Adobe Framemaker + SGML 6.0

Rating:
Summary: FrameMaker a bit overpriced
Review: FrameMaker is essentially a very fancy wordprocessor. Adobe is pushing it because of its capabilities to output books in different media--Print, PDF, and HTML (Web)--from the same file. Actually, it does this very well and probably has the best mechanism for producing mathematical formulae around. For most of us in the desktop publishing/Web publishing business, though, it is not the right tool. It is still faster and easier to use good old Word with Quark and Illustrator or Freehand for creating pages and Adobe Acrobat and Macromedia's DreamWeaver for PDF files and Web pages.

Finally, FrameMaker is just too expensive for most of us and its high price means that, even if you can afford it, the people with whom you may need to share files, won't have it on their computers.

Adobe gives out a demo. Try it out before you buy this. They are also running an eBook seminar at various places around the country which features a big section on FrameMaker. It's free. Go to their website for info.

Rating:
Summary: FrameMaker+SGML Comments
Review: I have found FrameMaker+SGML to be an easy-to-use yet complex software tool. It has helped me create long, technical documents with structure (elements). Because of the structure, the documents were very easy to output to the Web.

While creating structured documents does take additional time -- over unstructured FrameMaker documents -- it has made for better XML output. The extra work setting up elements and rules becomes worth it on the back end.

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Summary: No shippment and not reachable by Email
Review: I ordered FrameMaker6, my American Express card was charged. I had to pay my card account. I never recieved the product and all my Emails were returned because the address was unavailable.