FrameMaker 7.1 to RoboHelp 8

Report · Apr 15, 2010

Greetings!

I have questions about moving a client's docs from FrameMaker 7.1 to RoboHelp 8. What the client wants to do is maintain the docs in RH8 and from there produce PDFs and OLH. The client has asked me for a time estimate to accomplish this and I'm getting a little overwhelmed/confused as to the best approach. I'm hoping this forum might provide some guidance/tips/directions that will help me move forward.

BACKGROUND INFO: On my work machine I have FrameMaker 7.1 (FM7.1), RHX5 and Acrobat 9 Standard. These are the apps/versions I've been using to maintain the client's source files and produce their PDFs and OLH. My OS is Windows XP Professional; I have MS Office 2002 or 2003.

As an STC member and their Lone Writers SIG, I've already emailed my colleagues there on this matter. The questions/comments from that email are below. I'm also about to post on the Yahoo! HATT site about this matter...I know this might seem excessive, but I figure it can't hurt.

NOTE: One Lone Writer responded by suggesting I consider ADOBE TCS of just RH8 due to extra code in TCS which would improve the quality/process of the conversion. Another responded by mentioning that RH8 can import/convert PDFs. Many thoughts come to mind about taking this approach -- in a way it sounds really good and an easy way to get the job done, but on the other hand...is this the best approach? is it viable given the parameters of my client's docs?

(1) I don't want to purchase the RH8 upgrade just to prepare a time estimate, therefore I was thinking I could just download the trial version. However, somewhere in the RH8 Help (found it online) I think I read that I would also need to have FrameMaker 8/8.1 installed on my machine in order to convert the clients FM7.1 files to RH8. Does anyone know for sure? By the way, I'm gun shy about downloading trial versions of anything after experiencing major software problems when doing so in the past...for example, the only way I can open RX5 these days is by accessing the .exe in Explorer as opposed to choosing RHX5 from the START button.

(2) A lot of the FM7.1 chapters contain headers and footers that were created using different methods (even within the same .fm file!) so I'm concerned about how they will convert once in RH8.

(3) Some FM7.1 appendicies contain pages (about 50 pages per appendix) of calculations that were created using FrameMaker's Equations Palette. How will these pages convert? How can they (i.e. calculations) be maintained going forward without using FrameMaker?

(4) The FM files contain screen shots that are JPGs. Will RH 8 work with JPGs or will they all need to be converted to BMPs?

(5) What about bulleted and numbered lists in the FM files...will they convert okay into RH8? And what about large tables in the FM files? And soft returns?

(6) In FM the chapters/appendicies are in .fm files which are then compiled/organized in .BOOK files. Would it be best to bring the .fm or .BOOK files into RH8? (NOTE: the client's PDFs and OLH don't contain all of the same information...in other words, some appendices found in the PDFs are not part of the OLH.)

I can't think of anything else to include in this post...my brain feels rather fried.

Thank you in advance for any answers/tips/guidance that anyone provides, and also for your patience to read/review this posting.

Best regards,

Pauline

Palmetto TechWrite

Charleston.SC

Report · Apr 15, 2010

Hello, Pauline.

In my opinion, trying to construct a TCS 2-like publishing environment without actually using the suite is a false economy. By the time you give up your trial-and-error approach, you will have missed your deadlines, needlessly frustrated yourself and your customer(s), and possibly injured your career. (At the very least, your value and expertise will be called into question by your customer(s) if they do any investigation of this issue independently.)

Get either a full trial version of the suite or a full license and do the job right--one time. You appear to be reasonably familiar with FM. TCS 2 integrates FM 9 and RH8, and although there are still some issues to work out (tell me of any application that's NOT true of...), it's a solid offering.

Your FM 7.1 files will translate with few problems--that's exactly the path I took. Check the rest of the topics in this forum, and you will find information about links to demos that the FM/RH team at Adobe has posted.

Hope this helps.

Burtin

Report · Apr 16, 2010

Hello Burtin -

Thank you for replying to my post. It was kind of you, and I appreciate your taking the time to do so. I had hoped to get back to you sooner, but my whole day ended up rather askew right off the bat.

Unfortunately, and I won't bore you with the details, at the moment I have to set aside the idea of getting TCS (trial version or purchased version) as I really can't afford it and wouldn't use all of its components. On the other hand, if I should learn that I absolutely need the current version of FM to get my FM 7.1 files into RH8, then I would have to revisit the idea just based on financial savings and figure things out from there.

Anyway, with all of this being said, I'm still looking for advice/tips/suggestions/forewarnings as to steps to take to prep the FM7.1 files before bringing them into RH8, as well as what I might expect as far as clean up once they're in RH8. And again, this is if I can absolutely bring FM 7.1 files into RH8...although I have also learned that RH8 can import PDFs which I need to look at as well but my expections are that I'd get better results going from FM to RH8.

You mentioned taking FM files straight into RH8...were your FM files from FM7.1? Did you bring them in as books or individual .fm files?

Thanks,

Pauline

Report · Apr 16, 2010

Hi again, Pauline.

I opened/saved my FM 7.1 files using FM 8 and then later upgraded to FM 9 (via TCS 2). The translation was FM-to-FM (7.1 to 8), not directly to RH 8, or RH 7 for that matter (i.e., the 'new' FM is required for the import/linking functionality). You could output your FM files to HTML and import those into RH--but you're talking about a lot of work, as well as missing all of the benefits of live-linking.

I live-linked my .book, initially, through RH 7. I have not tried a direct import of FM 7.1 files through FM 7.1 into RH 7 or 8 because I do not have the two (i.e., FM 7.1 and RH 7 or 8) installed on the same machine: Adobe has modified the TCS-version of FM (v. 8 and follow-on) to support RH. I have the suite and there is no reason to experiment with earlier versions of FM. What I have tried (on my TCS 2 development machine) is live-linking my FM 7.1 files directly to RH 8 via FM 9, which worked well since FM 9 updated them "on the fly."

You need to build a case for using TCS as a suite and just go for it. Every minute you spend trying to engineer-around doing so is (again, in my opinion) wasted time and resources (human and fiscal).

Again, hope this helps.

Burtin