:22 PM, Syed Zaeem Hosain (syed.hos...@aeris.net) wrote: Hi, Joseph. You are not the only one who is abandoning FrameMaker … if you look at my posts in the past months, I have done the same although I have been using it since 1988 off and on. I am still on the list for old times sake, though. J Please do send me your detailed reasons in an off-list e-mail – would like to know your decision trigger! For me, it was the (a) recent over-pricing for some version upgrades that should have been done as free bug fixes, (b) the Adobe trend (albeit not yet announced for FrameMaker) to SAAS as the only licensing mechanism, and (c) their abandonment of small users (i.e., number of licenses) from their multi-year update licensing system. Today, all my new documents are no longer in FrameMaker. I am only using it for maintaining and changing old documents, and if the change is large enough, I move it off FrameMaker. That takes a couple of days – even for the large documents – and then I am fine for the future! In time, all my old documents will be moved from FrameMaker. However, I have not chosen Flare as my platform, although it looks quite capable. Switching to it is expensive (of course, if they made me a $199 one-time offer to switch from FrameMaker to Flare, I would do it! J) For now, for my needs (which may not apply to everybody), a combination of Word 2013 for short documents (less than 10 to 20 pages), and LaTex (for large multi-hundred page specifications) is proving quite workable. Not perfect, and not as flexible as FrameMaker, but the costly “upgrades” of FrameMaker is not acceptable, and the trend to equally costly SAAS is a deal-breaker. BTW, LaTeX in particular allows me to achieve *complete* look-and-feel consistency in my specifications – formatting is separate from text entry – and I value that highly. It was my reason for selecting FrameMaker over Word about 12 years ago for my current company. Regards, and good luck! Z From: framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Joseph Lorenzini Sent: Saturday, October 26, 2013 10:13 AM To: FrameMaker Forum; tcs-us...@googlegroups.com Subject: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare Hi all, I have used FrameMaker for over 5 years. I have used it to produce thousands of pages of documentation. And I honestly thought that FM was a great tool...for a time. Plus, the community was super helpful. So its with some regret that I am telling you that I am leaving this community and the TCS suite. I am adopting Flare as a replacement. Please note I am no evangelist of Flare nor do I think that there's One Right Tool. FrameMaker can be a great solution for some and if works for you then great. The reasons why I made this choice were driven by a specific business and use case There are many reasons for this but that would cause this post to grow quite large and I didn't want to flood this community with a gigantic post about why I am not using its tool anymore. That said, my experience of why and how i migrated may be of interest to others in this forum. If you'd like a detailed explanation and are curious to learn more, I would be happy to share those details with you offline. Feel free to email me. Sincerely,
Re: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare
VLM TechSubs wrote: It occurs to me that leaving FrameMaker cuts one’s last tie to Adobe Acrobat, as well. One may need Acrobat to publish from Adobe applications, but not to publish from anyplace else, of which I am aware. Adobe applications don't tie you to Acrobat. FM includes a PDF-creation add-on (an Acrobat subset, of course) that can be installed or not, and can output in HTML, XML, too. Other Adobe programs have PDF capability built-in. There are third-party PDF creators out there, as well. Nobody needs PDF unless they want to create documents that will retain fonts and formatting to display identically on every computer. But if you want that, you want PDF-- and you probably want Acrobat because it is the most stable and full-featured. Mike Wickham ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Re: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare
There are plenty of alternatives even with FM, as long as you use "Print . . ." rather than "Save as PDF". I have Acrobat at home but use "CutePDF" as a printer on my university machine. Michael Lewis Macquarie University On 2013/10/29 11:33, VLM TechSubs wrote: It occurs to me that leaving FrameMaker cuts one’s last tie to Adobe Acrobat, as well. One may need Acrobat to publish from Adobe applications, but not to publish from anyplace else, of which I am aware. ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Re: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare
