This discussion has been very helpful to me. Thanks to everyone who's contributed.

Given that Framemaker has been mentioned, I would appreciate extending the discussion a bit to desktop publishing.

I am writing a book that will combine text on the right-handed page with graphics (mostly photos) on the opposite page. Thus, there will be a lot of page layout work.

At present, my plan is to develop all the text in Word and then bring that into a desktop publishing program like PagePlus, where I will integrate it with the graphics. I want the final product to be ready for delivery to a professional printer.

Does that sound like a sensible approach?

Will PagePlus be a good program for this process? Or should I use something more powerful like Framemaker (which is a lot more expensive)?

Or should I just stay with Word for the entire project?

Your thoughts will be appreciated.