I am trying to convert a 300+ page PDF to FrameMaker 2015 file.

Report · Nov 21, 2018

I am not sure if the orginal source doc was prepared using Frame, but that's where I would like to end up. What I've tried so far:

Trying to import the file directly from the PDF into Frame - only allows importing one page at a time. Is there a setting I can change?

Exporting the PDF as RTF, and then importing the RTF file into Frame - results in a crash.

Converting the PDF into Word, and then importing the Word file into Frame - still doesn't hold on to its styles.

I have the Tech Comm suite - is there another tool that I could use?

Is there a straightforward and time saving method to accomplish this?

Report · Nov 22, 2018

IIRC there's no "easy" way to do this all at once - it depends on if you want to be able to edit the content in FM that used to be in the PDF - some people don't, so importing the PDF is the route they take. Scripting may speed it up. If you need to be able to edit the imported content, then going the Word route, cleaning up the content so that it uses consistent styles and matching those style names in FM as paragraph tags will result in a smoother import process. You will still have some clean up to do in FM. The third alternate is to use the Word content as a source for copying and paste into FM as plain text - then apply your FM paragraph tags to the resulting clean content. You can speed this up by changing your Maker.ini file to put "TEXT" at the beginning of the ClipboardFormatsPriorities= line. Then "paste" will paste as plain text instead of Unicode text.

Report · Nov 22, 2018

re: I am not sure if the orginal source doc was prepared using Frame,

Many times you discover the authoring app by looking at Document Properties in Acrobat Reader.

re: Trying to import the file directly from the PDF into Frame - only allows importing one page at a time. Is there a setting I can change?

That's just importing page images as Postscript objects, really. You can't edit them, hypertext to or from them, nor generate a ToC or Index from them, etc.

When I've been faced with this, I just copy out all the text, paste it in raw, create and apply formats. But hey, at least you're not having to recover a doc that exists only as hardcopy (scan with OCR when that happens).

A question not so far addressed is what images and artwork exist in the PDF. Recovering those for re-use, with minimal damage, might require some tricks.

PDF was never intended to be an editable or authoring interchange format. It's basically device-independent Postscript for viewing, browsing, printing, etc. Many PDFs don't even support copying out the raw text flow in correct order.

Report · Nov 25, 2018

Frame 2017 has very good Word import.

How about, from PDF export to Word.

Then download the evaluation version of Frame 2017.

Follow instructions for Word import (there are a couple of good free tutorials and blog posts about this) (The files need to be doc and not docx for instance)

Then save back down to Frame 2015 and go back to working with your 2015 version.

When you export from PDF you are not going to get good Word files with proper styles anyway.

The result might be clunky, but you will have something to work with.

There is still formatting to do afterwards.

Report · Nov 27, 2018

Hi,

I might be wrong, but I don't think PDF supports the concept of styles. PDF is more of a destination format, the end of the process.

As others have said, I'd use PDF --> DOC --> FrameMaker 2019 (12 was okay for me, but I never used 2017). After that, go through page by page and apply your paragraph and character tags.

Cheers,

Sean