[lug] Converting people

[rm at mamma.varadinet.de]

On Fri, Jul 14, 2000 at 03:20:49PM -0600, Wayde Allen wrote:
> [snip]
> 
> > PageMaker      ----> I don't really know of a GUI based layout editor
>                        for Linux.  I guess I'd suggest that LaTeX/TeX 
>                        "could" be used for this, but the learning curve is
>                        probably steeper than many would like to tackle.

I do use FrameMaker for some book publishing projects. 
I used this program allready before i got in contact with
Linux, i think ist's perfect for the publication of larger
works. I still can't make up my mind whether i like it better
than LaTeX, but i think it definitely beats PageMaker or XPress
(for the purposes i need it, which is large scale scientific
publications. Multiple levels of footnotes, more than 20 indices,
masterpages and stylesheets etc.). It also has a nice and un-
obstrusive GUI (looks booooring but is highly ergonomic), can
be completely customized and even has an optional C API.
If you use their 'RTF' -like MIF format you can create and
manipulate documents from scripting languages like Perl.
I know of at least one major german newspaper that is published
with FrameMaker (on Linux and Solaris). Oh yes, there are versions
for Mac, Win, HP-UX, Solaris and (finally) Linux.  The later is
still 'beta' -- you can't buy it yet but the download is free.
The licence will last untill 12.31.2000.

  Ralf