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FrameMaker has long been the market leader in the technical documentation field with its excellent cross-referencing, multi-volume and structured template approach to publishing.
With the latest release of FrameMaker 7.0, Adobe has positioned it at users who need to produce long documents that are distinguished by being template-driven, where a variety of output formats, such as print, PDF, HTML, SGML, XML and various eBook formats, are important.
Typical documents created with FrameMaker include manuals, technical briefs, e-books and personalised content.
In previous releases of the software, there were two options: FrameMaker and FrameMaker +SGML. FrameMaker 7.0 does away with this distinction, as the two are now bundled together.
This means that for many existing users there will be new features available through the integration of the SGML component, which now gives access to structured publishing tools, essentially document-type descriptions (DTD) for working with SGML (including XML) documents.
Installation is straightforward, but the bundled WebWorks Standard Edition 7.0 isn't installed by default. This is surprising, as many of the output improvements rely on the bundled package and you're limited in your output options until WebWorks is installed.
When you first start FrameMaker 7.0, you're asked if you want to work in Structured FrameMaker mode, an option that dictates the number of editing options available.
It's important to realise that both modes use the same template-driven, tagging approach and that the main difference is in the validation of a 'structure' against a defined DTD, such as one of the provided DTD structures like xBook.
For those new to SGML there is new jargon to learn, but Adobe assists in this by providing various applications with validated DTDs, together with a guide to XML for those wanting to learn more.
The bundling of the SGML features will provide many users with new options, but Adobe has also improved the handling of XML, so FrameMaker is capable of round-trip XML, which can be imported, edited and exported for reuse.
It's now also possible to take an existing unstructured FrameMaker document, create a structure, apply it to the document and replace the structure with another that's been defined.
The process is well handled and FrameMaker provides good feedback on problems. The resulting structure can also be manipulated in the Structure view.
In most other applications, mappings would be set up in a dialog box that hides the complexities, but FrameMaker retains the arcane text file approach of its origins.
While this is remarkably flexible, setting up a simple change of master pages to show a different one on every page with a 'ch' heading tag is fraught with problems, and a simple punctuation error can cause FrameMaker to crash.
We would have liked to see major improvements in the interface, but little work has been done here, making FrameMaker look dated.
An area of better improvement is the output. Here again, Adobe has bundled WebWorks Standard Edition as a means to generate output for a variety of devices.
In addition to the native print and PDF production, WebWorks also allows the production of e-book (Palm Reader PDB format and Microsoft's Reader LIT format) files and HTML for web servers. Each of these formats can be controlled by templates which define the appearance of the generated output.
Standard templates are provided, which can be modified within the WebWorks editor. Graphics in a FrameMaker file can be converted to standard web image and graphics formats, such as animated GIFs, and Adobe's SVG graphics format can be used without alteration for web use.
Support is also included for visually impaired readers with such things as large text.
By bringing SGML capabilities to FrameMaker, Adobe has widened its user base. The bundled WebWorks software will also attract new users who want to re-purpose their final output for additional formats.
Unfortunately, though, little has been done to make FrameMaker 7.0 approachable to new users, and its arcane interface and steep learning curve need to be balanced against the benefits.
Price: £579.99 (ex. VAT)
Minimum requirements: Windows 98/ME/NT 4.0/2000/XP; Pentium II 233MHz; 64MB Ram; 100MB hard drive space.
Contact: Adobe 01494 797 828
www.adobe.co.uk
See also:
Packed full of so many new document design features that it can be a bit confusing. 24 Sep 2002
If your work regularly involves other graphics and design tools, you might find InDesign is the program that ties them all together. 11 Apr 2002
A template-based desktop publishing package for home, business and the web. 25 Feb 2002All Desktop Publishing (DTP)
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