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.Hosain at 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-bounces at lists.frameusers.com > [mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com] *On Behalf Of *Joseph > Lorenzini > *Sent:* Saturday, October 26, 2013 10:13 AM > *To:* FrameMaker Forum; TCS-Users at 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 alan at alphabyte.co.nz. > > Send list messages to framers at lists.frameusers.com. > > To unsubscribe send a blank email to > framers-unsubscribe at lists.frameusers.com > or visit > http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/alan%40alphabyte.co.nz > > Send administrative questions to listadmin at frameusers.com. Visit > http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. -- Dr Alan Litchfield AlphaByte PO Box 1941 Auckland, New Zealand 1140
