Microsoft Word 2007 vs. Framemaker

[_Paul_Galinis_]

To all Framemaker Users,

I would like to get your expert and valued opinions. I do all documentation for my employer and have been using Microsoft Word from the beginning. I've always wanted to make the change to Framemaker but my superiors frowned because they want everything done in Word. Since my guides and/or manuals never went past 200 pages, I felt I could live with Word.

In any event, Microsoft Word's user interface has changed for 2007 (as I'm sure you know). I have to admit, I'm not impressed with the display. Therefore, my question is whether I should, again, pursue Framemaker as a documentation tool. Please remember, everything must be saved as a Word document. Therefore, I would be using Framemaker to save as Word documents. Is this a viable solution or should I consider other products (that I can use and save as a Word document). Any ideas or thoughts are most appreciated as this change will have an effect on my job in the next 6-12 months.

Paul

[_Kenneth_Benson_]

> everything must
> be saved as a Word document.

Then you really need to use Word.

--
Kenneth Benson
Pegasus Type, Inc.
www.pegtype.com

[Art Campbell]

If the "save as a Word Document" is your critical path criteria...

I'd download the 8.0 evaluation and see if there are any compatibility problems with saving out as RTF.

I'd also download and install MIF2Go from Omsys.com, because it generally produces higher quality RTFs than the native FM filter does, as well as give you more options.

Art

[_Martin_R__Smith_]

Hi,

In theory at least, with the new XML features built into Word 2007, XML-round tripping should be possible between Word, Frame, and other programs.

This would require development efforts on the Word and Frame side, and a commitment on the part of users to use Word as a structured authoring tool, which may or may not be practical for your organization.

Best regards,

Martin

[_Paul_Galinis_]

Ken, Art, and Martin,

Thank you for your time and response.

Paul

[Guest]

If your documents are table-heavy, you might find the conversion difficult to maintain and eventually annoying for the Word users, because there are significant differences in formatting capability between the two apps and the transition between the two apps can often result an uneasy pas de deux of approximations.

For example, while Word has some additional "design" capabilities that lends itself to easier achievement of design elements such as cells split vertically, while FM has big advantages in other respects such as in being able to handle enormously long tables without any problem.

[_Gay_Alson_]

I was very thankful when we finally switched from Word to FM as our authoring tool, but ran into a small snag when some clients, both internal and external, needed various docs in Word format. After some research, I found the perfect solution (for my needs, at any rate) in a third-party conversion tool called "Solid Converter PDF" (www.soliddocuments.com). For me, the standard version (around $50) is all that's required to keep everybody happy.

I create PDFs from my FM docs and then with a single click Solid Converter PDF converts the PDFs into Word documents.

It does a relatively seamless conversion and handles tables superbly (graphics, too). I've noticed the occasional bullet or numbering issue (however, we are talking Word here, remember) and you should be aware that everything ends up in "Normal" style. That's not a problem for me, because my users don't care, they just want a Word doc they can open and possibly edit. Of course, if your docs require styles, there would be additional time to apply them throughout.

BTW, I am in NO way associated with Solid Documents! I'm just a fan, as I am of FM. ;~)

HTH,
Gay

[_Paul_Galinis_]

Sheila and Gay,

Thank you for your thoughts and tool idea - Solid Converter PDF sounds great.

Again, many thanks,

Paul

[Arnis Gubins]

Paul,

If you need Word files out the back-end of FM, then Omni Systems
mif2go is another route to go (no intermediate PDF required). It is
quite configurable and also gives you the options of generating
various web, Help formats and even doing an unstructured to DITA
conversion. Well worth investigating. See http://www.omsys.com

[_Paul_Galinis_]

Hi Arnis,

An earlier message from Art mentioned Omni Systems mif2go too. Looks like something I definitely need to check out. Receiving all great responses, I appreciate it.

Paul

[_Gloria_Mc_]

Paul,
Frame is a great tool, but it isn't perfect (just read the contents of this forum). The fact that you don't like the Word 2007 interface is really not a sufficient reason to make a change.

