First Time Framer! Fix for Rivers in Word 2003

[Mark Lawrence]

Dammit that works GREAT!  Shmuel I cannot thank you enough, you have
really made my day, my week and possibly my future report writing with
Word.  The option of which you speak is found in Word 2003
ToolsOptionsCompatibility[tick]'Do full justification like Word
Perfect 6.x for Windows', I've just printed off two Word documents, one
with and one without and the difference is astounding.

Again, thanks very much

Mark Lawrence
Director
First Read This
+44 01865 30 40 52
www.firstreadthis.com
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First Time Framer! Fix for Rivers in Word 2003

[Mark Lawrence]

Dammit that works GREAT!  Shmuel I cannot thank you enough, you have
really made my day, my week and possibly my future report writing with
Word.  The option of which you speak is found in Word 2003
Tools>Options>Compatibility>[tick]'Do full justification like Word
Perfect 6.x for Windows', I've just printed off two Word documents, one
with and one without and the difference is astounding.

Again, thanks very much

Mark Lawrence
Director
First Read This
+44 01865 30 40 52
www.firstreadthis.com

RE: First Time Framer!

[Steve Rickaby]

At 14:49 -0600 30/5/07, Combs, Richard wrote:

And, indulge my curmudgeonliness for a moment: Does the tech writing
profession really need more excuses for font fondling? :-o

Well, for my money, one of the great things about InD is the quality of layout 
it produces without interference. Ok, you can dig in and get obsessive about 
manual kerning and all that stuff, but then you can do this in FrameMaker too.

-- 
Steve
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RE: First Time Framer!

[Steve Rickaby]

At 14:29 -0700 30/5/07, Dov Isaacs wrote:

Or maybe you want an InDesign = 6 that supports all the wonderful FrameMaker 
features that aren't already in InDesign. That would solve a whole bunch of 
other problems such as Macintosh support, CMYK + spot color support, 
transparency support, etc.   :-)

Well, now that you mention it, that would be even better, as I'm on Mac.

On a more serious note, a *full* merge of FrameMaker and InD features, i.e. an 
InD-like product that fully supported structure, would be Cloud 8.5. For the 
full 9, I'd prefer a FrameMaker-like product that fully supported InD's 
features, such as the aforementioned superb text handling.

There are at least three large flies in this ointment as far as I can see:

. It would require re-engineering FrameMaker's code completely, as I'd guess 
it's 'old' code, while InD is 'new' code [and now in Apple's wonderful 
development environment like the rest of the CSS apps], which FrameMaker is 
clearly not.

. FrameMaker's GUI metaphor is radically different to that of the CSS apps, and 
my suspicion is that a Frame-a-like that followed the CSS app's GUI metaphor 
would be deemed 'not FrameMaker' by diehards, and too much of a culture shift. 
We are all far too busy and productive to play 'hunt the command' around the 
pop-up menus of a few hundred palettes that move around the screen of their own 
accord ;-)

. Many heavyweight FrameMaker users are dependent on add-ons and features like 
structapps, custom plug-ins, programming against the API, database import and 
so on.

Still, it does no harm to dream ;-)

-- 
Steve
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Re: First Time Framer!

[Shmuel Wolfson]

As far the rivers, there is an option in Word when using justified text to ge
t rid of the rivers. It does not look good on screen when using this option, bu
t the printed version is excellent. See the article below. 

The name of the option below is for Word 2000. I can't find that option in Word
 2003. There's another option called Set the width of a space like WordPerfect
 5.x. Perhaps that does the same thing.

Regards,
Shmuel Wolfson



The 'rivers' (rivers =
gaps between the words in paragraphs) are never as well adjusted in Word
as you'd find in a professionally published document.  It sounds
terribly pernickety I know, but I would migrate from Word for this
reason alone.


-
  

The following article below the picture is from Woody's Offfice Watch email 
list. It is important for us to consider this option when composing a 
manual using Justification for paragraph styles.

At 09:11 AM 09/06/01 -0400, Woody's Office Watch wrote:
   2. SQUISHED JUSTIFICATION IN WORD

   My old friend Dermod Quirke sent me this Word tip for
   justifying text. It's an amazing discovery. Quoth Dermod:
   For me, the worst feature of Word is its primitive
   handling of justified text. If I type a fully-justified
   document, some lines are quite densely packed, but others
   have large, ugly gaps between the words. The overall effect
   is patchy and amateurish, and certainly not up to
   acceptable typesetting quality.
   The reason is that Word justifies text only by ADDING
   space between words. So as it nears the end of a line, Word
   tries to fit the next word into the remaining space. If it
   won't fit, Word distributes the remaining space between the
   words already on the line, and moves the next word to the
   next line. And if that word is a long one, the space that
   has to be inserted between the existing words is large and
   unsightly.
   OK, that's how Word handles justification. What's the
   alternative? Well, why not REDUCE the space between words
   instead? If a long word won't quite fit the line, the
   program could try to make room for it by moving the
   existing words closer together. Of course, there has to be
   a limit: the program, or the user, must define a minimum
   (and a maximum) acceptable inter-word space. But subject to
   these limits, inter-word spacing becomes noticeably more
   even and less patchy.
   Sounds unrealistic? Well, that's how WordPerfect handles
   justification. Dammit, it's how my venerable old mid-80s
   word processor (Spellbinder DTP) handled it. And the
   results are DRAMATICALLY better than Word's clumsy,
   amateurish justification.
   Now here's the good news: Word 2000 is capable of
   producing proper WordPerfect-style justification as
   described above. Just click Tools|Options, select the
   Compatibility tab, and check the box beside Do full
   justification like Word Perfect 6.x for Windows.
   Type some text with Ctrl-J justification, and watch what
   happens as you come to the end of the line. Instead of
   prematurely wrapping, the text will actually shuffle to the
   left and try to fit the word onto the current line.
   Now try it with an existing document. Make sure it's fully
   justified (type Ctrl+A to select the entire document, then
   type Ctrl+J to justify it); then print a page. Now activate
   WP-style justification (Tools|Options, Compatibility, check
   Do full justification...); and print the same page.
   Compare the two print-outs: you'll find that the WP-style
   page has fewer ugly gaps between words.
   You can use this trick whenever you want to produce
   slicker, more professional typesetting, and it works pretty
   well. But although the printed text will look very good,
   the screen display will NOT, because Microsoft has made no
   attempt to implement proper WYSIWYG. So you'll find that
   the words at the start of each screen line are widely
   spaced, while those at the end of each line are crammed
   together. But when the line is printed, the spaces will be
   evenly distributed throughout the line.
   To sum up: Word now allows you to produce
   professional-quality justified text. But it's hidden away
   in an obscure corner of the program, and it doesn't display
   properly on the screen.
   Menachem Mendel Rosen
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First Time Framer!

[Steve Rickaby]

At 14:49 -0600 30/5/07, Combs, Richard wrote:

>And, indulge my curmudgeonliness for a moment: Does the tech writing
>profession really need more excuses for font fondling? :-o

Well, for my money, one of the great things about InD is the quality of layout 
it produces without interference. Ok, you can dig in and get obsessive about 
manual kerning and all that stuff, but then you can do this in FrameMaker too.

-- 
Steve

First Time Framer!

[Steve Rickaby]

At 14:29 -0700 30/5/07, Dov Isaacs wrote:

>Or maybe you want an InDesign >= 6 that supports all the wonderful FrameMaker 
>features that aren't already in InDesign. That would solve a whole bunch of 
>other problems such as Macintosh support, CMYK + spot color support, 
>transparency support, etc.   :-)

Well, now that you mention it, that would be even better, as I'm on Mac.

On a more serious note, a *full* merge of FrameMaker and InD features, i.e. an 
InD-like product that fully supported structure, would be Cloud 8.5. For the 
full 9, I'd prefer a FrameMaker-like product that fully supported InD's 
features, such as the aforementioned superb text handling.

There are at least three large flies in this ointment as far as I can see:

. It would require re-engineering FrameMaker's code completely, as I'd guess 
it's 'old' code, while InD is 'new' code [and now in Apple's wonderful 
development environment like the rest of the CSS apps], which FrameMaker is 
clearly not.

. FrameMaker's GUI metaphor is radically different to that of the CSS apps, and 
my suspicion is that a Frame-a-like that followed the CSS app's GUI metaphor 
would be deemed 'not FrameMaker' by diehards, and too much of a culture shift. 
We are all far too busy and productive to play 'hunt the command' around the 
pop-up menus of a few hundred palettes that move around the screen of their own 
accord ;-)

. Many heavyweight FrameMaker users are dependent on add-ons and features like 
structapps, custom plug-ins, programming against the API, database import and 
so on.

Still, it does no harm to dream ;-)

-- 
Steve

First Time Framer!

[Shmuel Wolfson]

As far the "rivers," there is an option in Word when using justified text to ge
t rid of the rivers. It does not look good on screen when using this option, bu
t the printed version is excellent. See the article below. 

The name of the option below is for Word 2000. I can't find that option in Word
 2003. There's another option called "Set the width of a space like WordPerfect
 5.x." Perhaps that does the same thing.

Regards,
Shmuel Wolfson



The 'rivers' (rivers =
gaps between the words in paragraphs) are never as well adjusted in Word
as you'd find in a professionally published document.  It sounds
terribly pernickety I know, but I would migrate from Word for this
reason alone.


-


The following article below the picture is from Woody's Offfice Watch email 
list. It is important for us to consider this option when composing a 
manual using Justification for paragraph styles.

