On Thu, 29 Apr 2010 13:23:54 -0700, "Matt Sullivan" <matt at grafixtraining.com> wrote:
>While there's structured framemaker, dita, and a host >of third party plugins can anyone really say its a simple, >painless, and quick process to transition from unstructured >framemaker to either structured or dita? They can say it, but it's unlikely to be true. ;-) The reason is simple. In unstructured Frame, formats are "presentational" in nature. You may use "Indented" for several different kinds of text, where all they have in common is the plain indentation. That's usual; why have different formats if there is no difference in the applied formatting? Structured designs, like DITA, have "elements" that are "semantic" in nature. They ignore presentation. (Frame's EDDs are a hybrid.) So there is usually no simple mapping from formats to elements. The info needed to do that mapping is not in the format system; it is in the mind of the author. So you'll frequently need to add information to the unstructured file to guide the conversion process. The alternative is to do the fixup by hand after conversion, but that is usually many times worse than doing it up front. OTOH, once you do the conversion, you may well gain enormous benefits, mainly with much improved single- sourcing and re-use. This is especially true when localization is involved; the savings in the first round of translations may pay for the entire process. Not all structures are the same, and it's important to choose the one that fits your docs best. Often this is DITA; for some, it may be DocBook. You can roll your own, but that is a very-high-cost route, since you will have to build all your own tools too. If you aren't a megacorp, forget it. ;-) Remember, DITA was what came out when IBM rolled its own... and the staffing required to do that was not small. As to how to get there, start by learning all about the structure you plan to use. There are plenty of resources about DITA, starting with the OASIS specs and going on from there. We think authors should be very involved with the conversion process; they will have to live with the results. Start small and build. For Frame, you can get an idea of conversion options from a webinar that Sriptorium produced, that looks at three methods: http://bit.ly/61MvPx It starts with Frame's native conversion tables; the Mif2Go part is at 33:15. ;-) Once you have converted to DITA (or DocBook), you have a choice of editing tools, like oXygenXML, XMetaL, Arbortext, XML Mind, and Frame. If you stick with Frame, you *must* have DITA-FMx to make it work without major pain and hair loss: http://www.leximation.com/dita-fmx/ So a good way to start is by creating some new doc content in DITA-FMx, to get into the DITA worldview. There's a free demo version. HTH! -- Jeremy H. Griffith <jeremy at omsys.com> DITA2Go site: http://www.dita2go.com/