Creative Ideas for Developing a Read Me First/Getting Started Card

[John Sgammato]

This is a fun project indeed!
I do a couple of this sort of thing, one in Adobe InDesign and the other in FrameMaker. Quark XPress is good, too. 
While you can do most of what you need with FrameMaker, it is probebly not the best tool for the job. Many of Frame's strengths are wasted on this sort of thing, while a page layout application like InDesign will offer more goodies for you to play with. OTOH playing with features in an unfamiliar app is not a recipe for a successful doc or a happy deadline experience. ;-)
 
FrameMaker is a good choice if you need some of its features that are not supported in AI or InDesign, like variables. If you rebrand the doc for another product line or business partner, then maybe Frame's Variables feature could save you a lot of trouble. But the business of setting up master pages with the right text boxes and linking the text flow in the right order can be a frustrating experience. Remember that if this doc may serve as a template for future docs, then you want your doc setup to be straightforward, not a hodgepodge of last-minute kludges to make the damn thing work.
 
Beware also that if this doc will be printed, and if this is your first print job, then you are headed into some potentially dark and scary woods. It helps to look at a first demanding print job as an adventure and a learning experience. A lot can go wrong, and sometimes the natives speak an unknown tongue. Frame's support of CMYK color is legendary...for causing frustration in first-time print jobs!
 
All things considered, I would decide between Frame and InDesign or Quark, assuming both apps are available, on these criteria: 
Frame plays better with your other Frame docs, so if you need to use similar styles, variables, text insets, etc, then Frame is the way to go; the layout headaches are small compared ot the benefits.
InDesign or Quark are designed to make page layout easy and powerful, so you can make some pretty cool posters, brochures, quick-reference cards, etc. But they do not work with FrameMaker (yet) so if you have to integrate this doc with many others then you are setting yourself up for a lot of ongoing maintenance work, that might come up late in the cycle when time is short.
 
If you decide to go with InDesign or Quark XPress but are new to the app, see if you can get some help from the people in your friendly local Marketing group. They may be able to get you in gear very quickly, and reduce your learning curve a lot.
 
good luck!
 

________________________________

From: framers-bounces+jsgammato=imprivata.com at lists.frameusers.com on behalf of Angela Akridge
Sent: Fri 3/17/2006 8:01 PM
To: framers at lists.frameusers.com
Subject: Creative Ideas for Developing a Read Me First/Getting Started Card



I have a fun project. My first Read Me First! Do you think that Illustrator
or Frame is the appropriate format to create a doc like this one?


http://support.yellowmachine.com/support/Lists/Content/Attachments/62/readme_First_293.pdf

Do you refer me to an online resource that shows how to create unique
layouts? I'd like to produce a Read Me First that is more like a poster and
where each square of the poster is a step. Any creative ideas? Oh course,
the content needs to change a lot, so I'd rather invest in the new layout
now.

Angela
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