At 09:11 AM 09/06/01 -0400, Woody's Office Watch wrote:
   2. "SQUISHED" JUSTIFICATION IN WORD

   My old friend Dermod Quirke sent me this Word tip for
   justifying text. It's an amazing discovery. Quoth Dermod:
   "For me, the worst feature of Word is its primitive
   handling of justified text. If I type a fully-justified
   document, some lines are quite densely packed, but others
   have large, ugly gaps between the words. The overall effect
   is patchy and amateurish, and certainly not up to
   acceptable typesetting quality.
   "The reason is that Word justifies text only by ADDING
   space between words. So as it nears the end of a line, Word
   tries to fit the next word into the remaining space. If it
   won't fit, Word distributes the remaining space between the
   words already on the line, and moves the next word to the
   next line. And if that word is a long one, the space that
   has to be inserted between the existing words is large and
   unsightly.
   "OK, that's how Word handles justification. What's the
   alternative? Well, why not REDUCE the space between words
   instead? If a long word won't quite fit the line, the
   program could try to make room for it by moving the
   existing words closer together. Of course, there has to be
   a limit: the program, or the user, must define a minimum
   (and a maximum) acceptable inter-word space. But subject to
   these limits, inter-word spacing becomes noticeably more
   even and less patchy.
   "Sounds unrealistic? Well, that's how WordPerfect handles
   justification. Dammit, it's how my venerable old mid-80s
   word processor (Spellbinder DTP) handled it. And the
   results are DRAMATICALLY better than Word's clumsy,
   amateurish justification.
   "Now here's the good news: Word 2000 is capable of
   producing proper WordPerfect-style justification as
   described above. Just click Tools|Options, select the
   Compatibility tab, and check the box beside "Do full
   justification like Word Perfect 6.x for Windows".
   "Type some text with Ctrl-J justification, and watch what
   happens as you come to the end of the line. Instead of
   prematurely wrapping, the text will actually shuffle to the
   left and try to fit the word onto the current line.
   "Now try it with an existing document. Make sure it's fully
   justified (type Ctrl+A to select the entire document, then
   type Ctrl+J to justify it); then print a page. Now activate
   WP-style justification (Tools|Options, Compatibility, check
   "Do full justification..."); and print the same page.
   "Compare the two print-outs: you'll find that the WP-style
   page has fewer ugly gaps between words.
   "You can use this trick whenever you want to produce
   slicker, more professional typesetting, and it works pretty
   well. But although the printed text will look very good,
   the screen display will NOT, because Microsoft has made no
   attempt to implement proper WYSIWYG. So you'll find that
   the words at the start of each screen line are widely
   spaced, while those at the end of each line are crammed
   together. But when the line is printed, the spaces will be
   evenly distributed throughout the line.
   "To sum up: Word now allows you to produce
   professional-quality justified text. But it's hidden away
   in an obscure corner of the program, and it doesn't display
   properly on the screen.
   Menachem Mendel Rosen

RE: First Time Framer!

[Mark Lawrence]

Dear Jim,

Thanks very much for your clarification.  I think you are absolutely
right, from what I've learnt about FM so far, for the task in hand it
would be much simpler and less costly both in terms of time and cost to
stick with MS Word or Publisher.  I am certainly going to do this for
the foreseeable future, since I have reports to file and deadlines that
would be impossible to meet if I am going to be leaning solely on my
non-existent FM skills.  

However, given that career-wise I seem to be moving more towards
documentation services, following my gut instinct and so on I think I
should learn a package like FM at my leisure and also get to grips with
the associated areas like XML.  This, I suspect, will give me a certain
appeal to enterprise level clients, and since my work is currently
undemanding, it might give me better options and more interesting
challenges in the future.  

My plan is to learn FM and when I've attained a certain level of
competence, transfer my current reports to it.  I hope by then I will
have found other opportunities to exploit it and make some commercial
headway.

I think I missed Shmuel's point as he was overtly discussing 'Print
Preview' and I think my need is somewhat different, so please allow me
to state it in more detail: what I tend to notice in Word is the poor
consistency of the texture of justified text.  The 'rivers' (rivers =
gaps between the words in paragraphs) are never as well adjusted in Word
as you'd find in a professionally published document.  It sounds
terribly pernickety I know, but I would migrate from Word for this
reason alone.  

Perhaps I should have drawn attention to this specific requirement to
begin with: I've just assumed that FM produces better layout.  I would
be very interested in experiences that confirm this or are to the
contrary, just as I'm shamelessly interested in the extent to which FM
has broadened people's horizons career-wise.

Again, I am extremely grateful for all the advice that I have received
and thank you for your support, it's good to hear from someone who
clearly has a lot of experience in this area.  

Best wishes,

Mark  


Mark Lawrence
Director
First Read This
+44 01865 30 40 52
www.firstreadthis.com


-Original Message-
From: Pinkham, Jim [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: 30 May 2007 14:16
To: Mark Lawrence
Cc: Shmuel Wolfson
Subject: RE: First Time Framer!

I have to agree with Shmuel. I've used Word extensively since 1997,
Publisher since 1999. Based on what you've described, it would seem that
continuing your present process in Word would work just fine. If your
variable content is roughly the same size each time and does not affect
page flow significantly, you could save one completed Publisher file
that you've tweaked and perfected as your template. Then simply empty
the story blocks and import the next Word document to flow back into
them.

Framemaker is a very respectable, useful tool for long, complex
technical documentation with lots of variation. I use it daily, and I've
come to appreciate it more and more in the year that I've been using it
to produce manuals for paper machines that have lots of little vagaries.
But, personally, I would not make the investment solely for the task
that you've described.

Jim

**
Jim Pinkham
Product Documentation Designer
Voith Paper Fiber Systems
2200 N. Roemer Road
Appleton, WI  54911-8687
Business: +1 920 731 0769 Ext. 2515
Other Fax: +1 (920) 731-0240
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]



-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Shmuel Wolfson
Sent: Sunday, May 27, 2007 8:04 AM
To: Mark Lawrence; Framers
Subject: Re: First Time Framer!

Out of all the reasons to switch to FM, the layout was never an issue by
me. All you have to do is select the correct print driver in the Print
dialog box, and view the doc in Print Preview, not Page Layout view.

Regards,
Shmuel Wolfson




Mark Lawrence wrote:
 Hi,

 I hope you don't mind me introducing myself to the list and then 
 asking a question straight away.  My name is Mark, I am based in 
 Oxford, UK, and I write reports that assist pharmaceuticals with their

 marketing authorisations - at least that's the interesting part of my
job.

 I've been looking at Framemaker for some time now, basically as an 
 alternative to grappling with changing layouts in Microsoft Word and 
 Publisher.  The bottom line is that I enjoy writing content but I 
 loathe the fiddling around with layout.  The fiddling always seems to 
 involve
 1) thinking that everything looks ok 2) printing a hardcopy, and then 
 realising that it doesn't look so good so editing it until my waste 
 bin is, well, full of waste.

 My first step into Framer-dom (other than watching the Adobe demo and 
 downloading some whitepapers) was buying a cheap sealed copy of 
 Framemaker 5.5 in March on Ebay, which I plan to upgrade, either to 
 7.2 or 8 (when it's available).  The reason I am being so

RE: First Time Framer!

[Steve Rickaby]

At 16:07 +0200 30/5/07, Mark Lawrence wrote:

I think I missed Shmuel's point as he was overtly discussing 'Print
Preview' and I think my need is somewhat different, so please allow me
to state it in more detail: what I tend to notice in Word is the poor
consistency of the texture of justified text.  The 'rivers' (rivers =
gaps between the words in paragraphs) are never as well adjusted in Word
as you'd find in a professionally published document.  It sounds
terribly pernickety I know, but I would migrate from Word for this
reason alone.

Word does not do typography, it just slams words onto the page.

If you want beautifully laid-out text, you should be looking at InDesign, which 
contains a multi-line composer and can do smart tricks like optical kerning and 
overhanging punctuation.

Perhaps I should have drawn attention to this specific requirement to
begin with: I've just assumed that FM produces better layout.

Almost anything produces better layout than Word. You can easily do a 
side-by-side test of the same text in Word and FrameMaker. Be sure to pay 
attention to hyphenation settings.

Neither application can either detect or eliminate rivers: you have to do that 
manually.

I would be very interested in experiences that confirm this or are to the 
contrary, just as I'm shamelessly interested in the extent to which FM has 
broadened people's horizons career-wise.

For me, Frame is mission-critical: no more, no less. I don't know about 
broadening horizons, but if I'd been forced to use Word for everything these 
past fifteen years, I'd have given up tech authoring long ago.

-- 
Steve
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RE: First Time Framer!

[Rene Stephenson]

I agree with Steve. The time saved of being able to use variables, conditional 
text, text insets, and custom books built from shared chapters -- all features 
of FM that Word can't duplicate -- has enabled me to produce quality, custom 
documents that meet the various needs of our divergent customer base with 
maximum efficiency. If I have to change some info about a new development in a 
product, I only have to change it in one place, and the next time I print the 
13 documents about that product, the change is consistently present in all 13 
documents. At this point, the only thing I use Word for is online forms that we 
distribute to non-writers.
   
  Rene Stephenson

Steve Rickaby [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  For me, Frame is mission-critical: no more, no less. I don't know about 
broadening horizons, but if I'd been forced to use Word for everything these 
past fifteen years, I'd have given up tech authoring long ago.

-- 
Steve
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RE: First Time Framer!

[Pinkham, Jim]

For the record, I agree with both of you, as well. My only point to Mark
was that FM could be overkill for the task described in his original
post. Frame and Indy definitely offer all sorts of possibilities as Mark
broadens those horizons -- Frame, in particular, from the technical
writing side.



From: Rene Stephenson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2007 10:56 AM
To: Steve Rickaby; Mark Lawrence; Pinkham, Jim
Cc: framers@lists.frameusers.com
Subject: RE: First Time Framer!


I agree with Steve. The time saved of being able to use variables,
conditional text, text insets, and custom books built from shared
chapters -- all features of FM that Word can't duplicate -- has enabled
me to produce quality, custom documents that meet the various needs of
our divergent customer base with maximum efficiency. If I have to change
some info about a new development in a product, I only have to change it
in one place, and the next time I print the 13 documents about that
product, the change is consistently present in all 13 documents. At this
point, the only thing I use Word for is online forms that we distribute
to non-writers.
 