Well... On 29/10/13 1:33 PM, VLM TechSubs wrote: To the LaTex advocates: What version/product/learning tools and resources have you found most useful? I’m not at all interested in going back to some coding-oriented environment. Since I use Mac and Windows I use TeXLive that provides MacTeX and MikTeX respectively. On the Mac, I use TeXShop exclusively and on Windows, mainly TeXWorks. I wouldn't call it a coding oriented environment, but some might. It prefer to think of it as wysiwym. For those that prefer the wysiwyg experience, there is Scientific Word: http://www.mackichan.com/index.html?products/sw.html It occurs to me that leaving FrameMaker cuts one’s last tie to Adobe Acrobat, as well. One may need Acrobat to publish from Adobe applications, but not to publish from anyplace else, of which I am aware. I use Acrobat quite often, but I am not tied to the latest version of it. Alan Best to all, Elchanan *From:*framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] *On Behalf Of *Joseph Lorenzini *Sent:* Saturday, October 26, 2013 10:13 AM *To:* FrameMaker Forum; tcs-us...@googlegroups.com *Subject:* So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare Hi all, I have used FrameMaker for over 5 years. I have used it to produce thousands of pages of documentation. And I honestly thought that FM was a great tool...for a time. Plus, the community was super helpful. So its with some regret that I am telling you that I am leaving this community and the TCS suite. I am adopting Flare as a replacement. Please note I am no evangelist of Flare nor do I think that there's One Right Tool. FrameMaker can be a great solution for some and if works for you then great. The reasons why I made this choice were driven by a specific business and use case There are many reasons for this but that would cause this post to grow quite large and I didn't want to flood this community with a gigantic post about why I am not using its tool anymore. That said, my experience of why and how i migrated may be of interest to others in this forum. If you'd like a detailed explanation and are curious to learn more, I would be happy to share those details with you offline. Feel free to email me. Sincerely, Joseph Lorenzini ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as a...@alphabyte.co.nz. Send list messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/alan%40alphabyte.co.nz Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. -- Dr Alan Litchfield AlphaByte PO Box 1941 Auckland, New Zealand 1140 ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
RE: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare
Joseph, I would be grateful to be included in your explanation list. To the LaTex advocates: What version/product/learning tools and resources have you found most useful? I'm not at all interested in going back to some coding-oriented environment. It occurs to me that leaving FrameMaker cuts one's last tie to Adobe Acrobat, as well. One may need Acrobat to publish from Adobe applications, but not to publish from anyplace else, of which I am aware. Best to all, Elchanan From: framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Joseph Lorenzini Sent: Saturday, October 26, 2013 10:13 AM To: FrameMaker Forum; tcs-us...@googlegroups.com Subject: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare Hi all, I have used FrameMaker for over 5 years. I have used it to produce thousands of pages of documentation. And I honestly thought that FM was a great tool...for a time. Plus, the community was super helpful. So its with some regret that I am telling you that I am leaving this community and the TCS suite. I am adopting Flare as a replacement. Please note I am no evangelist of Flare nor do I think that there's One Right Tool. FrameMaker can be a great solution for some and if works for you then great. The reasons why I made this choice were driven by a specific business and use case There are many reasons for this but that would cause this post to grow quite large and I didn't want to flood this community with a gigantic post about why I am not using its tool anymore. That said, my experience of why and how i migrated may be of interest to others in this forum. If you'd like a detailed explanation and are curious to learn more, I would be happy to share those details with you offline. Feel free to email me. Sincerely, Joseph Lorenzini ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Re: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare
Why not share your reasons for migrating with the list? It's not like this is a fan club, I think a lot of FM users are looking for a practical migration path. It would be interesting to hear a current comparison of the two. On Sat, Oct 26, 2013 at 10:13 AM, Joseph Lorenzini wrote: > Hi all, > > I have used FrameMaker for over 5 years. I have used it to produce thousands > of pages of documentation. And I honestly thought that FM was a great > tool...for a time. Plus, the community was super helpful. > > So its with some regret that I am telling you that I am leaving this > community and the TCS suite. I am adopting Flare as a replacement. Please > note I am no evangelist of Flare nor do I think that there's One Right Tool. > FrameMaker can be a great solution for some and if works for you then great. > The reasons why I made this choice were driven by a specific business and > use case > > There are many reasons for this but that would cause this post to grow quite > large and I didn't want to flood this community with a gigantic post about > why I am not using its tool anymore. > > That said, my experience of why and how i migrated may be of interest to > others in this forum. If you'd like a detailed explanation and are curious > to learn more, I would be happy to share those details with you offline. > Feel free to email me. ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Re: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare
