The following is the results of a survey conducted on the PAGEMAKR 
Bitnet listserv in the fall of 1992. The survey form can be found in 
the file SURVEY.TXT in the archives on the anonymous FTP site 
WUARCHIVE.WUSTL.EDU in the misc\doc\pagemakr directory.

A quick note concerning the scoring processes. Many of the questions 
asked to choose the best of several different options. Well -- as we 
all know -- it is oftentimes hard to choose which one is the best. 
Thus, if you said Corel Draw and Freehand were your favorite Draw 
programs, each recieved an equal point. Thus, there may be some 
questions that have more positive votes than the total number of 
respondents.

On the first three questions (your favorite platforms) many of you 
ranked the different platforms. To resolve this problem, I developed a 
simple point system:   4 for first place, 3 for second, 2 for third and 
1 for fourth. For all of you who listed more than one but did not 
distinguish any preferences, each one received a value of 4. I think 
everything will even out in the end.

If you have not filled out an application and would like to be part of 
it, please let me know. I will mail you the form or you can get it from 
the FTP site listed above.

Thanks again for all those people who contributed their time in making
this interesting survey!

Geof.

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QUESTION #1 -- Which platform do you use?
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   Macintosh based : (196 points) 46 First Places, 4 Second Places
   PC-based        : (159 Points) 35 First Places, 5 Second Places 
                                   2 Third Place
   Unix-based      : ( 44 Points)  8 First Place,  4 Second Places
   NeXT-based      : (  5 Points)  1 First Place,  1 Third Place
   

   Comment: The clear winner here (as in the other questions) was the
   Macintosh. The interesting aspect to this question is the high 
   number of people who do use PC and Macintosh bases simultaneously. 
   Compare the total number for the PC with this question to the total
   for question #3. This suggests to me that, at least among our sample,
   the Macintosh is the favorite platform even among people who use 
   both the PC and the Macintosh.
   
   I apologize in not including other platforms such as VAX/VMS.
   


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QUESTION #2 -- Which platform do you prefer for DTP?
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   Macintosh based : (194 Points) 47 First Places, 2 Second Places
   PC-based        : ( 78 Points) 16 First Places, 4 Second Places
                                   1 Third Place
   NeXT-based      : (  7 Points)  1 First Place,  1 Second Place
   Unix-based      : (  7 Points)  1 Second Place, 2 Third Places
   

   Comment: Its no major surprise that the Macintosh took the clear
   lead here. I think the interesting item is that the Mac received 
   very few second place votes; if you use a Mac for DTPing, then it
   is the favorite. Also note that Unix machines drop considerably from 
   the first question -- not many people on the list use the UNIX 
   stations for desktop publishing
   


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QUESTION #3 -- Which platform do you prefer overall?
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   Macintosh based : (184 Points) 43 First Places, 4 Second Places
   PC-based        : ( 86 Points) 18 First Places, 4 Second Places 
                                   1 Third Place
   Unix-based      : ( 17 Points)  3 First Places,  1 Second Place
                                   1 Third Place
   NeXT-based      : (  4 Points)  1 First Place
   

   Comment: Notice that the PCs have a slight rise here in comparison 
   to the previous question. Evidently a slight number of people feel 
   that the Macintosh is best for DTP but the PC-based machine are 
   better overall.
   


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QUESTION #4 -- Are you subscribed yet or plan to subscribe to Quark?
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   Yes :  10 votes
   No  :  48 votes
   

   Comment: Roughly a fourth of the Pagemaker members are interested
   in both lists.
   


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QUESTION #5 -- Your favorite DTP program (Pagemaker, Quark, etc):
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   Aldus Pagemaker   :  59 votes
   Framemaker        :   4 votes
   Ventura Publisher :   3 votes
   QuarkXPress       :   2 votes
   

   Comment: I am somewhat surprised that Quark finished at the bottom 
   of the list.
   


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QUESTION #6 -- Your favorite Draw program (Corel, MicroGraphix):
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   Freehand      :  20 votes
   Corel Draw    :  12 votes
   Illustrator   :   8 votes
   Canvas        :   7 votes
   SuperPaint    :   4 votes
   MicroGraphix  :   3 votes (Draw and Designer)
   MacDraw       :   3 votes (Pro and II)
   HP Paintbrush :   1 vote
   Windows Draw  :   1 vote
   Kid-Pix       :   1 vote
   

   Comment: This is pretty valuable for those of you in the market for 
   a draw program. I know that some are paint programs, but the 
   separation is becoming a little more uncertain. Personally, I am 
   surprised that MicroGraphix did not place higher -- with all the 
   hype they give themselves. I also like the Kid-Pix -- the person
   said they use it for all of the simple stuff.



