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Known Participant
March 24, 2017
Answered

How to convert to recent version of Word?

  • March 24, 2017
  • 3 replies
  • 2573 views

I have FM 2015, but if I try to save a file as Word, the only option it gives me is RTF 1.6. Isn't there anything more recent than that? I can't even do this conversion because FM crashes almost every time.

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Correct answer Matt-Tech Comm Tools

Have you tried removing the graphics and saving as RTF? Not ideal, but the graphics may be causing your crashes.

3 replies

Inspiring
April 18, 2017

Well, I see you guys are gamely trying to offer practical workarounds and use case scenarios, but to me this is just another obvious tell-tale sign (along with things like Pantone colour libraries from 1988!)  that Adobe basically dropped Frame as a product in the early noughties, and just continued to sell it as a cash cow to big clients in IT and aviation/defence, and only resurrected it with great begrudging reluctance when Tech Authors kept insisting it was a tool they couldn't do without.

Arnis Gubins
Inspiring
April 18, 2017

Exactly  what functionality is missing in RTF content generated from FM? Word opens RTF seamlessly, just like FM opens a MIF file, so except for dealing with functionality that Word/RTF doesn't support (like true sideheads and run-ins) providing a list of missing features that are required for current versions of Word would be more helpful then a blanket dismissal.

Matt-Tech Comm Tools
Community Expert
Matt-Tech Comm ToolsCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
March 28, 2017

Have you tried removing the graphics and saving as RTF? Not ideal, but the graphics may be causing your crashes.

-Matt Sullivan, FrameMaker Course Creator, Author, Trainer, Consultant
TeraReconAuthor
Known Participant
March 29, 2017

I'm pretty sure you're right about the graphics, because the files printed when I removed them. Are you saying that one (or more) of the image files might be corrupted? Or just that the file got too big with the images? These aren't vector graphics, but screenshots in color.

The problem is, I need those graphics to be in the files. And there are a lot of them, so it would be a big pain to have to put them into the Word file manually.

I solved the problem by breaking up the FM files into much smaller files. Those were saved to Word without crashes, and then I just put them all together into one big Word file.

Thanks!

Matt-Tech Comm Tools
Community Expert
Community Expert
April 6, 2017

Glad you got it solved...yes, I think it was a corrupt graphic. But it's almost impossible to efficiently track it down. I wish I knew what was going wrong, but (removing graphics) is just one of the things I do to try and narrow down possible problems.

The Save As option has always been stable for me, so removing the graphics was really just a lucky guess.

The fact that you could process the files when you took smaller bites points to some sort of size limitation though.

<rambling_anecdote>

I had a boss one time who wanted me to track down everything that went wrong on every job every time every day.

I asked him "Who's going to do the work?"
</rambling_anecdote>

-Matt Sullivan, FrameMaker Course Creator, Author, Trainer, Consultant
Barb Binder
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 25, 2017

I can't speak to the crashing, but if you export to RTF 1.6, you can open the file in Word, and save it to a more current version of RTF or to a .doc or .docx file. As a heads up, this hasn't changed in FrameMaker 2017—it's still 1.6.

~Barb at Rocky Mountain Training
TeraReconAuthor
Known Participant
March 29, 2017

I'm sorry, maybe I wasn't clear. I was saving the files as RTF 1.6, that's what was crashing. My version of FM doesn't even offer Word as a choice. (I know I can convert the RTF files to .DOC later.)

Thanks.