Interestingly, Syed's comments mirror my own trajectory but I have been using LaTeX et al for as long as I have been using FrameMaker. I doubt I will be moving past version 10 unless my clients continue to request I upgrade (to match compatibility with their software). I doubt I will be taking any short term licensing options because files are not created for short term use. Importantly for me, TeXLive is free and has a strong and vibrant user base. Alan On 29/10/13 7:22 AM, Syed Zaeem Hosain (syed.hos...@aeris.net) wrote: Hi, Joseph. You are not the only one who is abandoning FrameMaker … if you look at my posts in the past months, I have done the same although I have been using it since 1988 off and on. I am still on the list for old times sake, though. J Please do send me your detailed reasons in an off-list e-mail – would like to know /your/ decision trigger! For me, it was the (a) recent over-pricing for some version upgrades that should have been done as free bug fixes, (b) the Adobe trend (albeit not yet announced for FrameMaker) to SAAS as the only licensing mechanism, and (c) their abandonment of small users (i.e., number of licenses) from their multi-year update licensing system. Today, *all* my new documents are no longer in FrameMaker. I am /only/ using it for maintaining and changing old documents, and if the change is large enough, I move it off FrameMaker. That takes a couple of days – even for the large documents – and then I am fine for the future! In time, all my old documents will be moved from FrameMaker. However, I have not chosen Flare as my platform, although it looks quite capable. Switching to it is expensive (of course, if they made me a $199 one-time offer to switch from FrameMaker to Flare, I would do it! J) For now, /for my needs (which may not apply to everybody)/, a combination of Word 2013 for short documents (less than 10 to 20 pages), and LaTex (for large multi-hundred page specifications) is proving quite workable. Not perfect, and not as flexible as FrameMaker, but the costly “upgrades” of FrameMaker is not acceptable, and the trend to equally costly SAAS is a deal-breaker. BTW, LaTeX in particular allows me to achieve **complete** look-and-feel consistency in my specifications – formatting is separate from text entry – and I value that highly. It was my reason for selecting FrameMaker over Word about 12 years ago for my current company. Regards, and good luck! Z *From:*framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] *On Behalf Of *Joseph Lorenzini *Sent:* Saturday, October 26, 2013 10:13 AM *To:* FrameMaker Forum; tcs-us...@googlegroups.com *Subject:* So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare Hi all, I have used FrameMaker for over 5 years. I have used it to produce thousands of pages of documentation. And I honestly thought that FM was a great tool...for a time. Plus, the community was super helpful. So its with some regret that I am telling you that I am leaving this community and the TCS suite. I am adopting Flare as a replacement. Please note I am no evangelist of Flare nor do I think that there's One Right Tool. FrameMaker can be a great solution for some and if works for you then great. The reasons why I made this choice were driven by a specific business and use case There are many reasons for this but that would cause this post to grow quite large and I didn't want to flood this community with a gigantic post about why I am not using its tool anymore. That said, my experience of why and how i migrated may be of interest to others in this forum. If you'd like a detailed explanation and are curious to learn more, I would be happy to share those details with you offline. Feel free to email me. Sincerely, Joseph Lorenzini ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as a...@alphabyte.co.nz. Send list messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/alan%40alphabyte.co.nz Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. -- Dr Alan Litchfield AlphaByte PO Box 1941 Auckland, New Zealand 1140 ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Re: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare
Joseph: I understand this, but I'm sorry to see you go. Please include me on your mailing list of the explanations. Nadine > > From: "Syed Zaeem Hosain (syed.hos...@aeris.net)" >To: Joseph Lorenzini ; FrameMaker Forum > >Sent: Monday, October 28, 2013 2:22:59 PM >Subject: RE: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating fromFrameMaker >to Flare > > > >Hi, Joseph. > >You are not the only one who is abandoning FrameMaker … if you look at my >posts in the past months, I have done the same although I have been using it >since 1988 off and on. I am still on the list for old times sake, though. J > >Please do send me your detailed reasons in an off-list e-mail – would like to >know your decision trigger! For me, it was the (a) recent over-pricing for >some version upgrades that should have been done as free bug fixes, (b) the >Adobe trend (albeit not yet announced for FrameMaker) to SAAS as the only >licensing mechanism, and (c) their abandonment of small users (i.e., number of >licenses) from their multi-year update licensing system. > >Today, all my new documents are no longer in FrameMaker. I am only using it >for maintaining and changing old documents, and if the change is large enough, >I move it off FrameMaker. That takes a couple of days – even for the large >documents – and then I am fine for the future! In time, all my old documents >will be moved from FrameMaker. > >However, I have not chosen Flare as my platform, although it looks quite >capable. Switching to it is expensive (of course, if they made me a $199 >one-time offer to switch