From: francis@ircam.fr (Joseph Francis)
Newsgroups: comp.text.desktop
Subject: Kooky Re: Ventura
Date: 5 Nov 92 11:53:50 GMT
Organization: IRCAM, Paris (France)

In article <1d64e1INN2ba@terminator.rs.itd.umich.edu> jlove@ivrit.ra.itd.umich.edu (Jack Love) writes:
>In article <1992Nov3.014331.3755@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au> John Wilkins <john@publications.ccc.monash.edu.au> writes:
>>
>>I never said Quark and FM were competitors. We use Quark for high quality
>>relatively loosely structured publications, especially multicolour, and
...
>Well, I guess I know what it feels like to get flamed now. Mr. Wilkins
>is a evidently in the publications business, while I am in the database
>development business. My needs include editing lengthy technical
>manuals, but I freely admit that I have never tried to do anything with
...
>every publication as the superior product for long documents until
>relatively recently.

I'll toss my hat in the ring. I had to design and typeset some books
for travellers in Eastern Europe (Poland and Romania), and granted I
had to use an XT with a 40mb disk and a hercules display, and a
laserjet IIP/PacificPage postscript, I don't see how it could have
been done with other packages as easily, if at all. It was essentially
organizing a database of contacts in a meaningful way, and generating
postscript output to make the films. I have become fairly adept at
Ventura, which isn't at all a friendly program.

Kooky is the word.

There are virtually no keyboard shortcuts (c'mon, I have to always go
through menus to print a page or to quit? To pull up font
characteristic menus?) and the inability to precisely position many
elements (someone tell me how to position a graphic box for drop
shadows perfectly....) are bad, but not fatal. However, for doing
anything but straight (I use the term loosely, for friends who know
me) text, it is a nightmare from hell.

A cover it took me more than a day to design in Ventura, was about 1/2
an hour in Quark Xpress.

I also can't stand not being able to stretch or compress Fonts. But then
Ventura works on so many (PC) platforms...

>I was so dissappointed with Ventura 3 for Windows, and the so-called
>upgrade to 4.0, that I was mentally committed to switching to either
>Frame or Quark as soon as those packages were settled into the Windows
>market. However, I received my copy of Ventura 4.1 a little over a
>month ago, and I'm quite pleased with it. Much of the incentive to
>switch is now gone. I fully concede that those who are getting into the
>business for the first time have good reason to seriously weigh Mr.
>Wilkins' recommendations.

Can anyone summarize the difference between Ventura 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0(1)?

>>I used VP under GEM for a while and lost about three quarters of my
>>presently missing hair in the process. Unless there has been a QUANTUM
>>leap in its operational abilities (not to mention bugginess), I wouldn't
>>use it to write home. This was three years ago.

I use it to write home all the time. I don't use it for graphics any
more - I use only Corel Draw (Which I find limiting also; why can't I
have duplicate objects be different instances of an underlying object,
so when I change one, they all change? Can't I send one bitmap and
have it rendered 20 times instead of having to send 20 bitmaps? Why do
I get Waldo errors when I do blends? Why can't I control the number of
fountain stripes on exported EPS files? Is it me or is it the most
annoying thing on earth that exported WFN fonts to PFB fonts all USE
THE SAME FONT ID which kills quite a few postscript programs? Why
can't I render text box contents into Vectors? The miracle of working
in France, I have virtually no contact with this stuff and the U.S.
world.) which has its own problems. Nothing seems to be perfect.

>As I mentioned above, Mr. Wilkins is quite likely to have more
>experience than I with these matters. However, I have produced dozens
>of manuals, newsletters, brochures, etc with Ventura in all of its
>flavors, and I still possess all of my hair. It is definitely more grey
>than it used to be. <sigh>

I have all my hair, and a big blond beard. I just try to relax and
laugh when I try to think about why Ventura doesn't scale EPS files
correctly when I say 'fit to frame' and 'distorted' and I have to
get something out yesterday.



-- 
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| today; American - All American; doing, a bit so, and even more so.
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