You should evaluate your documents to determine how you can benefit from a move to Frame in terms of productivity. If you do not need the features that make Frame great, then how can you make a business case for the change?

In considering how Frame might increase your productivity, two great features that Frame has (and Word doesn't) include conditional text and variables. If you can improve your productivity by using these two features, then that would be a business case for moving to Frame. Conditional text and variables are useful when you have a document that can serve as a basis for several documents that are similar, such as documents for different models of the same product. You use variables for the product name, model no., and other product-specific info, then change the variable definitions for each version of the document. You include conditional text to cover features unique to each product. Having a single source for all information that is common between documents equals greater productivity.

Also, the fact that documents are comprised of individual files is wonderful if you can use chapters in more than one document, thus maintaining a single master for particular content.

Of course, working with chapter files is also great if you have really large documents, but you already mentioned that your documents are not very big. What about distributed authoring? Do you have multiple people working on the same document? That is another situation in which Frame shines, because of the separate chapter files.

Note that the fact that you can use a variable for a product name, and you can use separate chapter files for your document, is not enough. You need to determine that doing so will bring about a productivity improvement in your situation.

Another solid benefit of Frame is cross referencing between different documents. Frame handles this much better than Word. Do you or could you make significant use of this capability?

These are the kinds of things you should consider before pursuing Frame. You also have to factor in the extra work that will be needed to convert the files to Word as required by your company. Even with the best tool, that conversion will take time. If your reviewers are making changes in the Word file using Track Changes, then extra work is required to incorporate the changes into the Frame files, as well.

I hope this helps. I like Frame, but considering the business situation you have described, I'm not sure it is the best solution for you.

--GMc

[frmage]

Gloria wrote "Frame is a great tool, but it isn't perfect". I would go farther than that, and say that Frame is in many respects a lousy tool in comparison with Word.

OK, Frame does many things better than Word in terms of handling long multi-chapter documents. But Word can be tamed in that respect too: I have written manuals for many years in Word before recently being pushed by corporate policy into Frame. And what I miss most is the efficiency of the authoring environment in Word. Just some examples:

- Mistype a word: 7 times out of 10 Word will correct it automatically. Frame does not have that funtion at all.
- Accidentally press Caps Lock so that a sentence starts like tHIS. Word will correct it, Frame does not.
- Misspell a word: Word reacts with red underlining immediately. With Frame you have to do a tedious spell check (which goes through every document twice if you make any changes...).
- Move or copy a phrase: Word supports drag and drop, Frame forces cut and paste. And Word fixes spaces at the beginning and end of the moved phrase intelligently, with Frame you have to use your intelligence.
- Macros and keyboard shortcuts: set up your own in Word, learn highly non-standard escape sequences in Frame.
- Templates are real templates in Word that can automatically ensure consistent formatting. With Frame you have to import formats from another document.
- Word does not often crash and has a fairly decent crash recovery function. Frame crashes relatively often and recovery is a joke.
- Word gives you full and intuitive control over tables. Frame might give you full control but it is not easy to find...
- Word can do search and replace for formatting, special characters and so on. Frame supports a lot of search options but can only replace with text, character format or "by pasting".

I could go on and on, but the sum of my experience is that Word can be made to work with a little effort, while Frame is clumsy, bug-ridden and has a badly designed interface. Add to that your requirement to save files as Word documents and I would back Word any day, even with the new 2007 interface.

[_Kenneth_Benson_]

Many of the features Francis mentions are annoyances. I can't tell you
how many times Word has automatically "corrected" a word to a spelling I
don't want, or how frustrated I've gotten trying to start a paragraph
with a lower case letter, or how annoyed I've gotten when I accidentally
dragged some big gob of text. Sure, you can turn these things off. On a
new machine it usually takes me a few days before I root all of them out.

Perhaps Word's spell checker is better than Frame's, but if I need to
proof, I can usually do a better job myself than any spell checker.

I agree that Frame's Find/Replace could be improved.