Rene Stephenson

Steve Rickaby [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

For me, Frame is mission-critical: no more, no less. I don't
know about broadening horizons, but if I'd been forced to use Word for
everything these past fifteen years, I'd have given up tech authoring
long ago.

-- 
Steve
___






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Re: First Time Framer!

[Kenneth C. Benson]

If your primary concern is fine typography, you should look into Indesign.
While Frame is certainly an improvement over Word (paragraph-level word
spacing and tracking controls), Indesign is decidedly a step-up in this
area. ID's paragraph composer will calculate the best text wrap (the least
variation in word spacing) over an entire paragraph. Frame considers only
one line at a time. ID understands that it can break URLs at slashes and
periods; Frame allows you to define break characters, but once you've
allowed (for example) breaks after slashes, you have no way to disallow 1/2
from breaking, except to fool around with tracking until the line breaks in
a different place.

The difference is dramatic. I almost never have to fix loose lines in ID
(because the paragraph composer fixes them first). I frequently have to work
on loose lines in Frame, and the tools for fixing them are fewer in Frame.
Indesign offers a No Break text attribute as well as a No Break space, a
justified Shift-Return, Discretionary Hyphen, and tracking controls. The
only real tools for altering text wrap in Frame are No Break space,
Discretionary Hyphen, and tracking. And since the No Break space doesn't
expand in justified text (Indesign does this as well), it's not usually a
good choice for joining words in justified copy in either program.

It's decidedly a tradeoff: you'll give up certain aspects of automation and
long document support, but getting the text pretty is much easier. Indesign
has some XML capabilities, but I don't know much about them.

Kenneth Benson
Pegasus Type, Inc.
www.pegtype.com


- Original Message -
From: Mark Lawrence [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Pinkham, Jim [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: framers@lists.frameusers.com
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2007 9:07 AM
Subject: RE: First Time Framer!


Dear Jim,

Thanks very much for your clarification.  I think you are absolutely
right, from what I've learnt about FM so far, for the task in hand it
would be much simpler and less costly both in terms of time and cost to
stick with MS Word or Publisher.  I am certainly going to do this for
the foreseeable future, since I have reports to file and deadlines that
would be impossible to meet if I am going to be leaning solely on my
non-existent FM skills.

However, given that career-wise I seem to be moving more towards
documentation services, following my gut instinct and so on I think I
should learn a package like FM at my leisure and also get to grips with
the associated areas like XML.  This, I suspect, will give me a certain
appeal to enterprise level clients, and since my work is currently
undemanding, it might give me better options and more interesting
challenges in the future.

My plan is to learn FM and when I've attained a certain level of
competence, transfer my current reports to it.  I hope by then I will
have found other opportunities to exploit it and make some commercial
headway.

I think I missed Shmuel's point as he was overtly discussing 'Print
Preview' and I think my need is somewhat different, so please allow me
to state it in more detail: what I tend to notice in Word is the poor
consistency of the texture of justified text.  The 'rivers' (rivers =
gaps between the words in paragraphs) are never as well adjusted in Word
as you'd find in a professionally published document.  It sounds
terribly pernickety I know, but I would migrate from Word for this
reason alone.

Perhaps I should have drawn attention to this specific requirement to
begin with: I've just assumed that FM produces better layout.  I would
be very interested in experiences that confirm this or are to the
contrary, just as I'm shamelessly interested in the extent to which FM
has broadened people's horizons career-wise.

Again, I am extremely grateful for all the advice that I have received
and thank you for your support, it's good to hear from someone who
clearly has a lot of experience in this area.

Best wishes,

Mark


Mark Lawrence
Director
First Read This
+44 01865 30 40 52
www.firstreadthis.com


-Original Message-
From: Pinkham, Jim [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: 30 May 2007 14:16
To: Mark Lawrence
Cc: Shmuel Wolfson
Subject: RE: First Time Framer!

I have to agree with Shmuel. I've used Word extensively since 1997,
Publisher since 1999. Based on what you've described, it would seem that
continuing your present process in Word would work just fine. If your
variable content is roughly the same size each time and does not affect
page flow significantly, you could save one completed Publisher file
that you've tweaked and perfected as your template. Then simply empty
the story blocks and import the next Word document to flow back into
them.

Framemaker is a very respectable, useful tool for long, complex
technical documentation with lots of variation. I use it daily, and I've
come to appreciate it more and more in the year that I've been using it
to produce manuals for paper machines that have lots of little vagaries.
But, personally, I

Re: First Time Framer!

[Peter Gold]

FrameMaker's very practical typographic aces-in-the-hole - 
side headings, straddle headings that run across all columns, 
and across all columns and side heads, and run-in heading 
paragraphs that snug up to subsequent paragraphs - aren't 
what the font-fondlers mean by sophisticated typographic 
abilities, but they are pretty rare among professional 
publishing products, which gives FrameMaker an important edge 
in usability and efficiency.


Regards,

Peter Gold
KnowHow ProServices


Rene Stephenson wrote:

I agree with Steve. The time saved of being able to use
variables, conditional text, text insets, and custom books
built from shared chapters -- all features of FM that Word
can't duplicate -- has enabled me to produce quality,
custom documents that meet the various needs of our
divergent customer base with maximum efficiency. If I have
to change some info about a new development in a product, I
only have to change it in one place, and the next time I
print the 13 documents about that product, the change is
consistently present in all 13 documents. At this point,
the only thing I use Word for is online forms that we
distribute to non-writers.

Rene Stephenson

Steve Rickaby [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: For
me, Frame is mission-critical: no more, no less. I don't
know about broadening horizons, but if I'd been forced to
use Word for everything these past fifteen years, I'd have
given up tech authoring long ago.



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Re: First Time Framer!

[Rene Stephenson]

So, Kenneth, would you say that if you're needing a workhorse for managing 
content that has lots of overlap and several versions of output, FM might be a 
better choice; whereas if you're not having to manage as much content overlap 
or customized output, ID can create more professionally typeset docs?
   
  Rene

Kenneth C. Benson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  snip
It's decidedly a tradeoff: you'll give up certain aspects of automation and
long document support, but getting the text pretty is much easier. Indesign
has some XML capabilities, but I don't know much about them.

Kenneth Benson
Pegasus Type, Inc.
www.pegtype.com
/snip
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Re: First Time Framer!

[Kenneth C. Benson]

From: Rene Stephenson [EMAIL PROTECTED]

 So, Kenneth, would you say that if you're needing a workhorse for managing
content that has lots of overlap and several versions of output, FM might be
a better choice; whereas if you're not having to manage as much content
overlap or customized output, ID can create more professionally typeset
docs?


Yes. Different apps for different jobs.

Further, if you're using a lot of tables, Frame beats ID (although I haven't
worked with the new CS3 tables yet; they have styles now). And as Peter
mentioned, multi-column work, sideheads, and collapsing contiguous space are
three really good reasons to prefer Frame.

But if you find yourself spending several minutes per page trying to pretty
up the text, you may just save yourself some time by using Indesign, even if
you have to work around some of these things.

From where I sit, I see both programs evolving in some really positive
directions. Unicode support will allow me to move some jobs back to Frame.
Table styles may get me to move some jobs to ID.

Kenneth Benson
Pegasus Type, Inc.
www.pegtype.com

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Re: First Time Framer!

[Steve Rickaby]

Kenneth C. Benson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

It's decidedly a tradeoff: you'll give up certain aspects of automation and
long document support, but getting the text pretty is much easier. Indesign
has some XML capabilities, but I don't know much about them.

As in the song, 'Small, but a-growin'' ;-)

-- 
Steve
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Re: First Time Framer!

[Steve Rickaby]

At 10:42 -0500 30/5/07, Kenneth C. Benson wrote:

Frame considers only one line at a time. ID understands that it can break URLs 
at slashes and periods; Frame allows you to define break characters, but once 
you've allowed (for example) breaks after slashes, you have no way to disallow 
1/2 from breaking, except to fool around with tracking until the line breaks 
in a different place... The difference is dramatic.

A benevolent God would give us FrameMaker 9 with InD's typographical engine.

Are you listening, Adobe?

-- 
Steve
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RE: First Time Framer!

[Gagne, Bernard \(Bolton\)]

 
A benevolent God would give us FrameMaker 9 with InDesign's
typographical engine on Mac OS X.
Let's see what Adobe gives us.  ;-)

Berny

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf
Of Steve Rickaby
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2007 4:38 PM
To: Kenneth C. Benson; framers@lists.frameusers.com
Subject: Re: First Time Framer!

At 10:42 -0500 30/5/07, Kenneth C. Benson wrote:

Frame considers only one line at a time. ID understands that it can
break URLs at slashes and periods; Frame allows you to define break
characters, but once you've allowed (for example) breaks after slashes,
you have no way to disallow 1/2 from breaking, except to fool around
with tracking until the line breaks in a different place... The
difference is dramatic.

A benevolent God would give us FrameMaker 9 with InD's typographical
engine.

Are you listening, Adobe?

--
Steve
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RE: First Time Framer!

[Combs, Richard]

Steve Rickaby wrote: 
 
 A benevolent God would give us FrameMaker 9 with InD's 
 typographical engine.
 
 Are you listening, Adobe?

Hmm, that's an interesting religion you're positing. ;-)

And, indulge my curmudgeonliness for a moment: Does the tech writing
profession really need more excuses for font fondling? :-o

Richard


--
Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
--
rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-777-0436
--




 
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RE: First Time Framer!

[Dov Isaacs]

Or maybe you want an InDesign = 6 that supports all
the wonderful FrameMaker features that aren't already
in InDesign. That would solve a whole bunch of other
problems such as Macintosh support, CMYK + spot color
support, transparency support, etc.   :-)

- Dov 

 -Original Message-
 From: Steve Rickaby
 Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2007 1:38 PM
 To: Kenneth C. Benson; framers@lists.frameusers.com
 Subject: Re: First Time Framer!
 
