[Scribus] Scribus vs Framemaker

[Hedley Finger]

Kholish:

At Sunday, 3/02/2008, 12:55 AM;, you wrote:
>I am new ti scribus. I want to know...
>Is scribus features same with Framemaker ?

I have used FrameMaker since v. 3.0 was released simultaneously on 
Windows, UNIX, and Macintosh, and have used it on all those 
platforms, including Sun OpenLook and HP-UX.

It is optimised for producing books where the layout is more or less 
the same from page to page (except for the obvious exceptions such as 
chapter title pages, index pages, frontmatter, etc.).  If I was 
writing a traditional book (manual, fiction, non-fiction) I would use 
FrameMaker for its comprehensive layout, TOC, LOF, LOT, Index, 
cross-referencing, etc. capabilities.  It has the best table editor 
in the business bar none, and has a limited ability to float graphics 
and tables, i.e. if it won't fit on current page it is moved to the next.

*Everything* in FrameMaker is a named style/format, from 
cross-references, pages, colours, tables, and is able to generate 
many reports and lists for managing a project.  It can also be 
interfaced to content management systems.  But its colour handling 
and profile management is weak but adequate for its purpose.  It has 
the handy ability to assemble the  components of a TOC or Index and 
format them in any way you wish.  It also has conditions that allow 
you to selectively hide or reveal content, ideal when there are 
product variants for different markets, etc.

FrameMaker did not support Unicode until the most recent release (v. 
8.0) and releases do not bring any radical updates and are rather 
expensive.  Another thing that sets it apart is its support for 
structured documentation (read SGML and XML).  It has an extremely 
good structure editor.  Unfortunately, because any given schema 
(Docbook, TEI, DITA) has to be mapped onto its native structure 
particularly for tables, a good deal of customisation and 
configuration via XSLT, read/write rules and sometimes C plug-ins may 
need to be done to ensure painless roundtripping to/from XML/SGML.

If I were doing a layout intensive publication where every page is 
different (think newspaper, brochure, magazine, annual report), I 
would use Scribus, particularly if there were many graphics, and TOC, 
etc. was not needed.  If I were doing a manual with simple graphics 
and   a TOC, Index, etc. I would use FrameMaker.

Regards,
Hedley


--
Hedley Stewart Finger
28 Regent Street   Camberwell VIC 3124   Australia
Tel. +61 3 9809 1229   Mobile +61 412 461 558,
E-mail <mailto:hfinger at handholding.com.au>