Dear Kelly McDaniel, Thanks for sharing your experience. I am a believer in import-by-reference myself which has worked pretty reliably for me for many many years. I inherited some docs with many OLE diagrams and this method worked well for a while until this problem started to occur about five months ago. The situation is so ugly that simply double-clicking an existing OLE Visio drawing (and thus launching Visio) causes Frame to reject the drawing. You need to purge that drawing before you can save the FM doc. Now we know the limitations and will certainly give it a thought if we want to continue with this methodology. Best regards Tarlochan S. Nahal Sr. Technical Writer
--- On Mon, 1/26/09, Kelly McDaniel <kmcdan...@pavtech.com> wrote: From: Kelly McDaniel <kmcdan...@pavtech.com> Subject: RE: FM 9 Upgrade - Please share your views To: "Art Campbell" <art.campb...@gmail.com>, framers@lists.frameusers.com Cc: tnaha...@yahoo.com Date: Monday, January 26, 2009, 7:10 AM As a victim of OLE compatibility/stability, I also support the method described here. You will find far fewer encumbrances to production workflow by using the import-by-reference method...Kelly. -----Original Message----- From: framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Art Campbell Sent: Saturday, January 24, 2009 8:50 AM To: framers@lists.frameusers.com Cc: tnaha...@yahoo.com Subject: Re: FM 9 Upgrade - Please share your views OLE support does seem to be improved in FM 9, but given the history of Microsoft support and the general high level of problems associated with it, I wouldn't ever consider using it in a production environment. (In passing, the reason SP3 "broke" OLE was because the fix plugged a hole that was supposed to allow remote execution on the host machine.) Generating a PDF or PNG from Visio is quick and importing it by reference in Frame is easy. If something changes in the graphic, you can export from Visio to the same file name and it'll all just continue to work. Art Art Campbell art.campb...@gmail.com "... In my opinion, there's nothing in this world beats a '52 Vincent and a redheaded girl." -- Richard Thompson No disclaimers apply. DoD 358 On Sat, Jan 24, 2009 at 4:46 AM, Dov Isaacs <isa...@adobe.com> wrote: > On the off-chance that you were not joking and on behalf of Adobe, > let me assure you that Adobe has no "built-in timer in FM itself" for > any purpose of forcing users to upgrade to "make money selling upgrades." > > The only so called "timers" in any Adobe products are associated with > controlling test releases and trial versions of our products. > > And NO, FrameMaker 9 does NOT officially support Visio. It supports OLE > and to the degree that a particular combination of Visio and Windows works > together to specification, Visio is "supported" in that manner. Personally, > given Microsoft's tepid support for OLE these days, I would more likely > recommend playing Russian Roulette than using OLE with FrameMaker or any > other application! > > - Dov > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com [mailto: > framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of > > Tarlochan S. Nahal > > Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 6:41 PM > > To: framers@lists.frameusers.com; Combs, Richard > > Subject: RE: FM 9 Upgrade - Please share your views > > > > Dear Richard Combs, > > > > I appreciate your detailed response. Actually, I had posted a message > realated to Visio sometime > > around late August 2008 on the framers list. There were some good > responses, but there was no real > > solution. The problem was triggered by XP SP3 upgrade that altered > something in the OS which caused FM > > to become hostile to Visio, or perhaps it was triggered by some sort of > built-in timer in FM itself. > > (I guess Adobe makes money by selling upgrades!) > > > > Yes, we moved Visio files as OLE objects into FM. Naturally, it does have > the application > > overhead, but the output is better and making any changes is easier. Some > of our engineering drawings > > are done in Visio and it makes it easier for us to stick to that format. > > > > Adobe Tech Support told me few days ago that FM9 does support Visio. I > will download the trial version > > and try it and see how it works. > > > > Again, thanks for sharing you experience. > > > > Best regards > > > > Tarlochan S. Nahal > > Sr. Technical Writer > > > > Atheros Communications, Inc. > > > > > > > > --- On Fri, 1/23/09, Combs, Richard <richard.co...@polycom.com> wrote: > > > > From: Combs, Richard <richard.co...@polycom.com> > > Subject: RE: FM 9 Upgrade - Please share your views > > To: tnaha...@yahoo.com, framers@lists.frameusers.com > > Date: Friday, January 23, 2009, 1:50 PM > > > > Tarlochan S. Nahal wrote: > > > > > We are a small Tech Pubs group using FM 7.2 on Windows XP platform. > > > Recently, it started to behave strangly and refused to import any Visio > > > drawings. There seems to be no known cure for it with the current > setup. > > > Maybe it was automatic Windows SP upgrade that did the mischief. It > > > suddenly stopped accepting Visio drawings in their native format > (.vsd). > > > The situation is so bad that even if we can import a Visio drawing, we > are > > > not able to save the document until we purge that drawing! > > > > FM has _never_ been able to import native Visio files. You weren't > > previously importing _files_, you were importing OLE2 _objects_ (complete > with > > all the Visio application overhead and potential instability). If you > moved an > > FM file containing those OLE2 links onto a PC that didn't have Visio > > installed, the links would be broken, even if the Visio files were there. > The > > links open Visio. > > > > IMHO, OLE linking and embedding was never a very good idea except for > casual, > > occasional use. > > > > There was some discussion on this list a while ago about an XP upgrade > that > > introduced the more serious problem you're seeing. Use Google to search > the > > archives (by adding "site:lists.frameusers.com" after your search > > string) for posts about Visio import. > > > > I don't think upgrading to FM 9 will solve your problem. Unless it was > > added very late in the development cycle (I haven't used the released > > version), FM 9 doesn't have a Visio file import filter either. > > > > Assuming you have the full version of Acrobat, the best way to include > Visio > > drawings is to make PDFs and import those into FM. Your archive search > should > > turn up a post or three of mine discussing this. > > > > All that said, upgrading to FM 9 offers a number of other benefits. It > supports > > Unicode (introduced in FM 8), which is a big deal if your docs need to be > > translated. It has a very slick, highly configurable new interface. It > can > > import comments/edits from a review PDF and manage them through the Track > Text > > Edits feature. Books are much more flexible in FM 9 -- they can be > nested, > > contain folders, etc. And there's lots of new stuff relating to > structure, > > all of which means nothing to me right now. :-) > > > > FM 9 can open older FM docs, but it can only save back to FM 8 (in binary > > form). You can save as a 7.2-compatible MIF file, however. Any older > files you > > open, templates or not, are converted to FM 9 format when you save them. > > > > So by all means, upgrade. But you'll still need to change your workflow > > regarding Visio. > > > > PDF, I tell you! PDF! :-) > > > > Richard > _______________________________________________ > > > You are currently subscribed to Framers as art.campb...@gmail.com. > > Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. > > To unsubscribe send a blank email to > framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com > or visit > http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/art.campbell%40gmail .com > > Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit > http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. > _______________________________________________ You are currently subscribed to Framers as kmcdan...@pavtech.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/kmcdaniel%40pavtech. com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. 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