 ...
 
 A benevolent God would give us FrameMaker 9 with InD's 
 typographical engine.
 
 Are you listening, Adobe?
 
 -- 
 Steve
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First Time Framer!

[Steve Rickaby]

At 16:07 +0200 30/5/07, Mark Lawrence wrote:

>I think I missed Shmuel's point as he was overtly discussing 'Print
>Preview' and I think my need is somewhat different, so please allow me
>to state it in more detail: what I tend to notice in Word is the poor
>consistency of the texture of justified text.  The 'rivers' (rivers =
>gaps between the words in paragraphs) are never as well adjusted in Word
>as you'd find in a professionally published document.  It sounds
>terribly pernickety I know, but I would migrate from Word for this
>reason alone.

Word does not do typography, it just slams words onto the page.

If you want beautifully laid-out text, you should be looking at InDesign, which 
contains a multi-line composer and can do smart tricks like optical kerning and 
overhanging punctuation.

>Perhaps I should have drawn attention to this specific requirement to
>begin with: I've just assumed that FM produces better layout.

Almost anything produces better layout than Word. You can easily do a 
side-by-side test of the same text in Word and FrameMaker. Be sure to pay 
attention to hyphenation settings.

Neither application can either detect or eliminate rivers: you have to do that 
manually.

>I would be very interested in experiences that confirm this or are to the 
>contrary, just as I'm shamelessly interested in the extent to which FM has 
>broadened people's horizons career-wise.

For me, Frame is mission-critical: no more, no less. I don't know about 
broadening horizons, but if I'd been forced to use Word for everything these 
past fifteen years, I'd have given up tech authoring long ago.

-- 
Steve

First Time Framer!

[Rene Stephenson]

I agree with Steve. The time saved of being able to use variables, conditional 
text, text insets, and custom books built from shared chapters -- all features 
of FM that Word can't duplicate -- has enabled me to produce quality, custom 
documents that meet the various needs of our divergent customer base with 
maximum efficiency. If I have to change some info about a new development in a 
product, I only have to change it in one place, and the next time I print the 
13 documents about that product, the change is consistently present in all 13 
documents. At this point, the only thing I use Word for is online forms that we 
distribute to non-writers.

  Rene Stephenson

Steve Rickaby  wrote:
  For me, Frame is mission-critical: no more, no less. I don't know about 
broadening horizons, but if I'd been forced to use Word for everything these 
past fifteen years, I'd have given up tech authoring long ago.

-- 
Steve
___

First Time Framer!

[Pinkham, Jim]

For the record, I agree with both of you, as well. My only point to Mark
was that FM could be overkill for the task described in his original
post. Frame and Indy definitely offer all sorts of possibilities as Mark
broadens those horizons -- Frame, in particular, from the technical
writing side.



From: Rene Stephenson [mailto:rinn...@yahoo.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2007 10:56 AM
To: Steve Rickaby; Mark Lawrence; Pinkham, Jim
Cc: framers at lists.frameusers.com
Subject: RE: First Time Framer!


I agree with Steve. The time saved of being able to use variables,
conditional text, text insets, and custom books built from shared
chapters -- all features of FM that Word can't duplicate -- has enabled
me to produce quality, custom documents that meet the various needs of
our divergent customer base with maximum efficiency. If I have to change
some info about a new development in a product, I only have to change it
in one place, and the next time I print the 13 documents about that
product, the change is consistently present in all 13 documents. At this
point, the only thing I use Word for is online forms that we distribute
to non-writers.

Rene Stephenson

Steve Rickaby  wrote:

For me, Frame is mission-critical: no more, no less. I don't
know about broadening horizons, but if I'd been forced to use Word for
everything these past fifteen years, I'd have given up tech authoring
long ago.

-- 
Steve
___

First Time Framer!

[Peter Gold]

FrameMaker's very practical typographic aces-in-the-hole - 
side headings, straddle headings that run across all columns, 
and across all columns and side heads, and run-in heading 
paragraphs that "snug up" to subsequent paragraphs - aren't 
what the "font-fondlers" mean by "sophisticated" typographic 
abilities, but they are pretty rare among professional 
publishing products, which gives FrameMaker an important edge 
in usability and efficiency.

Regards,

Peter Gold
KnowHow ProServices


Rene Stephenson wrote:
> I agree with Steve. The time saved of being able to use
> variables, conditional text, text insets, and custom books
> built from shared chapters -- all features of FM that Word
> can't duplicate -- has enabled me to produce quality,
> custom documents that meet the various needs of our
> divergent customer base with maximum efficiency. If I have
> to change some info about a new development in a product, I
> only have to change it in one place, and the next time I
> print the 13 documents about that product, the change is
> consistently present in all 13 documents. At this point,
> the only thing I use Word for is online forms that we
> distribute to non-writers.
> 
> Rene Stephenson
> 
> Steve Rickaby  wrote: For
> me, Frame is mission-critical: no more, no less. I don't
> know about broadening horizons, but if I'd been forced to
> use Word for everything these past fifteen years, I'd have
> given up tech authoring long ago.
> 

First Time Framer!

[Rene Stephenson]

So, Kenneth, would you say that if you're needing a workhorse for managing 
content that has lots of overlap and several versions of output, FM might be a 
better choice; whereas if you're not having to manage as much content overlap 
or customized output, ID can create more professionally typeset docs?

  Rene

"Kenneth C. Benson"  wrote:
  
It's decidedly a tradeoff: you'll give up certain aspects of automation and
long document support, but getting the text pretty is much easier. Indesign
has some XML capabilities, but I don't know much about them.

Kenneth Benson
Pegasus Type, Inc.
www.pegtype.com

First Time Framer!

[Kenneth C. Benson]

From: "Rene Stephenson" 

> So, Kenneth, would you say that if you're needing a workhorse for managing
content that has lots of overlap and several versions of output, FM might be
a better choice; whereas if you're not having to manage as much content
overlap or customized output, ID can create more professionally typeset
docs?


Yes. Different apps for different jobs.

Further, if you're using a lot of tables, Frame beats ID (although I haven't
worked with the new CS3 tables yet; they have styles now). And as Peter
mentioned, multi-column work, sideheads, and collapsing contiguous space are
three really good reasons to prefer Frame.

But if you find yourself spending several minutes per page trying to pretty
up the text, you may just save yourself some time by using Indesign, even if
you have to work around some of these things.

First Time Framer!

[Steve Rickaby]

"Kenneth C. Benson"  wrote:

>It's decidedly a tradeoff: you'll give up certain aspects of automation and
>long document support, but getting the text pretty is much easier. Indesign
>has some XML capabilities, but I don't know much about them.

As in the song, 'Small, but a-growin'' ;-)

-- 
Steve

First Time Framer!

[Steve Rickaby]

At 10:42 -0500 30/5/07, Kenneth C. Benson wrote:

>Frame considers only one line at a time. ID understands that it can break URLs 
>at slashes and periods; Frame allows you to define break characters, but once 
>you've allowed (for example) breaks after slashes, you have no way to disallow 
>1/2 from breaking, except to fool around with tracking until the line breaks 
>in a different place... The difference is dramatic.

A benevolent God would give us FrameMaker 9 with InD's typographical engine.

Are you listening, Adobe?

-- 
Steve

First Time Framer!

[Gagne, Bernard (Bolton)]

A benevolent God would give us FrameMaker 9 with InDesign's
typographical engine on Mac OS X.
Let's see what Adobe gives us.  ;-)

Berny

-Original Message-
From: framers-bounces+bgagne=husky...@lists.frameusers.com
[mailto:framers-bounces+bgagne=husky.ca at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf
Of Steve Rickaby
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2007 4:38 PM
To: Kenneth C. Benson; framers at lists.frameusers.com
Subject: Re: First Time Framer!

At 10:42 -0500 30/5/07, Kenneth C. Benson wrote:

>Frame considers only one line at a time. ID understands that it can
break URLs at slashes and periods; Frame allows you to define break
characters, but once you've allowed (for example) breaks after slashes,
you have no way to disallow 1/2 from breaking, except to fool around
with tracking until the line breaks in a different place... The
difference is dramatic.

A benevolent God would give us FrameMaker 9 with InD's typographical
engine.

Are you listening, Adobe?

--
Steve

First Time Framer!

[Combs, Richard]

Steve Rickaby wrote: 

> A benevolent God would give us FrameMaker 9 with InD's 
> typographical engine.
> 
> Are you listening, Adobe?

Hmm, that's an interesting religion you're positing. ;-)

And, indulge my curmudgeonliness for a moment: Does the tech writing
profession really need more excuses for font fondling? :-o

Richard


--
Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
--
rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-777-0436
--

First Time Framer!

[Dov Isaacs]

Or maybe you want an InDesign >= 6 that supports all
the wonderful FrameMaker features that aren't already
in InDesign. That would solve a whole bunch of other
problems such as Macintosh support, CMYK + spot color
support, transparency support, etc.   :-)

- Dov 

> -Original Message-
> From: Steve Rickaby
> Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2007 1:38 PM
> To: Kenneth C. Benson; framers at lists.frameusers.com
> Subject: Re: First Time Framer!
> 
> ...
> 
> A benevolent God would give us FrameMaker 9 with InD's 
> typographical engine.
> 
> Are you listening, Adobe?
> 
> -- 
> Steve

Thanks from First Time Framer

[Mark Lawrence]

Hi,

Thanks for your friendly responses to my mail with the subject 'First
Time Framer'.

The reassurances that I have received from list members have been very
comforting.  The language of frame maker is still alien to me, so I have
not been able to really appreciate the depth of insight that some
comments carry.  What isn't obscured is the fact that people are
passionate about this software because it is empowering in them in their
work.  