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QUESTION #7 -- Your major in college (if you attended):
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   Prenote: JEEZ! I am amazed at the wide range of majors available 
   here! This is a pretty diverse group. I have attempted to break down 
   the majors into general areas -- please forgive me if I have 
   misplaced your degree; some of them I have never even heard of.
   (For instance, philosophy -- is it a science or an art?)
   
   The Sciences / Engineering  (27)
     (12) Computer Science/MIS
      (2) Mathematics
      (2) Psychology
      (2) Urban Studies/Planning
      (2) Zoology
      (1) Anthropology 
      (1) Biology
      (1) Electrical Engineering
      (1) Geography 
      (1) Library Sciences
      (1) Medical Laboratory Sciences
      (1) Physics
      (1) Social Sciences
      (1) Sociology 

   The Arts  (26)
      (8) English
      (7) Communications / Journalism
      (4) Foreign Lang. (1 each in German, Spanish, Japanese, French)
      (2) History/Government
      (2) Philosophy
      (2) Religion
      (1) Music
      (1) Painting 
      (1) Technical Writing

   Education (8)
      (3) Education
      (1) Education Administration
      (1) Education Counseling
      (1) Health Education 
      (1) Instructional Technology 

   Business Related  (6)
      (3) Business
      (1) Accounting
      (1) Management
      (1) Advertising

   The big majors are Computer Science, English and Journalism.
   


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QUESTION #8 -- What one (or two) capabilities do you feel that 
               Pagemaker should possess in the next release?
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   Prenote: You guys and gals offered an endless number of suggestions. 
   I have tried to include and organize them below. The most often 
   responses were (with the number of votes):

            (19)  Better Text and/or Graphic Rotation
            (12)  Multiple Documents capabilities
             (7)  Grouping and locking capabilities.
             (4)  Better color separation
             (4)  More drawing features (Polygons, Freehand, etc.)
             (3)  Better page numbering capabilities
             (3)  Decent internal macro/automation/scripting language
             (2)  View more than 2 pages at once
             (2)  Suspend Screen Redraw

   It is good news that Aldus is (rumored to be) addressing several of 
   these items with PageMaker 5.0. Of the remaining suggestions, each 
   was mentioned only once. A few are for capabilities already 
   available! My comments are in [brackets].  Here they are:
   
   Improvements
   -------------
     1)  A *REAL* drops caps capability
     2)  Better import filters, better ascii export filters
     3)  Faster
     4)  Better Tab Rulers
     5)  More helpful manual
     6)  Better Internal accuracy (0 doesn't equal 0 but 0.01!)
     7)  Ability to search/replace for hard returns.
     8)  Scroll-down Pull down menus, as in the type menu when you
         have a lot of fonts.
     9)  Better ability to handle long tables such as ones that are
         more than one page long
    10)  Swift on-screen thumbnail display to correspond with the 
         printer version
    11)  More additions!
    12)  Decent Kerning
    13)  Erase text using the Del key instead of only the backspace
    14)  Multiple master pages
    15)  Better Table handling
    16)  Either seriously release Table Editor or don't include it!
    17)  Better file translations between Mac and PC.
    18)  To be able to select all the text from the curson position 
         to the end of the text, or from the cursor position to the 
         beginning of text. [This can be done currently, but not at
         a keystroke.]
    19)  Apply fills to text

   Advancements
   -------------
     1)  Ability to lock the order of layers. (So that even if you
         edit an object it will stay in its layer.)
     2)  Connecting a text block of one style with text of another 
         style. [I think that this can already be done -- perhaps
         they mean to have multiple styles in paragraphs.]
     3)  Auto figure numbering
     4)  Page copy option
     5)  Copy Guides from Page... option
     6)  Printing to be subprocessesed so that you can continue 
         to work instead of waiting for it to print.
     7)  Inter-Application Connection [Not sure what this means]
     8)  Read my mind [not too much to ask, no?]
     9)  Importing of Word Tables, Equations
    10)  Tear off pull-down menus
    11)  Context sensitive menus -- such as in MS Excel 4.0 for PC
    12)  New Menu with all the shortcuts on it
    13)  SGML capability
    14)  Dynamic references to figures and pages
    15)  Context sensitive headers. (Headers that continue until
         a specific tag, such as can be done in Ventura)
    16)  A real page imposition system for making booklets
    17)  Allow different page sizes in the same document
    18)  Color-coded numbers to allow you to figure out how
         multiple text blocks of the same document are linked
         together. (Go beyond the hearts and +'s).
    19)  Convert a character or text block to support Text Wrap
         on them. (Like drop caps)


   This is a great bunch of suggestions. If you have any other ones, 
   please do not hesitate to contact me and I will add them. I hope
   that we can create a group letter to Aldus to relay these messages
   sometime in the near future.
   
   
   That is the end of the survey portion. I am going to try to also 
   add a summary of the different professions from your biographies 
   when I get a chance. I hope this has been informing...
   
   
   Geof.
