Is there a way to edit a FrameMaker document when you don't have FrameMaker?

Forum|Forum|11 years ago
November 25, 2014
4 replies
629 views

I know...it sounds like a silly question, but let me explain.

My client (a government agency) wanted an instructional guide that looked good. I suggested FrameMaker (I have v10) and they said great! 200 pages later they want to be able to edit the document themselves and then send it to me to finalize and print. They now want options on how they can edit. I suggested Adobe Acrobat and they weren't crazy about that idea and now it seems that they may be going backwards to Microsoft Word.

So are there any other options?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

Cindy

This topic has been closed for replies.

Bob_Niland

Community Expert

If the reviewers know Frame, and need less than 30 days to make the edits, they could install the trial version and use Frame.

If they don't know Frame, 30 days is hardly enough time to learn it.

Find out what word processing tools they already know, such as Word or OpenOffice/LibreOffice Writer. If Save-as-RTF from Frame isn't sufficient (and it usually isn't), consider using the now free MIF2go to generate a .doc more representative of how it really looks in FM.

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FieryPantone

Legend

I'd forgotten about Mif2Go, though in part because as a straitjacketed corporate user I don't have access to it. Also, of course, part of my devious long-term strategy aims to give these pesky Area Experts usable but disappointing non-FM files :-}

Bob_Niland

Community Expert

> ... part of my devious long-term strategy aims to give these pesky Area Experts usable but disappointing non-FM files :-}

Give them the documents as MIF, along with a copy of the MIF Reference Guide. Then they can make any edits they need with Notepad.

All seriousness aside, your entity probably wants richly formatted documents, often with extensive cross-referencing, indexing and hypertext features. That, today, still requires advanced tools and a non-trivial learning curve. Yet the SMEs want to be able to fully edit these documents, without the tools, or learning anything. Tell them to set up a wiki for it, and get back to you when it works.

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FieryPantone

Legend

Intelligent inhabitants of the known world accept the workflow that uses FM for hands-on editing and .pdf to input comments. The rest of the world fails to understand that when you want professional results, you use professional tools. Additionally, they've often been brainwashed by WYSIWYG and don't realise that a lot of editing can be done very efficiently in plain text. </rant>

I've had moderate success in certain projects by handing over a good-looking .pdf and then the Save as .rtf output from FM … if – and it is of course a huge if – you can trust/train reviewers to use Word's Track changes efficiently, they can then contribute using Word. Depending on the scale of the comments, some of your reviewers might accept a compromise where they attach Word or .txt files to the .pdf rather than struggling to express themselves on a post-it.

Good luck!

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