Where people have suggested downloading addins in response to my
'mailmerge' query (thank you Mike Whickham and Keith Smyth) I have
followed their advice with blind faith.  The downloads are sitting on my
desktop, albeit uninstalled.  I'm waiting until I have bought the
upgrade to 7.2 or 8 before I venture down the mailmerge path.  Unimerge
is a possibile solution too, as is Eric L. Dunn's script, which I will
contact him about.

As I'm not hands-on with FM, I haven't yet encountered the same problems
that people's' helpful hints and tips purport to help me avoid (thaks
Ann Zdunczyk). I have printed these emails for later reference when no
doubt they will save me a great deal of time and frustration.

From casual browsing of the web I'd gathered that the names O'Keefe and
Loring were very much revered and I learned that a secondhand copy of
'the complete reference' was exchanging hands for a high price on ebay.
So, thanks very much Steve Rickaby (and Bodvar) for helpfully guiding me
towards 'publishing fundamentals' an identical book at a fraction of the
cost of the 'complete' edition.  I ordered my copy from scriptorium this
afternoon along with a few other things - really I musty confess it's
like getting kitted out for school.

Thank you everyone again for your help and support, sorry if I haven't
thanked you directly, I will follow the list with great interest and
look forward to entering into personal corresponsdences in the future,

Mark






 



Mark Lawrence
Director
First Read This
+44 01865 30 40 52
www.firstreadthis.com
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RE: First Time Framer!

[Mark Lawrence]

Mark Poston,

Thank you very much, that is certainly a kind and generous offer, and it's one 
that I certainly cannot refuse as I'm sure that I will gain a great deal of 
valuable insight by attending.  I gather from the X-pub website that some of 
the workshops will be pitched low enough for a newbie like me to get to grips 
with.  Wonderful, thank you again for your thoughtfulness.  Would you like to 
invoice me - if so you may need me to supply my company details, or is there a 
number I can ring to provide CC details, or do you have a promotional code for 
my discount?

If you have time I would be good to meet up for a few minutes at the event, 

Kind regards, Mark   



Mark Lawrence
Director
First Read This
+44 01865 30 40 52
www.firstreadthis.com

-Original Message-
From: Mark Poston [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: 29 May 2007 16:14
To: Mark Lawrence
Subject: Re: First Time Framer!

Hi Mark,

Whilst FrameMaker does not have a mail merge function built in, there are a
couple of options that are available to you. Firstly, you could try and use
FrameMaker varaibles in the places where your variable content would go. You
could then simply modify these variables when you need to change things.

The second approach would be to use a third party software tool to script
the mail merge process. You could use FrameScript, or another option,
developed by Mekon Ltd. is FrameAC. This would allow you to create a
database connection to your PDF.

Importing from Excel is possible but relying on OLE linking is not the best.
FrameMaker has a very nice table functionality although it's no spreadsheet
:)

Mekon are actually at a conference next week in Reading that you might be
interested in. You can find out more at www.x-pubs.com. If you want to come
to the event we can give you a discounted price of £200 (excluding dinner).
Otherwise, if you wanted to arrange a time for a chat during one of the
breaks (not lunch) then please let me know.

Adobe will also be at this event and you can learn more about the future of
FrameMaker.

Kind regards

Mark Poston
Senior Consultant
Mekon Ltd.
Tel: 020 8722 8461
Skype: mark_mekon.com

On 25/5/07 17:09, Mark Lawrence [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 
 Hi,
 
 I hope you don't mind me introducing myself to the list and then asking
 a question straight away.  My name is Mark, I am based in Oxford, UK,
 and I write reports that assist pharmaceuticals with their marketing
 authorisations - at least that's the interesting part of my job.
 
 I've been looking at Framemaker for some time now, basically as an
 alternative to grappling with changing layouts in Microsoft Word and
 Publisher.  The bottom line is that I enjoy writing content but I loathe
 the fiddling around with layout.  The fiddling always seems to involve
 1) thinking that everything looks ok 2) printing a hardcopy, and then
 realising that it doesn't look so good so editing it until my waste bin
 is, well, full of waste.
 
 My first step into Framer-dom (other than watching the Adobe demo and
 downloading some whitepapers) was buying a cheap sealed copy of
 Framemaker 5.5 in March on Ebay, which I plan to upgrade, either to 7.2
 or 8 (when it's available).  The reason I am being so hesitant to just
 go out and buy the software and subsribe to every training course
 available (other than cashflow) is that I am basically unsure whether
 Framemaker will do the job I want it to, hence I will try to describe
 what I need as follows in the hope that someone can advise me.
 
 My job involves producing 40 page reports in Microsoft Word.  These
 reports are  nearly identical.  I use the mailmerge feature in Word to
 import variables such as the date of the report, the name of the product
 on which the report is based, the final score that the product achieved
 and so on.  These are inserted at the relevant points in the text using
 mailmerge.  Tables and graphs from an Excel spreadsheetare are then
 copied and pasted into the report manually.
 
 Is this something that I can do better using Framemaker?  Please bear in
 mind that I am something of a perfectionist and would like to make my
 reports look beautiful, but easy to produce.  Would listees please share
 their experiences in terms of how long it took them to get to grips with
 this kind of functionality (I speak of mailmerge type things)?
 
 I hope I have expressed myself clearly.  If there is any further
 information I need to provide please let me know.  I really appreciate
 your attention and look forward to making your acquaintances,
 
 Best wishes, Mark
 
 
 
 
 Mark Lawrence
 Director
 First Read This
 +44 01865 30 40 52
 www.firstreadthis.com
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 Send administrative

Thanks from First Time Framer

[Mark Lawrence]

Hi,

Thanks for your friendly responses to my mail with the subject 'First
Time Framer'.

The reassurances that I have received from list members have been very
comforting.  The language of frame maker is still alien to me, so I have
not been able to really appreciate the depth of insight that some
comments carry.  What isn't obscured is the fact that people are
passionate about this software because it is empowering in them in their
work.  

Where people have suggested downloading addins in response to my
'mailmerge' query (thank you Mike Whickham and Keith Smyth) I have
followed their advice with blind faith.  The downloads are sitting on my
desktop, albeit uninstalled.  I'm waiting until I have bought the
upgrade to 7.2 or 8 before I venture down the mailmerge path.  Unimerge
is a possibile solution too, as is Eric L. Dunn's script, which I will
contact him about.

As I'm not hands-on with FM, I haven't yet encountered the same problems
that people's' helpful hints and tips purport to help me avoid (thaks
Ann Zdunczyk). I have printed these emails for later reference when no
doubt they will save me a great deal of time and frustration.

First Time Framer!

[Mark Lawrence]

Mark Poston,

Thank you very much, that is certainly a kind and generous offer, and it's one 
that I certainly cannot refuse as I'm sure that I will gain a great deal of 
valuable insight by attending.  I gather from the X-pub website that some of 
the workshops will be pitched low enough for a newbie like me to get to grips 
with.  Wonderful, thank you again for your thoughtfulness.  Would you like to 
invoice me - if so you may need me to supply my company details, or is there a 
number I can ring to provide CC details, or do you have a promotional code for 
my discount?

If you have time I would be good to meet up for a few minutes at the event, 

Kind regards, Mark   



Mark Lawrence
Director
First Read This
+44 01865 30 40 52
www.firstreadthis.com

-Original Message-
From: Mark Poston [mailto:mark.pos...@mekon.com] 
Sent: 29 May 2007 16:14
To: Mark Lawrence
Subject: Re: First Time Framer!

Hi Mark,

Whilst FrameMaker does not have a mail merge function built in, there are a
couple of options that are available to you. Firstly, you could try and use
FrameMaker varaibles in the places where your variable content would go. You
could then simply modify these variables when you need to change things.

The second approach would be to use a third party software tool to script
the mail merge process. You could use FrameScript, or another option,
developed by Mekon Ltd. is FrameAC. This would allow you to create a
database connection to your PDF.

Importing from Excel is possible but relying on OLE linking is not the best.
FrameMaker has a very nice table functionality although it's no spreadsheet
:)

Mekon are actually at a conference next week in Reading that you might be
interested in. You can find out more at www.x-pubs.com. If you want to come
to the event we can give you a discounted price of ?200 (excluding dinner).
Otherwise, if you wanted to arrange a time for a chat during one of the
breaks (not lunch) then please let me know.

Adobe will also be at this event and you can learn more about the future of
FrameMaker.

Kind regards

Mark Poston
Senior Consultant
Mekon Ltd.
Tel: 020 8722 8461
Skype: mark_mekon.com

On 25/5/07 17:09, "Mark Lawrence"  wrote:

> 
> Hi,
> 
> I hope you don't mind me introducing myself to the list and then asking
> a question straight away.  My name is Mark, I am based in Oxford, UK,
> and I write reports that assist pharmaceuticals with their marketing
> authorisations - at least that's the interesting part of my job.
> 
> I've been looking at Framemaker for some time now, basically as an
> alternative to grappling with changing layouts in Microsoft Word and
> Publisher.  The bottom line is that I enjoy writing content but I loathe
> the fiddling around with layout.  The fiddling always seems to involve
> 1) thinking that everything looks ok 2) printing a hardcopy, and then
> realising that it doesn't look so good so editing it until my waste bin
> is, well, full of waste.
> 
> My first step into Framer-dom (other than watching the Adobe demo and
> downloading some whitepapers) was buying a cheap sealed copy of
> Framemaker 5.5 in March on Ebay, which I plan to upgrade, either to 7.2
> or 8 (when it's available).  The reason I am being so hesitant to just
> go out and buy the software and subsribe to every training course
> available (other than cashflow) is that I am basically unsure whether
> Framemaker will do the job I want it to, hence I will try to describe
> what I need as follows in the hope that someone can advise me.
> 
> My job involves producing 40 page reports in Microsoft Word.  These
> reports are  nearly identical.  I use the mailmerge feature in Word to
> import variables such as the date of the report, the name of the product
> on which the report is based, the final score that the product achieved
> and so on.  These are inserted at the relevant points in the text using
> mailmerge.  Tables and graphs from an Excel spreadsheetare are then
> copied and pasted into the report manually.
> 
> Is this something that I can do better using Framemaker?  Please bear in
> mind that I am something of a perfectionist and would like to make my
> reports look beautiful, but easy to produce.  Would listees please share
> their experiences in terms of how long it took them to get to grips with
> this kind of functionality (I speak of mailmerge type things)?
> 
> I hope I have expressed myself clearly.  If there is any further
> information I need to provide please let me know.  I really appreciate
> your attention and look forward to making your acquaintances,
> 
> Best wishes, Mark
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Mark Lawrence
> Director
> First Read This
> +44 01865 30 40 52
> www.firstreadthis.com
> ___
> 
> 
> You are currently subscribed to Framers as mar

Re: First Time Framer!

