🚀 go-pugleaf

I am responsible for maintaining a fairly large membership directory (700+ members, 150 pages). It requires frequent updating and consists of several sections (active members, retired members, etc.). Individual member information includes both text and a small photo image.

The individual who previously created and maintained the directory used PageMaker so that is what I am currently using. The project is working OK but is very awkward in PM. I also experiencing a lot of crashes, especially when I try to open and work on two files at once (moving actives to retired, etc.), and occasionally I get corrupted files, which makes me nervous. That may well be because PM is not yet XP ready and that is my current OS. I note that both InDesign and FrameMaker are already XP compatible.

The original author had the photo images outside of the text frame in PM but they would not autoflow with each person's information and that was a nightmare so I moved the photo images as inline graphics within the text frame. That solved the autoflow text/image coordination problem in PM but what I would really like to do is put everything in a table, which is not possible in PM.

I would especially love to be able to create directory updates from information saved in a database (Access) or a spreadsheet (Excel) if possible, which would consolidate data now saved in more than one location. Unfortunately PageMaker will not support that sort of import.

I am hoping some of you FrameMaker experts may be able to help me determine whether FM (or possibly InDesign) would be the way to go. I do need to be able to port things from PM.

Please feel free to contact me offline: steve@fiskonline.net

And Thanks!!