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dlewis71
Participant
January 1, 2024
Question

Need license for legacy FrameMaker 6

  • January 1, 2024
  • 3 replies
  • 500 views

Hello. I am looking for a license to run FrameMaker 6 for Unix. I have files from graduate school I want to recover and convert to PDFs.

 

I'm searching ebay and amazon, though no luck so far.

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    3 replies

    Barb Binder
    Community Expert
    Barb BinderCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    January 1, 2024

    And in addition to Bob's excellent advice, please be careful about buying any Adobe apps on eBay. We get regular reports that malware is included in those old applications. 

     

    ~Barb

    ~Barb at Rocky Mountain Training
    Bob_Niland
    Community Expert
    Bob_NilandCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    January 2, 2024

    In this case, it sounds like dlewis71 might already have the legacy media, and just needs a CD key.

    Even with a valid key in hand, however, getting FM6 to install & run somewhere could be sporty. It will be based on older Windows APIs, probably contains 16-bit x86 code that may no longer execute on modern x86-64 CPUs, possibly plus some real-mode code that will cause exceptions at run time regardless. Font issues could be entertaining.

    While there may be VMs offering Win3.x…Win98 emulations, there's really no need to mess with that path, given FM's excellent record of supporting opening old rev docs under current release, and the trial version license window being long enough for recovery of most small projects.

      D
      dlewis71Author
      Participant
      January 2, 2024

      I have set up a virtual Solaris 2.6 machine with QEMU and installed software including Franemaker 6. If a trial version of modern Frame can read my thesis and defense slides for conversation to PDF that would be fine for my archival needs.

      Bob_Niland
      Community Expert
      Bob_NilandCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      January 1, 2024

      If you have access to the files, any later version of FM can open them, including a trial version of the current FM2022.

      I just opened an FM 4.0 file in FM2020—uneventful other than expected complaints about fonts. Saved to PDF without issue.

      As your Unix files probably didn't conform to later Windows file name extension conventions, it might be helpful to make copies with .fm extensions.

      With the trial copy, you can save the old files in a variety of formats.

      Even if a license key can be obtained for FM6, finding a version of Windows (or a VM) on which it would install & run, could be a challenge.

        Matt-Tech Comm Tools
        Community Expert
        Matt-Tech Comm ToolsCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        January 3, 2024

        I've done the same as Bob for very old legacy files. In fact, so old that the Fm docs had .DOC extensions.

        No problem opening them up, once you choose All Files or a similar view in the Open  dialog.

        -Matt Sullivan, FrameMaker Course Creator, Author, Trainer, Consultant
        kglad
        Community Expert
        kgladCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        January 1, 2024

        in the future, to find the best place to post your message, use the list here, https://community.adobe.com/

        p.s. i don't think the adobe website, and forums in particular, are easy to navigate, so don't spend a lot of time searching that forum list. do your best and we'll move the post (like this one has already been moved) if it helps you get responses.



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