From the yearly archives: 2007
“Walking the Beat with Flare and Frame” will be presented by industry-expert Ann-Marie Grissino at The FrameMaker Chautauqua.
Presentation Description: MadCap Flare produces cross-browser/cross-platform Web help, DotNetHelp, and HTML Help from a variety of file formats, including FrameMaker. Flare even supports FrameMaker features such as conditional text and variables. Although Flare provides some well-designed output designs, you can change the output look with customized skins. Don’t miss this opportunity to see Flare in action.
Continue Reading →The FrameScript website is currently down for maintenance. If anyone needs to order or download FrameScript, please contact marjorie@fml.com.
Continue Reading →Integrated Toolkit for Technical Writers Includes Major Upgrade to RoboHelp
SAN JOSE, Calif. — September 25, 2007 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced Adobe® Technical Communication Suite software, a first-of-a-kind, integrated solution for authoring, managing, and publishing technical information and training content across multiple formats and languages. Using the Adobe Technical Communication Suite, technical communicators and instructional designers can create powerful documentation, eLearning courses and user assistance programs containing both traditional text and graphics along with rich media, including Adobe Flash® Player compatible video and 3D.
The suite includes Adobe RoboHelp® 7, a major upgrade to Adobe’s help system and knowledge base authoring tool, as well as Adobe FrameMaker® 8, Adobe Captivate® 3 and Adobe Acrobat® 3D Version 8 software. Product and workflow integration and support for rich media formats — including Adobe Flash Player compatible video, SWF, MP3 and AVI files as well as industry standards, such as Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF), XML and Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) — empower authors to deliver compelling information, save time and reduce discrepancies in content.
Continue Reading →FrameMaker 8 DOES make PDFs of Books, with or without cross-references.
What you need to do is to create the Acrobat settings to Generate Tagged PDF.
Until Adobe issues a patch to the first release of FrameMaker 8, use this technique to print a PDF version of a Frame book:
In the File > Print Book window, check Yes in the Generate Acrobat Data > PDF Setup… > Links > Generate Tagged PDF section.
Continue Reading →Sep. 10, 2007 – On August 24, 2007, I submitted an article to this forum that described problems encountered with Adobe’s technical support staff while trying to use RoboHelp 6 as a single source conversion tool. Specifically, I was using RoboHelp 6 to convert a Framemaker 7.2 book, and associated files, to FlashHelp/html. I still think Adobe’s technical support staff has serious problems, which in my opinion must be resolved at Adobe’s executive management level.
Continue Reading →(The following article is humorous, slightly mean spirited, but very true.)
Importing Framemaker source files to RoboHelp 6 is an approach I’m using to generate single-source printed and help documents, and it generally works. FlashHelp looks great, but there’s one technical glitch with RoboHelp’s generation of html output files. Heading3 titles are missing from the TOC. If you analyze the html files created by RoboHelp, you will observe that Heading3 topics are created, but they’re difficult to view without links in the TOC.
Continue Reading →(Goochland, VA) – Finite Matters Ltd. (FML), a leading provider of variable data publishing software, today introduced an optimized version of its automated publishing application, PatternStream®, to give graphic designers that use Adobe® InDesign® page layout software a more efficient way to acquire data from databases, XML files and other sources for data-driven projects such as catalogs, directories, reference books and other pattern based information for print and electronic distribution.
PatternStream uses a unique method of viewing data-driven publishing projects as the merging of a data structure with a document hierarchy. This patented technique, developed originally using the FrameMaker application programming interface (API) has been extended to work with the InDesign API and also for generating standalone XML files. The advantage of this is that a user, once proficient in this methodology, can choose the formatting engine best suited to a given problem.
“For years PatternStream has been the best application for setting up complex database publishing projects using FrameMaker. We now bring this same versatility to the InDesign page layout world,” said Tony Luca, Chief Scientist and Vice President Technology of FML.
“It’s great to see PatternStream support InDesign and InDesign Server now,” said Chris Kitchener, InDesign Server product marketing manager at Adobe. “For years it has worked with Adobe FrameMaker so this extended level of support is a welcomed addition as it helps to further facilitate the automated publishing process for our customers.”
Continue Reading →FrameMaker 2007 Chautauqua (conference)
* October 22-24, 2007
* Raleigh, North Carolina USA
* http://www.travelthepath.com/conf/chautschedule.html
This three-day conference includes presentations from FrameMaker users worldwide. This 2007 event is the third annual conference. Speakers from around the globe will share their real-world experience and tips. Adobe representatives will be on hand to showcase the new FrameMaker!
What is a Chautauqua?
Continue Reading →(Goochland, VA) – Finite Matters Ltd. (FML) today announced that PatternStream® works with Adobe® FrameMaker® 8 and Adobe FrameMaker Server 8 software to achieve a high level of automated publishing. On July 23, 2007, Adobe announced that Adobe FrameMaker 8 is expected to ship worldwide by the end of July, 2007.
PatternStream provides FrameMaker users with an efficient method of acquiring data from databases, XML and HTML files and other sources to automatically create data-driven budgets, catalog, directories, financial reports, reference books, and an infinite range of pattern based information for print and electronic distribution. PatternStream uses a patented process that views data-driven publishing projects as the merging of a data structure with a document hierarchy.
“PatternStream continues to integrate directly with FrameMaker and FrameMaker Server through its application programming interface (API) and is the only software that does so for this type of programmatic information creation,” said Ben Slone, President and CEO of FML. “Now our customers will be able to upgrade to FrameMaker 8 and FrameMaker Server 8 and be assured that they will receive the same high level of publishing performance.”
“We are excited that PatternStream supports Adobe FrameMaker 8 and FrameMaker Server 8,” said Karl Matthews, Group Product Marketing Manager, Print and Classic Publishing Solutions at Adobe. “For years PatternStream has been one of the leading applications for setting up complex database publishing projects using Adobe FrameMaker.”
Continue Reading →Adobe FrameMaker 8 software is a powerful tool for technical communicators that combines word processing and XML-based structured authoring with template-based publishing.
Unicode support (New)
Edit and create content in multiple languages, and author content for global audiences with dictionary and hyphenation support for most languages.
Support for rich media (New)
Create more engaging online documentation by incorporating 3D models, rich Adobe Flash® Player compatible animations, and simulations created with Adobe Captivate™ software. Generate Adobe PDF files with live 3D models.
New DITA support (New)
Use a prebuilt DITA application to author, publish, and distribute topic-oriented information in XML and create DITA maps.
Fully integrated authoring tools
Create, edit, and publish technical content with powerful features for automatic numbering, cross-references, tables of contents, indexes, books, and more. Automate formatting via templates and integrate tables, graphics, and images.
Flexible authoring environment
Work in a familiar style-tagging word processing mode or in a fully structured environment optimized for editing and producing valid XML and SGML. Manage your content entirely in XML, use XSLT during editing, and conform to industry standards such as DITA and DocBook. Easily convert existing documents to structured content through conversion tables. And import content from many other formats, including Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, QuarkXPress, and Adobe PageMaker® software.
Powerful, scalable single-sourcing
Effortlessly single-source variations of the same document for different channels and purposes by building complex Boolean expressions for defining output filters in structured and unstructured mode. Easily distinguish multiconditional text through improved color coding. Use attributes to control conditional output in structured mode. Manage and rename conditional tags through a convenient new dialog box.
FrameMaker References
