Exporting FrameMaker Source files

The best - and by far the easiest - way to pack a FrameMaker job and send to the customer, is using Frameexperts ArchiveES.

It is a small plugin/utility which can be found here: https://frameexpert.com/store/index.html

It will collect and copy everything that is referenced into the publication in a new folder with all graphics in a subfolder and all text insets in another subfolder. What is especially brilliant is that you can open the framemaker job from the new folder and all links will work. When you have done that you can if you really want to help, do a mif wash from the book utilities and save everything as mif files. That is the file form the translation agency will use. Another option is to to export to Xliff, but, while the translation agency may like it, it is not transparant what is IN the Xliff file. So that would require some dialogue with the customer.

Later versions of FM have a File » Package feature that I've never used.

Whatever it does, be sure to also include the MIFs for all the .book & .fm files, as the recipient may have an earlier version of FM. Also include PDF(s) of what the document(s) look like in their original language.

I've not used Package because back when I was doing production work, and sending out for translation, the feature didn't exist, and we also need to run a script to gather up all the imported objects, place them in a document-local /imports dir, and re-write the paths in the MIFs to point to the locals.

If they want the source files, then you can give them a copy of the .fm and .book files you're working with. Or save as MIF and send those .mif files.