Open DOCX crashes latest version of FrameMaker

[ivanp9164113]

We are trying to reconstruct documentation that was developed in FrameMaker but we only have the PDF output. We can use Acrobat to convert PDF to DOCX which works well and we get the cross references working in Microsoft Word. When we try to open the docx in FrameMaker, the application crashes.

If support is intersted we can share the document to reproduce the crash. 

If we try to import a much smaller version of our DOCX,  we can see that the cross references  are not correclty imported., the markers are there, but the cross references are all broken.

If there is a better way to recostruct the FrameMkaer files from the PDF we would love to hear.

It seems bizare that Microsoft Word does a better job importing from the PDF.

Thanks

Ivan Pedruzzi

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

First off, you know you're not talking to Support, right? This is a user-to-user forum.
If FM2022 (you don't mention the version #, but that's the latest) is crashing when trying to import a Word doc, then there's probably something messed up in the doc. The workflow of FM to PDF to Word is not a reversable process without some pain along the way. Your best bet is to clean up the Word docs with standardized formating and then use a template to map those Word styles to FM paragraph tags.
OR you can brute force it and just copy/paste the content as plain text in FM and then spend your time fixing up the formatting and xrefs.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Oh, and if you want to contact the FM folks - see https://helpx.adobe.com/contact/enterprise-support.other.html#framemaker for your Adobe Support options. I'd recommend using the tcssup@adobe.com e-mail address as it reaches a team dedicated to Technical Communication Suite products including FrameMaker.

[ivanp9164113]

Jeff, I appreciate your quick reply.

The DOCX was created by Acrobrat and it opens just fine in Word, I do not believe there is anything funcky in the document it self, but if it was generated by an Adobe product.

I just find incredible that I can reconstruct the all document including styles and working cross references, going from PDF to DOCX.   but I cannot get even close using FrameMaker.  I mean PDF is a format created by Adobe. The information is in the PDF, what would take for Adobe to design an importer that takes PDF and generated a frame file? puzzling....  

We are forced to abandon FrameMaker and switch to Microsoft Word to maintain this manual,  which is a several hundred pages, it would take forever to fix rebuild in FrameMaker. 

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Ah, you've fallen into the fallacy that just because Adobe owns both products, that they should be completely compatible with each other. Sorry, doesn't work that way.

FM and Acrobat come from completely different ecosystems - one produces the other; the reverse is NOT true. You can import PDFs in FM docs, but you can't edit them - they're like static pages. 
You are completely welcome to maintain your massive Word doc in Word - but it's not the best for handling huge docs; that's why FM was invented - it comes from the book world where hundred page docs are common.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Was the PDF tagged? 

Did the conversion make a lot of text boxes in Word vs. standard Word text?

Try saving as RTF and reopen in Word. 

[ivanp9164113]

Dave, we tried many combiantions,  the following open by Frame but the xref are broken

- PDF to RTF  
- PDF to DOCX to DOC

[ivanp9164113]

it's all text and tables there are no text boxes   and may be 20 images.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

I would save as TXT and remove all formatting. You can check the PDF for the font, size, and color specs to recreate in Frame. 

To get your grahics (as best as they can be after placing into Word) change the DOCX extension (not DOC) to ZIP. Decompress the zip file, open it, you will see a Doc folder, in the Doc folder you will see a Media folder containing the graphics. 

[Bob_Niland]

As other experts have pointed out, PDF was never designed to be a round-trip format (although some apps can add private data to allow it, with some bloat).

When I had this problem (and I did from time to time), I would just copy out the text as plaintext, and focus deeper recovery efforts on extracting any graphics at maximum quality, often deconstructing indvidual PDF page in Illustrator, leaving just the graphic object, then re-saved as EPS.

[FrameMaker-dk]

Rather than importing the text from the Word files, have you tried copy/pasting the entire "thing" from Word into FrameMaker?.

I have just finished a large project based on a similar premis and I used the copy/paste procedure and made it work. I got index words and cross references along just fine.

If you are interested, I shall be glad to take a look at your project outside of the forum. You can find me at FrameMaker.dk.