Comments on: Technical Writing Part Four: Desktop Publishing Tools

By: Andrei

Andrei — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 07:57:04 +0000

Thanks for the article. Good job.

By: Christine Van Tuyl

Christine Van Tuyl — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 19:48:55 +0000

Nice article! I saw you mentioned SmartDraw. It’s a great tool for creating polished-looking graphics painlessly.

SmartDraw is very easy to use, without the crazy learning curve of MS Visio. You can make flowcharts, floor plans, mindmaps, engineering schematics, org charts, project charts, and lots more…there is even a new mapping feature that works with Google Earth.

They just released SmartDraw 2008 and it is awesome.

You can download a free trial version here:
http://www.smartdraw.com/downloads/

By: Pearl

Pearl — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 15:03:56 +0000

Thanks. I’ve never used framemaker or visio. Useful comparison.

Happy New Year.

By: John Hewitt

John Hewitt — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 13:20:09 +0000

Michael,
Thank you for the updates as well. I have added the programs.

By: John Hewitt

John Hewitt — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 13:17:08 +0000

Thanks for the update Misti, I have made the changes to the post.

By: Misti

Misti — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 11:57:06 +0000

Thank you for this technical writing series; I’ve found it interesting.

I’m surprised you mention the ClarisWorks program without mentioning AppleWorks; it’s not been called “ClarisWorks” for some years.

Also for Mac users is the program Preview for viewing PDF and other image files. Since Mac users can create PDF files from pretty much any program through the “Print” function (”Print to file…”), it can result in a pretty useful program.

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 12:39:52 +0000

There are some free (as in free speech AND free beer) alternatives that have popped up and flourished since the article was written:

- OpenOffice Writer
Word processor quite like – but not identical to – Microsoft Word. With 1-Click PDF generation.

- Scribus
Desktop publishing program similar to Quark Express.

- GIMP
Paint program with a distinctive user interface.

- Inkscape / Sodipodi
Draw program based on the SVG standard.

Many free programs also offer saving and loading files used in proprietary products.