Instead of “migrating to a new tool to do the same thing”, I can’t help but wonder whether this is an opportunity to redesign your authoring and publishing workflow. You may have regulatory requirements for PDF. But if not, I might consider an HTML-centric, instead of a PDF-centric, publishing workflow.
Addressing your InDesign question directly — on a very quick sampling of the public-facing technical documentation on your website, I don’t see anything that would be problematic in InDesign (or even — gasp! — disciplined use of MS Word). I acknowledge that it’s not possible to tell how or whether you are using FrameMaker’s reuse features like variables and conditional text. But you may have an opportunity here to more tightly integrate with your organization’s development processes, better align with your customers' expectations, and improve the efficiency of your authoring and publishing workflow. And migrating to InDesign won’t do any of these things. Just my thoughts, which may be totally inappropriate for your situation. -Alan -- Alan Houser Group Wellesley, Inc. Consultant and Trainer, Technical Publishing arh on Twitter 412-450-0532 > On Nov 18, 2021, at 6:28 PM, Frank Ripp <[email protected]> wrote: > > New management is pushing for the overall use of InDesign for marketing > collateral and technical documentation at my company. > I'm a long time Frame user, producing a set of software documentation ranging > from release notes, installation guides, API guides, and a 160-page user > guide. All are delivered as PDF files. > > I've been asked to figure out whether or not InDesign will fit my > documentation needs, and have many questions. > > > * Most importantly: Can InDesign generate good PDF files, with working > links? > * Is InDesign good for large documents (100-160 pages), with TOCs, and > lots of internal and external cross-references? > * Can I transfer my existing paragraph and character styles from Frame to > InDesign? > * Can I import a Frame book into InDesign? > > Has anyone out there successfully switched from Frame to Indesign? > Is this a non-starter for the type of documents I produce? > > Any advice, thoughts or pointers are greatly appreciated! > > Thanks, > > Frank Ripp > SR. Technical Writer > Pacific Biosciences > 1305 O'Brien Drive, > Menlo Park, CA 94025 > (650) 521-8315 _______________________________________________ This message is from the Framers mailing list Send messages to [email protected] Visit the list's homepage at http://www.frameusers.com Archives located at http://www.mail-archive.com/framers%40lists.frameusers.com/ Subscribe and unsubscribe at http://lists.frameusers.com/listinfo.cgi/framers-frameusers.com Send administrative questions to [email protected]