And I agree that Word can perform some table tricks that Frame can't
come close to (like splitting rows). I'm not sure I like independently
width-adjustable cells, though. In my world, a column should be the same
width all the way down.

But as far as crashing, I would claim the opposite. Frame almost never
crashes for me. I get crashes and corrupted Word files all the time.

--
Kenneth Benson
Pegasus Type, Inc.
www.pegtype.com

[_thomas_bro_]

One more argument:

Microsoft use FrameMaker for long/large/heavy documents (i.e. Microsoft Press, Microsoft Dynamics).

Just thought you should know :-)

keep smiling
thomas

[_Bill_Dauphin_]

Like Kenneth, I think many of the Word "features" Francis cites are mixed blessings, at best. In particular, this claim...

> Word can do search and replace for formatting, special characters and so on. Frame supports a lot of search options but can only replace with text, character format or "by pasting".

...misses the fact that Frame can copy a very useful batch of things, including not just text and tables and objects, but also paragraph or character formatting, table column widths (!), and (most powerfully) conditional text settings. Combine the vast array of things Frame can search for with this diversity of copiable items, and the ability to replace "by pasting" starts to look like an extraordinarily powerful tool. Yeah, it's easier to search for certain special characters in Word, but overall, Frame's Find/Change function gives me power Word can't match. Just try, for instance, using Word to maintain content-sensitive restrictive markings during development of a complex document. If every page that contains a reference to "lefthanded frammistat" needs to be marked "Competition Sensitive" AND every paragraph that contains a frammistat reference needs to be marked with a leading "(CS)" AND your legal department insists that every in-process review draft be correctly marked, how would you approach that using Word? With Frame's combination of conditional text, variables, and the ability to replace-by-pasting styles and conditions, it's easy (I just finished such a project).

I think Thomas' example points to the real difference: Word's interface and features (esp. ones like Autocorrect) make it easier for relatively untrained people to do relatively simple tasks... which makes it a great tool for everyday productivity tasks. For highly trained professionals doing more complex tasks, these productivity features can become more of a hindrance than a help, and the greater power and control afforded by Frame becomes dispositive.

Which may be why even Microsoft doesn't use Word for jobs better suited to Frame.

(PS: Lest you think I'm just a hater, I'll mention that I've been using -- and loving -- Word ever since its initial version... for the Mac... years before Windows even existed.)

[_Paul_Galinis_]

OK, now that I'm thoroughly confused... Seriously, thanks for all the excellent comments. I've got a ways to go to match all your experience and talents.

There is one thing that I didn't mention earlier, not sure if it makes any difference. Although my user documentation hasn't gone past two hundred pages, I've had issues with images in Word. Specifically, I average about three images per page in my user documentation (my company is big on images). For production issues, I just copy and paste images in my documentation and return later to save as gifs and/or jpeg images. Along the way, I make sure the Office clipboard is clear (or the system crashes). Thus, I find Word crashes at times when the file gets very large. I stop around 20 or so pages to avoid this and convert the bitmaps to gif and/or jpeg. Not sure if FrameMaker handles this better.

[_Kenneth_Benson_]

No program handles large numbers of embedded bitmaps well. Frame mostly
seems to slow down. As you've found, you're best off referencing
graphics instead of embedding them.

--
Kenneth Benson
Pegasus Type, Inc.
www.pegtype.com

[_Bill_Dauphin_]

Paul:

> I've got a ways to go to match all your experience and talents.

Experience, yes (I've been using Frame since v5.0 was brand new); I don't know about talents.

> I've had issues with images in Word.

Who among us hasn't? Everyone's workflow/situation is different, but we
i import
graphics into an anchored frame. We have a "figs" folder within the project folder, and by importing
i by reference
we're able to easily update graphics -- whether during initial document development or in subsequent editions -- simply by dropping a new version of the graphic (with the same filename) into the "figs" folder. This also keeps the FrameMaker chapter files relatively small... but, of course, Frame is just more stable in handling large files anyway.

