🚀 go-pugleaf

I'm new to the group, so bear with me a minute.  I'm  a graduate student who is using FM 6 to write my dissertation.  Personally, I think this program is terrific, a ten-fold improvement over MS Word.  My disseration will end up being 300-400 pages, tightly structured with lots of equations, figures and tables.  IMO, the autonumbering, automatic lists and cross-referencing capabilities are indispensible time savers, especially as the document is revised. 

Here are my gripes and wishes. 

1.  The equation editor is worthless and needs huge improvements.  Has anyone tried using fonts other than Times and Symbol for equations?  Good luck!  Also, the overall appearance of the equations is not good.  It pales in comparison to MathType 5.0 (which is what I'm using instead). 

2.  What about OpenType font capabilities?  I LOVE the way InDesign processes type.  Absolutely beautiful final product.  Anytime a document has to be printed professionally, the typesetting should be professional as well.  I want ligatures, titling caps, old style firgures, and so on.  Where is all that in FM?  You would think that Adobe would include this in ALL of its programs as they are updated, especially considering how much they brag about OpenType capabilities (which I personally think OpenType is fantastic stuff, very elegant and professional, reminiscent of classic typesetting). 

3.  Some of my cross-references "get lost" when I print my book as a pdf.  Anyone else have this problem? 

4.  Graphics filters need updating.  My MathType equations, which are saved as EPS, appear as gray boxes.  What's up with that?  In InDesign, they appear visible.  I have upwards of 500 equations in my paper (yes 500) and it would be nice if I could see them BEFORE saving as a PDF.  If InDesign had autonumbering and cross-references, it would be my choice instead of FM. 

Here's why I think FM is still a great program. 

1.  I have a 5 year old Pentium 200 running Win2000.  FM has never crashed! 

2.  With some front-end time invested, you get, IMO, the most consistent looking document as compared to other programs. 

3.  What wrong with the interface?  I personally like the simple interface.  Not all those ridiculous palettes cluttering up the screen.  Character and paragraph catalogs are perfect.  That's all you need for 80% of your work. 

4.  The program is very lean.  Runs very quickly on my old machine.  InDesign is SOOOO slow, like all of Adobe's new software.  Good, efficient code has become a contradiction in terms.