Adobe FrameMaker 7.1: Fast Software for Long Documents

Producers of technical documentation have long sung the praises of Adobe FrameMaker, but other print designers may wonder what's the big deal. That may change with FrameMaker 7.1, which includes powerful QuarkXPress and PageMaker filters and whizzy conditional-text features.

Glinert, Susan. Creative Pro (2004). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe FrameMaker

Adobe FrameMaker Autonumbering Examples

Autonumbering had changed as new versions of FrameMaker have arrived. What worked in FrameMaker 5 might have broken in 5.5. This is due to changes Adobe made in the restart building blocks (request presentation). While our examples below use the maximum building blocks (meaning a little extra work), the result is numbering schemes that are more flexible for multiple versions of FrameMaker.

Bright Path Solutions (2004). Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe FrameMaker

Creating Tables in FrameMaker

Tables make information easy to find and understand and are often used for illustrating comparisons among similar data. A table usually consists of a heading row and one or more body rows and may also contain a title.

McMurrey, David A., Jana Owens, Jacqueline J. Pulido and Thomas A. Moore. Illuminati Online (2004). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe FrameMaker

Custom Toolbar

We recently converted our documents from Word to FrameMaker. Most of the people in my department had been using Word for years and had grown accustomed to applying character formatting using key commands or buttons on the toolbar. I was afraid that they would use the same methods in FrameMaker simply out of habit, rather than using character tags.

Henkel, Rick. Docspages. Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe FrameMaker

Document Hack (A Technical Writer's Journal): From Acrobat to FrameMaker

FrameMaker is the industry standard for writing book-length documents. It is a powerful program capable of creating books of well over a thousand pages. The learning curve for the program is significant. FrameMaker is a much different animal than Microsoft Word and other word processors.

Hewitt, John. Writer's Resource Center (2004). Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe FrameMaker

Document Layout Concepts (Frames and All That)

The primary reason to use Framemaker is the power that it offers in managing long and possibly technically complex documents. And while detailed control of the formatting of every paragraph and character is important, the overarching concern is overall structure and layout on a document- or book-wide basis. As the product's name announces, at the heart of FrameMaker's structure and layout paradigm is the 'Frame'. Yet I found the user documentation on the actual subject of frames to be perplexingly opaque. Frames are mentioned here and there, and what is described is not incorrect. But nowhere in the user docs is there a concise and complete discussion of this central FrameMaker feature -- which tends to stall efforts to actually get started on using FrameMaker in a productively-planned manner. Indeed, it is tempting to speculate that the FM learning curve is infamously steep precisely because this conceptual core is so ill illuminated. So, determined to dispell the fog (at least for me!), I resorted to studying the very helpful Programmers' Reference and Guide, and built a MIF-Browser tool to get to the bottom of the matter. Herewith is an effort to clarify what to me seem the essentials needed for productive use of FrameMaker, condensed in one place.

Wideman, Graham. WidemanOne. Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe FrameMaker

FrameMaker Document Management  

Managing FrameMaker documents requires a unique and sophisticated document management solution. FrameMaker documents are inherently complex and often compound in nature; this reality must be recognized in order to effectively manage FrameMaker documents, so that their contents can be fully leveraged.

Lloyd, Harold. STC Proceedings (1999). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe FrameMaker

FrameMaker MIFBrowse

Much can be learned about Frame document structure and the objects within by examining documents saved in MIF format.

Wideman, Graham. WidemanOne (2001). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe FrameMaker

FrameMaker Resources

FrameMaker seems to be Adobe's best-kept secret. A tremendously powerful desktop-publishing program, FrameMaker has been ritually ignored by reviewers who instead concentrate on the big three DTP apps: QuarkXPress, InDesign, and PageMaker. Adobe positioned FrameMaker as a niche 'word-processing' product appropriate only for long-document production.

EDITsphere (2007). Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe FrameMaker

FrameMaker Resources

This site contains links of interest to users of Adobe FrameMaker, the industry-leading tool for creating long or complex technical documents. Paired with Quadralay's WebWorks Publisher, it is also an excellent tool for single source solutions that involve some combination of print or PDF, online Help, and Web-based information.

