Hi Matthew: I'm using a tool that WebWorks used to sell called FinalDraft. Unfortunately, they're no longer selling it, so it won't help you. I just wanted to ask someone out there to develop a review tool like it because it has some significant advantages over the FrameMaker-track-changes and the PDF-commenting models.
Only the person distributing and changing the FrameMaker document has to buy the licensed software (the authoring version); all the reviewers can use the free software. You can make the changes suggested by reviewers' comments, then send another draft, and the existing comments will still be in the draft. Then reviewers can check the changes against their comments, and carry the discussion on further if they like. You can assign a status to each discussion so that they're easier to manage; categories such as Open, Closed, and MoreInfo help the author and the reviewers sort through the comments so they know which ones they have to read and which ones they can ignore. When you double-click on a comment, it opens FrameMaker and highlights the paragraph where the comment applies. Of course, it has its flaws because it never got to a second release, but it's still the most efficient way I have to distribute drafts and collect comments. I can keep using FinalDraft with FrameMaker 7.2, but they stopped development on it, so I can't use it with FrameMaker 8. If anyone knows of a review tool that has these features, please let me know. If anyone would like to develop such a tool (especially for structured documents), I think you'll find a market for it. Fei Min "Matthew Reeves" <mreeves111 at gmail.com> Sent by: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com 01/02/2008 09:07 PM To framers at lists.frameusers.com cc Subject third-party or Frame tools for doc review/collaboration I recently started using FM after a seven-yr hiatus :) There used to be a tool called FrameView or something. I think it was a cheap solution companies could purchase for subject matter experts who don't author but are involved in the review/collaboration process. Also, I know about some third-party apps for commenting/saving changes to PDFs. I mean ones that are much cheaper than the Acrobat suite. These would solve part of the collaboration problem, but we are hoping to review/accept review comments programmatically in similar fashion to Word. Any referrals and general tips much appreciated. Cheers, Matthew Reeves mreeves111 at gmail.com _______________________________________________ You are currently subscribed to Framers as FeiMin_Lorente at amis.com. Send list messages to framers at lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscribe at lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/feimin_lorente%40amis.com Send administrative questions to listadmin at frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. AMI Semiconductor - "Silicon Solutions for the Real World" NOTICE: This electronic message contains information that may be confidential or privileged. The information is intended for the use of the individual or entity named above. If you are not the intended recipient, please be aware that any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of the contents of this information is prohibited. If you received this electronic message in error, please notify the sender and delete the copy you received.
