Return-Path: Received: from koz.garnet.cs.cmu.edu by K.GP.CS.CMU.EDU id aa09751; 29 Jan 92 20:05:58 EST Date: Wed, 29 Jan 92 20:04:49 EST From: David.Kosbie@KOZ.GARNET.CS.CMU.EDU To: bovik+@K.GP.CS.CMU.EDU Subject: LaTex v. FrameMaker v. ?!? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- This is in response to a post asking for the "best" platform for building a book of many different chapters by different authors at different sites. The overwhelming favorite seems to be FrameMaker, with no close 2nd place. Many thanks to those who responded!!! Results are being bovik'ed. --dave -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- General Comments =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= I have done desktop publishing for several years. I have built books of more than 200 pages in Ventura Publishing (mostly IBM PC based), WordStar Microsoft Word, LaTeX, and Framemaker. My recommendations are the following; I also include a few which I have not used personally, but others have given me details: - LaTex and Scribe should be out of the question - Microsoft Word and WordStar should only be used in last resort - Ventura Publishing and PageMaker (on Mac) are pretty good - Framemaker is without a doubt the best one out there that I have used or heard of. ; not only is it the most powerful, but it is also possible to get it for both the Mac and almost any UNIX station, hence you have much less hassle than if you have something like PageMaker, which runs ONLY on the Mac. There may be others, but I haven't heard of them or know enough about them to give you recommendations. One more thing ... of the things you say are a *must*, only Framemaker has them all. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= If you're trying to put together chapters written by a bunch of researchers at different sites, there's no way you can impose a particular editor or anything tied to a particular machine (e.g. Macintosh). Your best bet is probably to tell people what the result should look like and accept postscript files, however generated. Even at CMU, you've got Framemaker people, Macinstosh people, LaTex people, and Scribe people, plus probably some more. If someone told me that my chapter had to be done on some cute Macinstosh text editor, that would be the end of the project for me. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- LaTex =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= For an example of a book produced in LaTex, see @Book{farin, author = "Farin, Gerald", title = "Curves and Surfaces for Computer Aided Geometric Design", publisher = "Academic Press, Inc.", year = 1990 } It's not particularly beautiful, but I'll bet its the sanest way to do resource-limited distributed editing. If you're actually doing math, there's no other choice (other than TeX), but for limited math Frame does ok. I'm assuming your frustration with LaTex came from wanting to roll your own format. The best way to fix a formatting problem in LaTex is to decide you like the way LaTex does it, and you've always liked it that way :) If your frustration came from page-layout issues like "I want that figure to go *there*", there's a version of LaTex on the Mac that we always shift to in the final assembly stage because it lets us do honest page layout. Ask Mike Gleicher for more details, I didn't have any figures in my recent stuff but he did. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- FrameMaker =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= |> - postscript picture inclusion Check. However, to view the graphic on the page, there must be an encapsulated display portion of the file. Either way, it will print correctly. FM imports sunraster and xwd formats and displays them also. |> - bibliographies and citations Well, sort of. I've written a package to make this available for FM called fmbib. Basically, you embed the citations in the document. Save the document to disk, run the document through fmbib and specify a bibliography database, similar (and compatable with) to Scribe's .bib files. A new frame document is created which is your bibliography, and cross references to it are created in the original document. This has been in use quite successfully by folks here at the SCS and on the net for about a year. Bibliographies has been the major feature missing in FM. |> - cross-references (to figures, chapters, etc.) Check. |> - indexing I believe so. |> - ease-of-use (compare MacWrite to LaTex, for instance) Totally intuitive, man. |> - availability (not everyone has all the resources CMU does!)\ This is a very popular package on many platforms outside of CMU, is X-based, and is supported both under MACH (we did a port) on VAX, PMAX, IBMRT, SUN3, and SUN4 architectures. Although we don't have the sources here, there is a lot of support both through help@cs, and the user community at large (see cs.cmu.framemaker, comp.text.frame bboards ). |> (either Macintosh-based or X-based is just fine, though, so |> long as a site-license doesn't cost $10k) If your part of CS, the site license has already been purchased. I'm not sure of the cost if you need to buy a version for home, etc. |> - graphical previewing (have to save the forests!) Check. This is way WYSIWYG. |> - postscript or dvi file generation (so others can print it out!) Check to postscript. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Currently, I am trying to move all of Robotics Documents to a Framemaker platform. It seems to do exactly what you want. It sets up easy to use format templates for multiple users. It also supports math and variable imput formats. The reasons I chose it seem to be the same reasons you might like it. Mainly I was looking for something I could format, and just have everyone add in their part. I have it running on my Mac here in the graphics lab if you would like to see it. It also runs on Suns, and other such workstations. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= I might recommend that you look at FrameMaker 3. It has some steep learning curves - partially associated with the way they designed their documents -- You get a v.2.0 document set with an additional book identifying what's new in v.3.0. But I have recently used it for my 96 page quarterly magazine - multiple authors, formats, etc. as well as a 172 page book/report, also with multiple authors. In these cases, I take whatever I get and then just import it into Frame, as each person doesn't have Frame. And I've done all this on a Mac. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- FullWrite Professional =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= I believe that FullWrite Professional is effectively a defunct product. I don't know if it is still being sold or not, but I've seen no evidence that it is being maintained. It was conceptually a much better program than Microsoft Word, but it just never had the support required for success. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-