Hi! I'm still using the trial version and need to make a recommendation to a client on if FrameMaker is the right tool for their system instruction manuals. Client has a job shop and sells many unique system configurations made from standard components to private and government clients. The idea is to quickly assemble a unique manual for each system order shipped. If I recommend FM, then client will buy FM and pay for training for several users. The client is biased against Word, and frankly for any document larger than 50 pages, I agree. Word gets tangled on itself over large files.
I've never used FM before and trying to learn 9.0. I'm an advanced user of Word, in Windows 7 (technical writer using Word for over 15 years). I bought and went through most of "Classroom in a Book" for FM9, but I'm stumbling over the vocabulary (things like Headings versus Markers don't seem to be 1:1 meanings, for example). Dummies books have always given me a great head start, but the only one out there I can find is Framemaker 5.5 for Dummies. My thought is that Dummies/FM 5.5 could at least help me understand how FM "works/thinks", achieve a rudimentary glossary, so then I can use other FM training tools. What I'm tasked to do is to create multiple individual files with unique content, and create various manuals with different file combinations - each manual with a table of contents and index and automatic page numbering. I think I'm supposed to learn unstructured first in order to do this? Or do I need to learn structured first and make some master templates? Any suggestions or perhaps anyone care to send me an example to play with? Maybe I should forget about FrameMaker and try something else? I'm open to your suggestions. Any help or suggestions are greatly appreciated! Thanks! Corrie in Tempe, AZ