[azdunczyk]

Hi Mark,

One thing that I have not seen mentioned is that there are changes to 
the autonumbering starting with 6.0. In 6.0 Adobe added 2 additional 
system variables ($chapnum, $volnum). These can be used at the book 
level and document level. These are vary good additions that makes 
numbering across the book much easier.

Z

Ann Zdunczyk
President
a2z Publishing, Inc.
http://www.a2z-pub.com



- Original Message -
From: Mark Lawrence [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Friday, May 25, 2007 5:43 pm
Subject: First Time Framer!
To: framers@lists.frameusers.com

 
 Hi,
 
 I hope you don't mind me introducing myself to the list and then 
 askinga question straight away.  My name is Mark, I am based in 
 Oxford, UK,
 and I write reports that assist pharmaceuticals with their marketing
 authorisations - at least that's the interesting part of my job. 
 
 I've been looking at Framemaker for some time now, basically as an
 alternative to grappling with changing layouts in Microsoft Word and
 Publisher.  The bottom line is that I enjoy writing content but I 
 loathethe fiddling around with layout.  The fiddling always seems 
 to involve
 1) thinking that everything looks ok 2) printing a hardcopy, and then
 realising that it doesn't look so good so editing it until my 
 waste bin
 is, well, full of waste.
 
 My first step into Framer-dom (other than watching the Adobe demo and
 downloading some whitepapers) was buying a cheap sealed copy of
 Framemaker 5.5 in March on Ebay, which I plan to upgrade, either 
 to 7.2
 or 8 (when it's available).  The reason I am being so hesitant to 
just
 go out and buy the software and subsribe to every training course
 available (other than cashflow) is that I am basically unsure whether
 Framemaker will do the job I want it to, hence I will try to describe
 what I need as follows in the hope that someone can advise me.
 
 My job involves producing 40 page reports in Microsoft Word.  These
 reports are  nearly identical.  I use the mailmerge feature in 
 Word to
 import variables such as the date of the report, the name of the 
 producton which the report is based, the final score that the 
 product achieved
 and so on.  These are inserted at the relevant points in the text 
 usingmailmerge.  Tables and graphs from an Excel spreadsheetare 
 are then
 copied and pasted into the report manually.
 
 Is this something that I can do better using Framemaker?  Please 
 bear in
 mind that I am something of a perfectionist and would like to make my
 reports look beautiful, but easy to produce.  Would listees please 
 sharetheir experiences in terms of how long it took them to get to 
 grips with
 this kind of functionality (I speak of mailmerge type things)?
 
 I hope I have expressed myself clearly.  If there is any further
 information I need to provide please let me know.  I really 
appreciate
 your attention and look forward to making your acquaintances,
 
 Best wishes, Mark 
 
 
 
 
 Mark Lawrence
 Director
 First Read This
 +44 01865 30 40 52
 www.firstreadthis.com
 ___
 
 
 You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 
 Send list messages to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 
 To unsubscribe send a blank email to 
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 or visit 
 http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/azdunczyk%
40triad.rr.com
 Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit
 http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
 
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RE: First Time Framer!

[Maxwell Hoffmann]

Hello Mark,

Besides echoing the other positive reinforcement you've received on your 
decision, I wanted to emphasize that page layout control is a particularly 
compelling reason to switch from Word to FrameMaker. Because my employer 
provides service to a variety of clients I am required to edit and even author 
in Word about 25% of the time. 

I find Word's extremely limited control over anchored graphics particularly 
frustrating. FrameMaker's master pages, sidehead and runin paragraphs as well 
as sophisticated tables and anchored objects reduce the amount of time you are 
probably currently spending touching up page positioning. 

The Sarah O'Keefe book is excellent, but here is another book I have found very 
helpful for new users: FrameMaker 7 for Macintosh and Windows (Visual 
QuickStart Guide) by Victoria Thomas (Paperback - Feb 4, 2003) ... This is 
available on http://www.amazon.co.uk. Although this book does not go as in 
depth into XML as the O'Keefe book, it is well organized, highly visual, and 
chock full of advanced user tips.

Final tip, if you haven't installed FrameMaker yet, be sure to install it with 
International English, which will give you A4 paper size and other UK 
settings as a default. For adjusting page headers and footers, do View=Master 
Pages, which will put you in the zone that is the beefed up equivalent of 
View=Headers and Footers in Word.

Maxwell Hoffmann
Manager of Consulting  Training Solutions
ENLASO Corporation
T: 805 494 9571 * F: 805 435 1920
E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]  ♦ ENLASO Corporation provides 
quality enterprise language solutions and exceeds client expectations through 
continuing research, development, and implementation of effective localization 
processes and technologies.  Visit: www.translate.com 
http://www.translate.com/  for more information or to subscribe to our 
complimentary localization newsletter. 
http://www.linkedin.com/in/maxwellhoffmann

Message: 3
Date: Fri, 25 May 2007 18:09:45 +0200
From: Mark Lawrence [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: First Time Framer!
To: framers@lists.frameusers.com
Message-ID:

Hi,

I hope you don't mind me introducing myself to the list and then asking a 
question straight away.  My name is Mark, I am based in Oxford, UK, and I 
write reports that assist pharmaceuticals with their marketing authorisations 
- at least that's the interesting part of my job. 

I've been looking at Framemaker for some time now, basically as an alternative 
to grappling with changing layouts in Microsoft Word and Publisher.  The 
bottom line is that I enjoy writing content but I loathe the fiddling around 
with layout.  The fiddling always seems to involve
1) thinking that everything looks ok 2) printing a hardcopy, and then 
realising that it doesn't look so good so editing it until my waste bin is, 
well, full of waste.

[SNIP]

Best wishes, Mark 

Mark Lawrence Director First Read This +44 01865 30 40 52 
www.firstreadthis.com
 
___


You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Send list messages to [EMAIL PROTECTED]

To unsubscribe send a blank email to 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit
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First Time Framer!

[azdunc...@triad.rr.com]

Hi Mark,

One thing that I have not seen mentioned is that there are changes to 
the autonumbering starting with 6.0. In 6.0 Adobe added 2 additional 
system variables ($chapnum, $volnum). These can be used at the book 
level and document level. These are vary good additions that makes 
numbering across the book much easier.

Z

Ann Zdunczyk
President
a2z Publishing, Inc.
http://www.a2z-pub.com



- Original Message -
From: Mark Lawrence <marklawre...@firstreadthis.com>
Date: Friday, May 25, 2007 5:43 pm
Subject: First Time Framer!
To: framers at lists.frameusers.com

> 
> Hi,
> 
> I hope you don't mind me introducing myself to the list and then 
> askinga question straight away.  My name is Mark, I am based in 
> Oxford, UK,
> and I write reports that assist pharmaceuticals with their marketing
> authorisations - at least that's the interesting part of my job. 
> 
> I've been looking at Framemaker for some time now, basically as an
> alternative to grappling with changing layouts in Microsoft Word and
> Publisher.  The bottom line is that I enjoy writing content but I 
> loathethe fiddling around with layout.  The fiddling always seems 
> to involve
> 1) thinking that everything looks ok 2) printing a hardcopy, and then
> realising that it doesn't look so good so editing it until my 
> waste bin
> is, well, full of waste.
> 
> My first step into Framer-dom (other than watching the Adobe demo and
> downloading some whitepapers) was buying a cheap sealed copy of
> Framemaker 5.5 in March on Ebay, which I plan to upgrade, either 
> to 7.2
> or 8 (when it's available).  The reason I am being so hesitant to 
just
> go out and buy the software and subsribe to every training course
> available (other than cashflow) is that I am basically unsure whether
> Framemaker will do the job I want it to, hence I will try to describe
> what I need as follows in the hope that someone can advise me.
> 
> My job involves producing 40 page reports in Microsoft Word.  These
> reports are  nearly identical.  I use the mailmerge feature in 
> Word to
> import variables such as the date of the report, the name of the 
> producton which the report is based, the final score that the 
> product achieved
> and so on.  These are inserted at the relevant points in the text 
> usingmailmerge.  Tables and graphs from an Excel spreadsheetare 
> are then
> copied and pasted into the report manually.
> 
> Is this something that I can do better using Framemaker?  Please 
> bear in
> mind that I am something of a perfectionist and would like to make my
> reports look beautiful, but easy to produce.  Would listees please 
> sharetheir experiences in terms of how long it took them to get to 
> grips with
> this kind of functionality (I speak of mailmerge type things)?
> 
> I hope I have expressed myself clearly.  If there is any further
> information I need to provide please let me know.  I really 
appreciate
> your attention and look forward to making your acquaintances,
> 
> Best wishes, Mark 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Mark Lawrence
> Director
> First Read This
> +44 01865 30 40 52
> www.firstreadthis.com
> ___
> 
> 
> You are currently subscribed to Framers as azdunczyk at triad.rr.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/azdunczyk%
40triad.rr.com
> Send administrative questions to listadmin at frameusers.com. Visit
> http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
> 

First Time Framer!

