FrameMaker revisited - Reference books

[bobg]

Having not worked with FrameMaker for the past 10 years (I moved from Tech Pubs back to ILS Engineering) I am looking for a FrameMaker Reference book to bring me back up to speed for a business opportunity.  I was an ACE for FrameMaker 5.5, is there still he opportunity to do this?

[frameexpert]

Matt Sullivan's book is excellent. Disclaimer: I authored the chapter on scripting.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0996715746/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_-u3EFb3RYR19F

[barbara_a]

As FrameExpert mentioned, Matt Sullivan's book is excellent. It is a great reference book. If you want an exercise book, I believe that the last one published was Adobe FrameMaker 9 Classroom in a Book. Amazon sells it.

[Sam Tomanio]

I third that on Matt Sullivan"s book. I took his Template Design course this summer with his book.

An outstanding resourse!

Sam

[Barb Binder]

Hi Bob:

A note about the FrameMaker 9 Classroom in a Book title—there was an update out for version 11, but it is now woefully out of date—we are up to v16 (Fm 2020)—and there is no interest from Peachpit/Pearson/Adobe Press to update the classroom materials to a current version.

As for the ACE exam, there is not one available for any of the more recent versions of FrameMaker. I believe the last one was for version 10, though I may be wrong on that. There is some talk about issuing new exams on the Creative Cloud side, but it's not moving very fast. They are currently five years behind and a lot more people use the CC apps than the TCS apps, so I'd expect to see those exams updated first.

~Barb 

[davidcfrye]

I've got two of those books as well. It was great to sit a new employee down with it. She had lots of CC experience but no Frame. It got her up to speed pretty quick. To Barb's comments, there doesn't seem to be much interest from Adobe in providing or creating decent Frame documentation. This forum is pretty much it. Though I suppose there might be corporate contract-based support for the right price. I vaguely recall our purchasing dept looking into it 3 or 4 years ago.

[bobg]

Thank you all for advice and information. I did look at buying Matt Sullivan's book so I am glad to receive its endorsment. 

[Barb Binder]

Hi Bob:

The lack of FrameMaker courseware isn't actually an Adobe issue—Adobe Press is part of Pearson Education, not Adobe. I've had help from the FrameMaker team asking Pearson to please fund a new book, to no avail. FrameMaker has a very small user base compared to the Creative Cloud apps and a lot of long time users who don't need training, so my understanding is that Pearson doesn't see new FrameMaker course books as profitable. 

At any rate, besides this forum, where we are always happy to help, there are additional resources for you:

1.) My blog consists primarily of questions my students have asked in class and after class—it has 11 years of posts on unstructured FrameMaker. It is geared towards supporting my students, but it is unlocked and free for anyone to read:
https://www.rockymountaintraining.com/category/framemaker/ 

2.) Adobe maintains a blog:

https://blogs.adobe.com/techcomm/category/products/framemaker 

2.) Here is a getting started guide from Adobe:

https://help.adobe.com/en_US/framemaker/2019/getting-started/Fm_2019_getting_started_guide.pdf 

3.) And this video hub is focused on presenting new features as they are released:

https://helpx.adobe.com/framemaker/video-hub.html

~Barb

[Sam Tomanio]

Also, don't overlook the FameMaker PDF help file that comes with Frame. There's a wealth of information there too.

I've often found things in there quickly with a search.

Sam