Initial Review of FrameMaker 2019
I just got FrameMaker 2019. I'm moving there from FM 12. I use primarily unstructured content, and have been using FM on and off for a lot of years. My initial thoughts are these.
The installation is one of Adobe's best for FrameMaker. The software came as a single Zip file, that I downloaded. Running Set-up.exe in the Zip prompts you to unpack everything, which I did. And then, nothing. Nothing. So, I ran Set-up.exe again, and still nothing. The issue was, the second time, I selected the same Set-up.exe file I selected the first time: the one in the Zip. However, when I unpacked the lot, a second folder was created outside the Zip. When I selected that Set-up.exe, the installation began. Yay! Although the installation itself estimated "2-4 minutes remaining," the installation took closer to 25 minutes on my 4-year-old Windows 8.1 Lenovo laptop; I can't blame all of that slowness on Adobe. And, after the installation, I was not prompted to reboot, which made me happy.
The first thing I did, though, was reboot, just to be sure. Then, I checked FM 12, which seems to work fine. I used FM 12 with Acrobat 11 Pro to create a PDF using Save as, and that went seamlessly, also. I did not expect FM 12 to be hobbled by installing FM 2019, because FrameMaker's track record has been to support old versions alongside new ones. I was nervous about Acrobat, but the news seems good there. (The only issue with running an old version alongside a new version of FM is really the copyright. If you upgraded to the new version, and I did not, then you really are obligated to shelve the old version because you used its license for the upgrade.)
So, I opened FrameMaker 2019 ( 15.0.0.393) seemed to work okay as well. I brought in an FM12 book and files, and that went smoothly. Them, I used File > Save as PDF, which did not prompt me to set up bookmarks or even a name for the PDF. I need to dig into this more on this, but the PDF was good.
Next, I tried File > Publish and then selecting PDF presented a default location I did not want. I need to see if I can make that default to the current book directory. It also seemed to give me no options for naming the PDF or setting bookmarks. It did create a PDF subdirectory structure that I did not ask for. But, the PDF looked good. So, I have some way to go to set up PDFing.
Because I use third-party vendors for translation, I took a look and found that FM 2019 will save back to FM 2017, which seems groovy, but I have FM 12, so would probably have to MIF it (or keep using FM 12 for my projects until my vendors catch up).
More later, but I thought I would share my experiences so far. Looks ok; well done Adobe.
Cheers,
Sean
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