Knopf Online. Resources>Document Design>Software>Adobe FrameMaker

FrameMaker Template Browser

I modified the FrameMaker template browser to display our department's templates rather than the generic ones that come with the software. The writers no longer have to dig through the company's folder structure to find the template they need.

Henkel, Rick. Docspages. Resources>Document Design>Software>Adobe FrameMaker

FrameMaker vs. FrameMaker+SGML

Everything that is in FrameMaker is in FrameMaker+SGML. FrameMaker+SGML has capabilities that FrameMaker does not have.

Bright Path Solutions (2004). Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe FrameMaker

FrameMaker: Easy to Learn

I'd like to vote in favor of dispelling the MYTH that FrameMaker is difficult to learn.

Muller, Rita. InFrame. Articles>Software>Document Design>Adobe FrameMaker

FrameMaker: Structured or Unstructured?

At the 2004 WritersUA and STC Conferences, structured FrameMaker and XML were among the more popular session topics. There is obviously significant interest in the user assistance community about authoring XML documents with structured FrameMaker. This is not surprising, as many organizations are struggling with the problems of creating and delivering increasing amounts of user assistance in multiple formats, and managing their content in a way that maximizes their capabilities to reuse content across multiple publications.

Houser, Alan R. WritersUA (2004). Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe FrameMaker

FrameScript Tutorials: An Introduction to Writing Scripts

FrameScript is a lot like FrameMaker; it has a fairly steep learning curve, but once you learn it, you’ll find it a real workhorse. The best way to start is to read the FrameScript Scriptwriter’s Guide. And the Quick Reference will provide you shortcuts to learning the FrameScript syntax. This tutorial will introduce some foundational concepts of writing scripts that will help you get started.

Carmen Publishing. Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe FrameMaker

FrameScript Tutorials: Cross-References

There are two types of cross-references in FrameMaker: paragraph cross-references and spot cross-references. (There is a third type, element cross-references, available only in FrameMaker+SGML. This tutorial will not discuss element cross-references) Both paragraph and spot cross-references are similar, in that you have to insert an Xref object that points to a Cross-Ref Marker. The Xref object has an XRefSrcText property that must exactly match the marker text of the Cross-Ref Marker. Let’s start with spot cross-references, since they are a little simpler to work with.

Carmen Publishing. Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe FrameMaker

FrameScript Tutorials: Loops and Linked Lists

In the previous lesson, we introduced a simple FrameScript loop to process all of the paragraph formats in a document. In this lesson, we will introduce a variation of the loop, and the important concept of linked lists' of FrameMaker objects.

Carmen Publishing. Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe FrameMaker

FrameScript Tutorials: Navigating Paragraphs

Being able to navigate paragraphs in FrameMaker documents is an essential FrameScript task. This tutorial will explore several methods. For background information, see the Loops and Lists tutorial.

Carmen Publishing. Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe FrameMaker

FrameScript Tutorials: Scaling Tables to Fit the Text Column Width

Here is a simple script that proportionately scales a table to fit the text column that contains it. This script works with the current table but can be easily expanded to work with all of the tables in a document or book.

Carmen Publishing. Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe FrameMaker

FrameScript Tutorials: Styles for FrameMaker Graphics

If you are making a lot of FrameMaker graphics, such as lines with arrowheads, the thought of having to change them later can give you nightmares. Wouldn’t it be nice to have 'stylesheets' for graphic objects? With FrameScript, you can apply 'styles' to your graphics so that their properties can be globally changed.

Carmen Publishing. Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe FrameMaker

Inserting Special Characters in FrameMaker

In Adobe FrameMaker, it is necessary to use special keyboard combinations to insert special typographic characters in your work. You can find an extensive list of special characters in FrameMaker's online help. You also can paste in special characters from Word or HTML.

EDITsphere (2007). Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe FrameMaker

Instructions for installing Adobe PS 4.26 for Windows 95/98 And Attaching it to Acrobat Distiller for use with FrameMaker 5.5x, with Acrobat 3.0x  

Instructions for installing Adobe PS 4.26 for Windows 95/98 and attaching it to Acrobat Distiller for use with FrameMaker 5.5x.

Halva, Wade C. InFrame (1998). Articles>Software>Document Design>Adobe FrameMaker