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Subject: Re: [docbook] DocBook and Publishing Software
Hi David One thing to be wary of when asking for tool recommendations is that there is wide variation in the way tools are used depending on the type of thing you are publishing - print has a very different set of requirements to, say, websites. You already have an investment in FrameMaker and FM has some nice tools for going from unstructured to structured, so why not build on what you have rather than jumping in at the deep end. The rumour that FM is about to die celebrated its 10th anniversary this year so I wouldn't panic just yet - and anyway even if it were to stop being supported tomorrow, no-one's going to come and rip it off your PCs. If it works today, it will work tomorrow. If you were to jump to a new toolchain, you need to be aware that there are a lot of bits that all need to line up before you can go from authoring to publishing smoothly - at least with FM you can always print the damn thing at a moment's notice if required, no matter what open-heart surgery you have going on under the covers. And if you already have single-sourcing tools (WebWorks, RoboHelp, etc) you can get a number of other formats out of it as well. Given the pace of change in tools and the time it takes to work out your content model and start implementing, I think moving to structured FM is a good way for you to get your feet wet in an environment that is at least partially familiar - and once you've got that far you can re-evaluate the whole question again. I know some people will say "why not do it right the first time", but you're still learning and things change - it's better to plan for better later rather than perfection now which can lead to a kind of paralysis. If you still want to move away from FM, I have played with Syntext from Serna and I like it a lot and their development path seems to be a good one (Scott - I don't see why you would need another XML editor - ie Oxygen - to work with it). As for offering paid work on this list, I for one would not object :) -Melanie
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