from FrameMaker to Flare, I would do it! J) > >For now, for my needs (which may not apply to everybody), a combination of >Word 2013 for short documents (less than 10 to 20 pages), and LaTex (for large >multi-hundred page specifications) is proving quite workable. Not perfect, and >not as flexible as FrameMaker, but the costly “upgrades” of FrameMaker is not >acceptable, and the trend to equally costly SAAS is a deal-breaker. > >BTW, LaTeX in particular allows me to achieve *complete* look-and-feel >consistency in my specifications – formatting is separate from text entry – >and I value that highly. It was my reason for selecting FrameMaker over Word >about 12 years ago for my current company. > >Regards, and good luck! > >Z > >From:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com >[mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Joseph Lorenzini >Sent: Saturday, October 26, 2013 10:13 AM >To: FrameMaker Forum; tcs-us...@googlegroups.com >Subject: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare > >Hi all, > >I have used FrameMaker for over 5 years. I have used it to produce thousands >of pages of documentation. And I honestly thought that FM was a great >tool...for a time. Plus, the community was super helpful. > >So its with some regret that I am telling you that I am leaving this community >and the TCS suite. I am adopting Flare as a replacement. Please note I am no >evangelist of Flare nor do I think that there's One Right Tool. FrameMaker can >be a great solution for some and if works for you then great. The reasons why >I made this choice were driven by a specific business and use case > >There are many reasons for this but that would cause this post to grow quite >large and I didn't want to flood this community with a gigantic post about why >I am not using its tool anymore. > >That said, my experience of why and how i migrated may be of interest to >others in this forum. If you'd like a detailed explanation and are curious to >learn more, I would be happy to share those details with you offline. Feel >free to email me. > >Sincerely, >Joseph Lorenzini ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
RE: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare
Hi, Joseph. You are not the only one who is abandoning FrameMaker ... if you look at my posts in the past months, I have done the same although I have been using it since 1988 off and on. I am still on the list for old times sake, though. :) Please do send me your detailed reasons in an off-list e-mail - would like to know your decision trigger! For me, it was the (a) recent over-pricing for some version upgrades that should have been done as free bug fixes, (b) the Adobe trend (albeit not yet announced for FrameMaker) to SAAS as the only licensing mechanism, and (c) their abandonment of small users (i.e., number of licenses) from their multi-year update licensing system. Today, all my new documents are no longer in FrameMaker. I am only using it for maintaining and changing old documents, and if the change is large enough, I move it off FrameMaker. That takes a couple of days - even for the large documents - and then I am fine for the future! In time, all my old documents will be moved from FrameMaker. However, I have not chosen Flare as my platform, although it looks quite capable. Switching to it is expensive (of course, if they made me a $199 one-time offer to switch from FrameMaker to Flare, I would do it! :)) For now, for my needs (which may not apply to everybody), a combination of Word 2013 for short documents (less than 10 to 20 pages), and LaTex (for large multi-hundred page specifications) is proving quite workable. Not perfect, and not as flexible as FrameMaker, but the costly "upgrades" of FrameMaker is not acceptable, and the trend to equally costly SAAS is a deal-breaker. BTW, LaTeX in particular allows me to achieve *complete* look-and-feel consistency in my specifications - formatting is separate from text entry - and I value that highly. It was my reason for selecting FrameMaker over Word about 12 years ago for my current company. Regards, and good luck! Z From: framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Joseph Lorenzini Sent: Saturday, October 26, 2013 10:13 AM To: FrameMaker Forum; tcs-us...@googlegroups.com Subject: So Long and Thanks for the Fish -- Migrating from FrameMaker to Flare Hi all, I have used FrameMaker for over 5 years. I have used it to produce thousands of pages of documentation. And I honestly thought that FM was a great tool...for a time. Plus, the community was super helpful. So its with some regret that I am telling you that I am leaving this community and the TCS suite. I am adopting Flare as a replacement. Please note I am no evangelist of Flare nor do I think that there's One Right Tool. FrameMaker can be a great solution for some and if works for you then great. The reasons why I made this choice were driven by a specific business and use case There are many reasons for this but that would cause this post to grow quite large and I didn't want to flood this community with a gigantic post about why I am not using its tool anymore. That said, my experience of why and how i migrated may be of interest to others in this forum. If you'd like a detailed explanation and are curious to learn more, I would be happy to share those details with you offline. Feel free to email me. Sincerely, Joseph Lorenzini ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.