[Maxwell Hoffmann]

Hello Mark,

Besides echoing the other positive reinforcement you've received on your 
decision, I wanted to emphasize that page layout control is a particularly 
compelling reason to switch from Word to FrameMaker. Because my employer 
provides service to a variety of clients I am required to edit and even author 
in Word about 25% of the time. 

I find Word's extremely limited control over anchored graphics particularly 
frustrating. FrameMaker's master pages, sidehead and runin paragraphs as well 
as sophisticated tables and anchored objects reduce the amount of time you are 
probably currently spending touching up page positioning. 

The Sarah O'Keefe book is excellent, but here is another book I have found very 
helpful for new users: FrameMaker 7 for Macintosh and Windows (Visual 
QuickStart Guide) by Victoria Thomas (Paperback - Feb 4, 2003) ... This is 
available on http://www.amazon.co.uk. Although this book does not go as in 
depth into XML as the O'Keefe book, it is well organized, highly visual, and 
chock full of advanced user tips.

Final tip, if you haven't installed FrameMaker yet, be sure to install it with 
"International English", which will give you A4 paper size and other UK 
settings as a default. For adjusting page headers and footers, do View=>Master 
Pages, which will put you in the zone that is the beefed up equivalent of 
"View=>Headers and Footers" in Word.

Maxwell Hoffmann
Manager of Consulting & Training Solutions
ENLASO Corporation
T: 805 494 9571 * F: 805 435 1920
E: mhoffmann at translate.com <mailto:mhoffmann at translate.com>  ? ENLASO 
Corporation provides quality enterprise language solutions and exceeds client 
expectations through continuing research, development, and implementation of 
effective localization processes and technologies.  Visit: www.translate.com 
<http://www.translate.com/>  for more information or to subscribe to our 
complimentary localization newsletter. 
http://www.linkedin.com/in/maxwellhoffmann

>Message: 3
>Date: Fri, 25 May 2007 18:09:45 +0200
>From: "Mark Lawrence" 
>Subject: First Time Framer!
>To: 
>Message-ID:
>
>Hi,
>
>I hope you don't mind me introducing myself to the list and then asking a 
>question straight away.  My name is Mark, I am based in Oxford, UK, and I 
>write reports that assist pharmaceuticals with their marketing authorisations 
>- at least that's the interesting part of my job. 
>
>I've been looking at Framemaker for some time now, basically as an alternative 
>to grappling with changing layouts in Microsoft Word and Publisher.  The 
>bottom line is that I enjoy writing content but I loathe the fiddling around 
>with layout.  The fiddling always seems to involve
>1) thinking that everything looks ok 2) printing a hardcopy, and then 
>realising that it doesn't look so good so editing it until my waste bin is, 
>well, full of waste.
>
[SNIP]
>
>Best wishes, Mark 
>
>Mark Lawrence >Director >First Read This >+44 01865 30 40 52 
>>www.firstreadthis.com

Re: First Time Framer!

[Shmuel Wolfson]

Out of all the reasons to switch to FM, the layout was never an issue by 
me. All you have to do is select the correct print driver in the Print 
dialog box, and view the doc in Print Preview, not Page Layout view.


Regards,
Shmuel Wolfson




Mark Lawrence wrote:

Hi,

I hope you don't mind me introducing myself to the list and then asking
a question straight away.  My name is Mark, I am based in Oxford, UK,
and I write reports that assist pharmaceuticals with their marketing
authorisations - at least that's the interesting part of my job. 


I've been looking at Framemaker for some time now, basically as an
alternative to grappling with changing layouts in Microsoft Word and
Publisher.  The bottom line is that I enjoy writing content but I loathe
the fiddling around with layout.  The fiddling always seems to involve
1) thinking that everything looks ok 2) printing a hardcopy, and then
realising that it doesn't look so good so editing it until my waste bin
is, well, full of waste.

My first step into Framer-dom (other than watching the Adobe demo and
downloading some whitepapers) was buying a cheap sealed copy of
Framemaker 5.5 in March on Ebay, which I plan to upgrade, either to 7.2
or 8 (when it's available).  The reason I am being so hesitant to just
go out and buy the software and subsribe to every training course
available (other than cashflow) is that I am basically unsure whether
Framemaker will do the job I want it to, hence I will try to describe
what I need as follows in the hope that someone can advise me.

My job involves producing 40 page reports in Microsoft Word.  These
reports are  nearly identical.  I use the mailmerge feature in Word to
import variables such as the date of the report, the name of the product
on which the report is based, the final score that the product achieved
and so on.  These are inserted at the relevant points in the text using
mailmerge.  Tables and graphs from an Excel spreadsheetare are then
copied and pasted into the report manually.

Is this something that I can do better using Framemaker?  Please bear in
mind that I am something of a perfectionist and would like to make my
reports look beautiful, but easy to produce.  Would listees please share
their experiences in terms of how long it took them to get to grips with
this kind of functionality (I speak of mailmerge type things)?

I hope I have expressed myself clearly.  If there is any further
information I need to provide please let me know.  I really appreciate
your attention and look forward to making your acquaintances,

Best wishes, Mark 





Mark Lawrence
Director
First Read This
+44 01865 30 40 52
www.firstreadthis.com
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http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.

First Time Framer!

[Shmuel Wolfson]

Out of all the reasons to switch to FM, the layout was never an issue by 
me. All you have to do is select the correct print driver in the Print 
dialog box, and view the doc in Print Preview, not Page Layout view.

Regards,
Shmuel Wolfson




Mark Lawrence wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I hope you don't mind me introducing myself to the list and then asking
> a question straight away.  My name is Mark, I am based in Oxford, UK,
> and I write reports that assist pharmaceuticals with their marketing
> authorisations - at least that's the interesting part of my job. 
>
> I've been looking at Framemaker for some time now, basically as an
> alternative to grappling with changing layouts in Microsoft Word and
> Publisher.  The bottom line is that I enjoy writing content but I loathe
> the fiddling around with layout.  The fiddling always seems to involve
> 1) thinking that everything looks ok 2) printing a hardcopy, and then
> realising that it doesn't look so good so editing it until my waste bin
> is, well, full of waste.
>
> My first step into Framer-dom (other than watching the Adobe demo and
> downloading some whitepapers) was buying a cheap sealed copy of
> Framemaker 5.5 in March on Ebay, which I plan to upgrade, either to 7.2
> or 8 (when it's available).  The reason I am being so hesitant to just
> go out and buy the software and subsribe to every training course
> available (other than cashflow) is that I am basically unsure whether
> Framemaker will do the job I want it to, hence I will try to describe
> what I need as follows in the hope that someone can advise me.
>
> My job involves producing 40 page reports in Microsoft Word.  These
> reports are  nearly identical.  I use the mailmerge feature in Word to
> import variables such as the date of the report, the name of the product
> on which the report is based, the final score that the product achieved
> and so on.  These are inserted at the relevant points in the text using
> mailmerge.  Tables and graphs from an Excel spreadsheetare are then
> copied and pasted into the report manually.
>
> Is this something that I can do better using Framemaker?  Please bear in
> mind that I am something of a perfectionist and would like to make my
> reports look beautiful, but easy to produce.  Would listees please share
> their experiences in terms of how long it took them to get to grips with
> this kind of functionality (I speak of mailmerge type things)?
>
> I hope I have expressed myself clearly.  If there is any further
> information I need to provide please let me know.  I really appreciate
> your attention and look forward to making your acquaintances,
>
> Best wishes, Mark 
>
>
>
>
> Mark Lawrence
> Director
> First Read This
> +44 01865 30 40 52
> www.firstreadthis.com
> ___
>
>
> You are currently subscribed to Framers as sbw at actcom.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/sbw%40actcom.com
>
> Send administrative questions to listadmin at frameusers.com. Visit
> http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
>
>   

First Time Framer!

[Shmuel Wolfson]

Out of all the reasons to switch to FM, the layout was never an issue by 
me. All you have to do is select the correct print driver in the Print 
dialog box, and view the doc in Print Preview, not Page Layout view.

Regards,
Shmuel Wolfson




Mark Lawrence wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I hope you don't mind me introducing myself to the list and then asking
> a question straight away.  My name is Mark, I am based in Oxford, UK,
> and I write reports that assist pharmaceuticals with their marketing
> authorisations - at least that's the interesting part of my job. 
>
> I've been looking at Framemaker for some time now, basically as an
> alternative to grappling with changing layouts in Microsoft Word and
> Publisher.  The bottom line is that I enjoy writing content but I loathe
> the fiddling around with layout.  The fiddling always seems to involve
> 1) thinking that everything looks ok 2) printing a hardcopy, and then
> realising that it doesn't look so good so editing it until my waste bin
> is, well, full of waste.
>
> My first step into Framer-dom (other than watching the Adobe demo and
> downloading some whitepapers) was buying a cheap sealed copy of
> Framemaker 5.5 in March on Ebay, which I plan to upgrade, either to 7.2
> or 8 (when it's available).  The reason I am being so hesitant to just
> go out and buy the software and subsribe to every training course
> available (other than cashflow) is that I am basically unsure whether
> Framemaker will do the job I want it to, hence I will try to describe
> what I need as follows in the hope that someone can advise me.
>
> My job involves producing 40 page reports in Microsoft Word.  These
> reports are  nearly identical.  I use the mailmerge feature in Word to
> import variables such as the date of the report, the name of the product
> on which the report is based, the final score that the product achieved
> and so on.  These are inserted at the relevant points in the text using
> mailmerge.  Tables and graphs from an Excel spreadsheetare are then
> copied and pasted into the report manually.
>
> Is this something that I can do better using Framemaker?  Please bear in
> mind that I am something of a perfectionist and would like to make my
> reports look beautiful, but easy to produce.  Would listees please share
> their experiences in terms of how long it took them to get to grips with
> this kind of functionality (I speak of mailmerge type things)?
>
> I hope I have expressed myself clearly.  If there is any further
> information I need to provide please let me know.  I really appreciate
> your attention and look forward to making your acquaintances,
>
> Best wishes, Mark 
>
>
>
>
> Mark Lawrence
> Director
> First Read This
> +44 01865 30 40 52
> www.firstreadthis.com
> ___
>
>
> You are currently subscribed to Framers as sbw at actcom.com.
>
> Send list messages to framers at lists.frameusers.com.
>
> To unsubscribe send a blank email to 
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Re: First Time Framer!

