From: tadr@doe.carleton.ca (Tom A. D. Riley)
Subject: Re: Do we need to upgrade to AmiPro3.0???
Organization: Dept. of Electronics, Carleton University
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 20:47:24 GMT

In <1992Jul28.171258.18004@mercury.unt.edu> mcmichel@ponder.csci.unt.edu (Lonny McMichael) writes:

>In article <1992Jul28.002204.17390@doug.cae.wisc.edu> singh@n3000a.ece.wisc.edu (bhaskar) writes:
>>Hi Folks
>>
>>	As most of you registered users of AmiPro, I finally got the AmiPro 3.0 
>>upgrade offer letter in the mail today. Well they're charging 79 bucks for the 
>>upgrade, but my question here is if it is worth it?
>[questions about Ami Pro 3.0's new features deleted]
>>
>>Bhaskar Singh

>Well I have decided not to upgrade (which is very unusual for me since I
>usually HAVE to have the latest and greatest of everything).  I had been 
>pretty happy with Ami Pro 2.0 until I started on my master's thesis, which 
>contains lots of equations, figures, etc.  In the course of working on this
>document, I have found some serious problems with the program, the major two
>are listed below.

>First, the fact that you cannot cut and paste text with embedded equations is
>ridiculous.  If I want to move a paragraph that has ten equations in it (not
>unusual), I have to cut and past the paragraph (which loses all of the
>equations), then re-create them in their former positions.

>Second, there is a bug when using equations with anything other than single-
>spaced type (the university style guide requires double-spacing).  A line of
>text that has an equation in it loses its proper spacing above and below, so
>that the preceding and following lines are too close.  This makes a very
>uneven appearance, with interspersed lines of double and single spaced text.

>I called Lotus about these problems, and found that neither of them are
>fixed in 3.0.  The person I spoke with seemed unconcerned about the first
>problem, and basically said, "That's the way it works, so live with it."
>The person also said that the second problem was a known bug, but that it
>was not fixed in 3.0.  He said as a work-around, I could resize the equation
>frame to get the desired spacing, but since the top of the frame is anchored
>to the top of that line of text, you can't resize up, only down.  This means
>that you have to go back and insert an equation frame into EVERY line up to
>the top of the paragraph, and resize each of them to regain the double-
>spacing!  This is a major pain.

>After this experience, I am seriously considering going to Word for Windows
>2.0a.  It already has the important new stuff from Ami Pro 3.0 (e.g. drag and
>drop, easy envelope printing), and, from what I've heard, handles the above
>two mentioned tasks with equations nicely).  I am too far into my thesis to
>change over for this project, but I'll never use Ami Pro again for a technical
>document (or probably any other, for that matter).

>Lonny
>-- 
>Lonny McMichael                      | You can do it your own way, if it's
>The University of North Texas        | done just how I say.
>email:  mcmichel@ponder.csci.unt.edu |      Metallica, "Eye of the Beholder"
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks for the info. When I called about the same problems a few months
ago I was told that they are basically not interested in scientific
or engineering documents. Looks like it's time to get framemaker.

I have used it on the sun's and am eagerly awaiting the first copy
we ordered for windows. 

Anybody from Lotus listening??
Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.apps