So yes, FrameMaker handles this better.

[_Gloria_Mc_]

Paul,
I'm not quite clear on how you are handling the graphics, but I think that there is a better way to handle them in Word, if that is your major problem. This is a Frame forum, though, so we won't go into that. If you'd like to discuss how to handle graphics in Word, let me know & we'll do so offline. (I am very well versed in Word, and agree with Francis that it is best in the usability department.)

I pretty much agree with Bill though, that Frame handles graphics better than Word. While you can link graphics in Word, which is similar to importing, I'd be a concerned about how well Word would handle linking the quantity you mention (although it might be just fine).

--GMc

[frmage]

Warning if you're embedding bitmaps and want to use a consistent size. My Word background tells me that screen dumps look good in my manuals scaled to 80% of original size (a macro on Ctrl-8 does the job very efficiently).

Of course I transferred the principle to Frame when I started using that - set bitmaps to 80% of original size. Fine. Until one day I discovered that "80%" translates in reality to a percentage that varies according to the zoom setting of the Frame document on the screen. 80% at 100% zoom and 80% at 200% zoom give very different results.

So if you want to scale bitmaps to a consistent size, find a dpi setting that suits your purpose and use that. Don't use percent!

And while I'm on the rant, if you have inserted illustrations (that can't be scaled by dpi or percent) and want to set them to an exact size - for instance you have taken them from the same source program and want identical scaling in the end result - don't expect Frame to support scaling with maintained aspect ratios. It doesn't. You have to type the height and width dimensions separately. And if you want for example photos which are a fixed height but are cropped to different widths, bring out your pocket calculator because you will need to calculate the width settings from the height and the aspect ratio if you want to get it right.

[_thomas_bro_]

... You have to type the height and width dimensions separately.

No way!!!

Hold down the shift key while scaling, and it works. Like in so many other applications (apart from some Microsoft :-)

In any case, the best result is always !!! obtained if you use a 1:1 ratio and NOT scale inside the application. It be Word, FM or any other.

And the way Word determines that an image is OK in a XX scale percentage and still look good is only in the eye of the beholder.

keep smiling
thomas

[_thomas_bro_]

" ... 80% at 100% zoom and 80% at 200% zoom give very different results."

Mine doesn't.

The percentage is a true percentage, and often you will find that the value lies in between the dpi settings which is also possible.

In what way do see different results ?

keep smiling
thomas

[_Paul_Galinis_]

Hi Gloria,

Thank you for your offer to help with graphics in Word. If there is a better way to handle graphics, I'm definitely open to your skills/thoughts.

Paul

[_Gloria_Mc_]

Paul,
I'm happy to discuss graphics in Word, or anything else about your decision. Send me an email: gmcconnell(at)cableone(dot)net.

Francis,
I'm with thomas - I'm not following what you are saying about graphics in Frame. For me, 80% is 80% - the dimensions of the graphic are the same, regardless of the file's zoom setting. Also, a file set at 80% in Frame shows the same dimensions for a graphic as it does at 80% in Word (with Frame 8, anyway).

The premise of using graphics in Frame is to work with dpi, which is a harder concept for many (including me). But you can enter a Scaling Percent in the Object Properties dialog box. thomas is again right, though - ideally the graphic should be created in the resolution you want in the end, so that it is 100% in FrameMaker, or a 1:1 ratio). I'm sure someone else can explain this better than I can.

--GMc

[frmage]

Percent scaling depends on zoom factor:
- Funny, mine works properly now too. Either I was dreaming when I discovered the problem or Adobe have quietly fixed it in one of the patches.

Create the graphic at final resolution and use 1:1 in Frame
- In principle yes, but not usually practicable. Strictly, that would means versions for on-line viewing, in-house printing and high resolution printing. And screendumps are captured at screen resolution and need to be scaled in Frame. They can be scaled with no loss of quality provided that you turn image compression off when you create a PDF.

Shift-drag for proportional scaling
- Sure, that works for visual sizing. I was talking about absolute sizing.