Skip to main content
N
nuitgoddess
Participant
October 30, 2013
Question

Is it worth the reported extreme pain to load FM 11 via bootcamp on the MAC?

  • October 30, 2013
  • 2 replies
  • 1254 views

I've been offerred a 4 to 5 month job but it requires using FrameMaker 11 and I have a MAC. Frame is not supported on MACs. [Would rather use UNIX rather than windows but UNIX isn't supported anymore either.]

Is it worth the self-induced torment to finally get Windows loaded and then FM up and running on a windows-based MAC partition? Has anyone tried this and had success?

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

D
dpsb
Participant
November 2, 2013

I use FM11 with VMWare Fusion 5 and Windows 8 (and previously XP). Win 8 is still a little rough, so I'd probably advise using Win 7 instead, but in general it works quite well, and I've used it to produce 1000+ page manuals. To avoid the slight slowness caused by virtual networking, I keep the files for large, complex FM projects in the Windows environment (small FM projects do fine with the files stored on the Mac side). I also do all graphics on the Mac side, which means that for those large projects, I need to copy the files back and forth between the Mac and the virtual Windows environment; that's the only real inconvenience from a workflow perspective.

(Specifically re Windows 8: One old font family has given me problems when printing to PDF. Also, FM sadly doesn't yet seem to support Win 8's hidpi display capabilities, which would be great with my retina display - hopefully that's in the plans for FM12!)

Bob_Niland
Community Expert
Bob_NilandCommunity Expert
Community Expert
November 3, 2013

> FM sadly doesn't yet seem to support Win 8's hidpi display capabilities ...

Support in what respect?

FM has always struck me as being display-resolution-agnostic. I've used it on Windows displays ranging from 70 dpi to 120 dpi, and as long as (maker.ini) preferences MonitorSize= and GreekSize= are set appropriately, I get maximum display quality.

Is there some chance that VMWF is virtuallizing the display coarsely?
When you right-click on the Windows wallpaper then

> Properties >  Display Properties > Settings

what "Screen Resolution" is shown?

EPS and PDF thumbnails, of course, are going to be coarse on any display.

D
dpsb
Participant
November 8, 2013

> what "Screen Resolution" is shown?

2880 x 1800.

This is the 220dpi display on the Retina MBPro; think of it as having four pixels for every normal pixel. For hidpi support, Windows is set to display text etc. at 200% of the normal size. Most of Windows is sharp and well-defined, but everything in FrameMaker gets fuzzy from being scaled. So, back to normal resolution for now. 8.1 is supposed to handle this in a more centralized fashion (for now you have to make two separate settings for the desktop and metro/modern enviroments); perhaps that will improve things, but I would guess that a new version of FM will be required.

Matt-Tech Comm Tools
Community Expert
Matt-Tech Comm ToolsCommunity Expert
Community Expert
October 30, 2013

Not sure who's reported the pain, but I've been running Windows and FrameMaker on Macs since the release of Fm8.

Actually,

  • been running the full TCS (I use vmware Fusion 5, and Windows 7)
  • teaching online and in person (Fm, Rh, Cp, Connect, Presenter)
  • doing webinars for Adobe
  • presentations at national conferences
  • wrote a FrameMaker book.

All on my Mac. All with Windows.

If I had problems, they were minor (mapping the right-click button comes to mind, having enough RAM and processors can have an impact)

But hey, your mileage may vary!

-Matt Sullivan, FrameMaker Course Creator, Author, Trainer, Consultant
Bob_Niland
Community Expert
Bob_NilandCommunity Expert
Community Expert
October 31, 2013

I presume that on Mac, you still have to print from FM using Windows drivers.

Which means that you get no benefit from the fact that Mac has real CMYK support, and you are stuck using RGB or Window's fake CMYK.

You could, I suppose, print to PostScript, then Distill using a separately provisioned Mac version of Acrobat Std/Pro, but print-to-ps&distill is becoming a deprecated workflow.

Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement
Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices