Urgent: Framemaker 11 and compatibility with Framemaker 5.5

[Guest]

Hello,

I search technical precise informations on impacts due to migration of fm files from FrameMaker 5.5 (Solaris) to FrameMaker 11 (Windows).

Can I find documents, papers, notes from Adobe or others that détail modification to do, or problems, on a such migration?

The MIF format used by FrameMaker is also in the context of my search: is there any modification on MIF generation or MIF integration from or in *.fm files?

All the binaries (fmbatch, fmreport, ...) provided in the package 5.5 is also in the context of my search: I want to know if these binaries are present in v11?

Best Regards

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

You should be able to directly open and upgrade an old FM5.5 file in FM11; if you can’t, then save the 5.5 file as MIF and open that. Of course, always make sure you have a backup copy before starting anything. FM8+ brought in Unicode font support, but that shouldn’t have any impact on your 5.5 files.

[Guest]

Thanks for your answer,

Is it document specifying différences between version of framemaker 5.5 and 11, because I work on a "critical" project and the fact to don't know precise impacts is difficult to argument.

What can be answers to my other questions about windows/solaris binaries?

Regards

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

I don’t know of any document that outlines the differences between 5.5 and 11 – there will be a lot of them (differences I mean – lots of features added since 5.5). My understanding is that the FM binaries are platform independent, so a FM doc created on Solaris or Mac shouldn’t have any issues being opened on Windows.

I’m not sure what the problem is with taking a copy of your 5.5 docs and upgrading them in a copy of FM11 (purchased or trial version) – that would be your best test as to the impacts you fear. With a copy, nothing is set in stone – you can always toss it if you don’t like what’s happening.

[Bob_Niland]

> ... FM doc created on Solaris or Mac shouldn’t have any issues being opened on Windows.

There are likely to be dialogs about graphics filters. They are harmless but a nuisance.

[__AG__]

You also have to keep in mind that starting with FM8, the internal character encoding switched from FrameRoman to Unicode UTF-8, so if you're using any languages or special characters that have characters outside of the ANSI 255 range, you may encounter different characters than what you might expect.

[Guest]

Thanks for all your replies, it will help me.

Regards

[Bob_Niland]

> ... starting with FM8, the internal character encoding switched from FrameRoman to Unicode UTF-8 ...

And as far as I know, FM8 and later make no attempt to recast the codepoints from their legacy FM Roman values to Unicode values (largely because the problem isn't that simple and may not be resolvable unambiguously).

If you don't have the legacy Type1 or TrueType fonts (typically Symbol and Zapf Dingbats), expect problems. If you're lucky, you'll see "?".

MS WingDings is not a 1:1 match for Zaph.