[mso] Re: Publisher/Quark/PageMaker (was Publisher/Word - table of contents)
- From: "James S. Huggins (MSO)" <MicrosoftOffice@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <mso@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2003 15:25:19 -0500
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Kinda the same way some *serious* web designers look at FrontPage LOL
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Pricing does that.
If your price is high enough, casual users and hobby users and newbies
won't use your product. The result is that most of the users will be
professionals. And the secondary result is that most end products will
be professional, not because of the product, but because of the user
base.
On the other hand, if your price is low enough, casual users, hobby
users and newbies WILL use your product. The result is that many of the
users will not be professionals. And the secondary result is that many
of the end products will not be professional, not because of the
product, but because of the user base.
I've seen poor results from "high end" software. I've seen fantastic
results from "low end" software.
Today, most users of Word have never read "The PC is Not a Typewriter"
by Robin Williams. They do not know that they should use interparagraph
leading to separate paragraphs. Instead, they use blank paragraphs. They
do not know about line separation or kerning. And their two fonts are
Arial and Times New Roman. And, they don't know how to use styles to
drive a consistent, professional look. Those qualities are not the
inadequacies of Word. They are simple the result of lack of knowledge of
the user base.
Several corporate assignments ago, I cranked out a 150 page design
specification for a new software system we were developing. It had
formatting out the wazoo, footnotes, charts, tables, and a dynamite
Table of Contents and Index. The people from the "technical writing and
documentation" group got ahold of it and raised cain. THEY were supposed
to be involved in anything done in Pagemaker.
When I politely explained I'd done it in Word, they would not believe me
. . . until I sat at a PC and showed them.
Having a $100,000 violin won't make me a concert violinist. Having
PhotoShop on my PC won't make me a graphic artist either.
We've got to know the principles involved and understand how the tool
can implement those principles.
James S. Huggins
...
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