[rlav]

I'm planning to write a PhD thesis and a full-length book, with table of contents, indexes, footnotes, diagrams, tables, and so on. What are the options for this and related kinds of writing, what preferences do people have, and, going meta, how does one go about making decisions like this over choice of software? And how important is it to choose the right software?

To kick things off, relevant programs whose names I know, but don't necessarily know much about, include:

Adobe Framemaker (which one would presumably have to run in BootCamp or other Windows virtualization environment)
Mellel
Nisus
Pages
Microsoft Word

Note that this thread is somewhat related to:
http://forums.macwor...m/thread/110771

[smax013]

If technical in nature, then traditionally, FrameMaker has been the top choice many times.

Pages is getting better about some of that stuff (although I believe some of it is handled by "add-in" programs that you might have to pay extra for), but I believe it is still no where near what Word can do.

Word is pretty good for long documents, but is not as good as FrameMaker for technical stuff. Lots of pictures or diagrams can kind of bog it down some, but it is likely still the top choice for many.

Never user or even heard of Mellel.

Heard of Nisus and even "played" with an MUCH older version. Not too up to speed on it these days and how well it will compare to the likes of Words. I do know in the past that there are lots of people who swear by Nisus.