FrameMaker to Flare Conversion

[joshwerth]

Has anyone in this community ever converted FrameMaker files to Flare files, without having any version of FrameMaker installed?

[Bob_Niland]

dauphinb: … there are real users out here for whom these are real constraints, …

And that was really my point. Anyone desiring to be a versatile DTP professional needs some appreciation for the obstacles that enterprise security policies can present. They can range from rigid client computer configurations to dysfunctional total environments ‒ and then, the job at hand turns out to amount to document recovery from arcane source materials.

In addition to Stefan’s Acrobat Pro DOCX hack, where that might not be available, also check to see if any of the site copiers can do scan-to PDF, with OCR, to {intranet} email. I used that hack once where a document that only existed as an nth-gen hardcopy needed to be restored to FM maintainable form.

>> "Heck, Adobe has to have a special process just to manage license activation for such clients."

re: Another way of saying this is that Adobe needs to have ways to serve the legitimate needs of a particular class of actual customers.

My recollection from when net activation began was that the alternate process might not actually have been in place, and had to be hastily created. I could be mistaken.

It’s still not readily apparent that an alternate path exists. The FrameMaker FAQ on this site says only: “Access to the Internet is required during installation and licensing of your software and once every 30 days thereafter.”

I have to wonder if sales have been lost because potential new customers don't press the issue.

[dauphinb]

Bob:

"Anyone desiring to be a versatile DTP professional needs some appreciation for the obstacles that enterprise security policies can present."

I think of myself as a DTP professional, but in my case the "enterprise" in question is not my client, it's my employer. Sometimes it feels like the distinction between working inside the walls and working from outside is missed in discussions here.

"My recollection from when net activation began was that the alternate process might not actually have been in place, and had to be hastily created."

My recollection is slightly different: Our first version that required activation (FM8, IIRC) included an explicitly documented alternative method (i.e., the package -- back when software still came in packages! -- included a phone number to call); by the time of our next upgrade (FM10), the phone-in method was gone, and we had to scramble to discover the workaround.

"I have to wonder if sales have been lost because potential new customers don't press the issue."

Good question. If we didn't have a ~20 year archive of legacy documents in FrameMaker, we might have been lost as customers. As it is... as Macbeth said, "[we are] in blood so far stepp'd in, t'were as tedious to turn back as go o'er!"

[Stefan Gentz]

An alternative way might have been to save the PDF as DOCX with Acrobat Pro DC or open the PDFs direktly in Microsoft Word 2016 and save as DOCX. And then import the DOCX into F****.

[joshwerth]

There's always something new to learn in technology.

I never knew a PDF could be opened directly from Word.

Could that have helped make the job a bit easier? It's quite possible. But I won't know.

Thank you Stefan for the new knowledge. Sorry I didn't have it sooner.

[Matt-Tech Comm Tools]

A quick internet search should yield some advice on this, and I'd expect you will also need to download a 30-day trial of FrameMaker.

Interesting that you want to move away from FrameMaker...

Since Fm's digital output is excellent, and Flare's PDF/print conversion of their XHTML base code necessarily isn't as good as Fm, do you no longer have a print requirement?

[joshwerth]

Moving away from FrameMaker was not my decision. There's more to this story that I'll gladly share if anyone would care to hear it.