[Steve Rickaby]

At 18:09 +0200 25/5/07, Mark Lawrence wrote:

The reason I am being so hesitant to just go out and buy the software and 
subsribe to every training course available (other than cashflow) is that I am 
basically unsure whether Framemaker will do the job I want it to, hence I will 
try to describe what I need as follows in the hope that someone can advise me.

Mark: FrameMaker carries all the features you need for your work. The main 
areas you would be interest in are text insets, user variables and conditional 
text.

To answer your general question, 'Is this something that I can do better in 
FrameMaker?', I would say that I know of *nothing* that cannot be done better 
in FrameMaker than Word (with the exception of anything that requires Microsoft 
tie-ins to back-office software).

Before you spend large amounts of money on training courses, I would strongly 
recommend that you get a good book on FrameMaker and work through it, such as 
this: http://tinyurl.com/36v62c.

The same outfit (Scriptorium Press) do reasonably-priced self-training courses 
that are based on this book. I have no connection with them other than being a 
satisfied user of their products.

This group will be well able to help you with any specific difficulties you 
encounter. Also, I'm sending you off-list and article on variant documents in 
FrameMaker, in case it is of use.

-- 
Steve [in Cornwall]
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First Time Framer!

[Steve Rickaby]

At 18:09 +0200 25/5/07, Mark Lawrence wrote:

>The reason I am being so hesitant to just go out and buy the software and 
>subsribe to every training course available (other than cashflow) is that I am 
>basically unsure whether Framemaker will do the job I want it to, hence I will 
>try to describe what I need as follows in the hope that someone can advise me.

Mark: FrameMaker carries all the features you need for your work. The main 
areas you would be interest in are text insets, user variables and conditional 
text.

To answer your general question, 'Is this something that I can do better in 
FrameMaker?', I would say that I know of *nothing* that cannot be done better 
in FrameMaker than Word (with the exception of anything that requires Microsoft 
tie-ins to back-office software).

Before you spend large amounts of money on training courses, I would strongly 
recommend that you get a good book on FrameMaker and work through it, such as 
this: .

The same outfit (Scriptorium Press) do reasonably-priced self-training courses 
that are based on this book. I have no connection with them other than being a 
satisfied user of their products.

This group will be well able to help you with any specific difficulties you 
encounter. Also, I'm sending you off-list and article on variant documents in 
FrameMaker, in case it is of use.

-- 
Steve [in Cornwall]

First Time Framer!

[Mark Lawrence]

Hi,

I hope you don't mind me introducing myself to the list and then asking
a question straight away.  My name is Mark, I am based in Oxford, UK,
and I write reports that assist pharmaceuticals with their marketing
authorisations - at least that's the interesting part of my job. 

I've been looking at Framemaker for some time now, basically as an
alternative to grappling with changing layouts in Microsoft Word and
Publisher.  The bottom line is that I enjoy writing content but I loathe
the fiddling around with layout.  The fiddling always seems to involve
1) thinking that everything looks ok 2) printing a hardcopy, and then
realising that it doesn't look so good so editing it until my waste bin
is, well, full of waste.

My first step into Framer-dom (other than watching the Adobe demo and
downloading some whitepapers) was buying a cheap sealed copy of
Framemaker 5.5 in March on Ebay, which I plan to upgrade, either to 7.2
or 8 (when it's available).  The reason I am being so hesitant to just
go out and buy the software and subsribe to every training course
available (other than cashflow) is that I am basically unsure whether
Framemaker will do the job I want it to, hence I will try to describe
what I need as follows in the hope that someone can advise me.

My job involves producing 40 page reports in Microsoft Word.  These
reports are  nearly identical.  I use the mailmerge feature in Word to
import variables such as the date of the report, the name of the product
on which the report is based, the final score that the product achieved
and so on.  These are inserted at the relevant points in the text using
mailmerge.  Tables and graphs from an Excel spreadsheetare are then
copied and pasted into the report manually.

Is this something that I can do better using Framemaker?  Please bear in
mind that I am something of a perfectionist and would like to make my
reports look beautiful, but easy to produce.  Would listees please share
their experiences in terms of how long it took them to get to grips with
this kind of functionality (I speak of mailmerge type things)?

I hope I have expressed myself clearly.  If there is any further
information I need to provide please let me know.  I really appreciate
your attention and look forward to making your acquaintances,

Best wishes, Mark 




Mark Lawrence
Director
First Read This
+44 01865 30 40 52
www.firstreadthis.com
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Re: First Time Framer!

[Mike Wickham]

Mark,

Since your docs are nearly identical, you'll probably use conditional text 
or variables in FrameMaker to create and maintain them. I'll let others with 
more experience with those offer tips. But here are some other useful tips 
for Frame newbies, bearing in mind that you're a stickler for the appearance 
of the docs.


Frame will handle this well. You'll be able to print exactly what you 
expect. Here are a couple of tips:


1. In maker.ini, set DisplayUsingPrinterMetrics=On
Frame displays fonts two possible ways. If you set the above setting to Off, 
it makes the characters fit the pixels on your monitor for clearest display 
of the individual characters. But this means it ignores line length, so 
lines of text will be of incorrect length (on screen, not in print) and may 
overlap borders on screen. I find this a little confusing. It makes it look 
like word-wrap is working incorrectly.


If you set the setting to On, preferred by most, Frame makes sure the line 
length displays correctly, even if it has to jam characters together a bit 
in the display. Again, they will print correctly, but the kerning will look 
bad on screen at low magnifications. If you display at 200% or more, the 
kerning will display properly on screen, too.


2. Choose a printer before you work in or print a document.
If you run Windows, FrameMaker displays your document according to the 
_default_ print driver in Windows, or whatever driver you set _after_ you 
load Frame. So, if compose your doc with an HP printer set as default, Frame 
will display it the way it would print on that printer, using that printer's 
kerning tables and font metrics. If, instead, you pick a different printer 
at print time, Frame will reformat the doc according to the settings for 
that printer. This is likely to cause text reflow and change the appearance 
of your doc. You don't want that.


There are three solutions. Either set a different printer as default before 
loading Frame, choose a printer in Frame before opening a doc, or download 
the free SetPrint plugin. I could never remember to do the first two, so 
SetPrint was a godsend. It sets a default printer for Frame without changing 
the default printer elsewhere in Windows. Most of us set AdobePDF as the 
default printer in Frame because it has the advantage that, if you create a 
PDF instead of printing directly to a desktop printer, you can then print 
the PDF to ANY printer without changing it's appearance. Download SetPrint 
here:(http://sundorne.com/FrameMaker/Freeware/setPrint.htm)


Mike Wickham



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Re: First Time Framer!

[Doug]

IMO, if the results I'm getting from FrameMaker aren't good enough,
then the problem is in how I'm using it.  IOW, the problem is with me,
not Frame.  (grin)

--Doug
___


You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Send list messages to [EMAIL PROTECTED]

To unsubscribe send a blank email to 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

or visit 
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Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit
http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.

First Time Framer!

[Mark Lawrence]

Hi,

I hope you don't mind me introducing myself to the list and then asking
a question straight away.  My name is Mark, I am based in Oxford, UK,
and I write reports that assist pharmaceuticals with their marketing
authorisations - at least that's the interesting part of my job. 

I've been looking at Framemaker for some time now, basically as an
alternative to grappling with changing layouts in Microsoft Word and
Publisher.  The bottom line is that I enjoy writing content but I loathe
the fiddling around with layout.  The fiddling always seems to involve
1) thinking that everything looks ok 2) printing a hardcopy, and then
realising that it doesn't look so good so editing it until my waste bin
is, well, full of waste.

My first step into Framer-dom (other than watching the Adobe demo and
downloading some whitepapers) was buying a cheap sealed copy of
Framemaker 5.5 in March on Ebay, which I plan to upgrade, either to 7.2
or 8 (when it's available).  The reason I am being so hesitant to just
go out and buy the software and subsribe to every training course
available (other than cashflow) is that I am basically unsure whether
Framemaker will do the job I want it to, hence I will try to describe
what I need as follows in the hope that someone can advise me.

My job involves producing 40 page reports in Microsoft Word.  These
reports are  nearly identical.  I use the mailmerge feature in Word to
import variables such as the date of the report, the name of the product
on which the report is based, the final score that the product achieved
and so on.  These are inserted at the relevant points in the text using
mailmerge.  Tables and graphs from an Excel spreadsheetare are then
copied and pasted into the report manually.

Is this something that I can do better using Framemaker?  Please bear in
mind that I am something of a perfectionist and would like to make my
reports look beautiful, but easy to produce.  Would listees please share
their experiences in terms of how long it took them to get to grips with
this kind of functionality (I speak of mailmerge type things)?

I hope I have expressed myself clearly.  If there is any further
information I need to provide please let me know.  I really appreciate
your attention and look forward to making your acquaintances,

Best wishes, Mark 




Mark Lawrence
Director
First Read This
+44 01865 30 40 52
www.firstreadthis.com

First Time Framer!

[Mike Wickham]

Mark,

Since your docs are nearly identical, you'll probably use conditional text 
or variables in FrameMaker to create and maintain them. I'll let others with 
more experience with those offer tips. But here are some other useful tips 
for Frame newbies, bearing in mind that you're a stickler for the appearance 
of the docs.

Frame will handle this well. You'll be able to print exactly what you 
expect. Here are a couple of tips:

1. In maker.ini, set DisplayUsingPrinterMetrics=On
Frame displays fonts two possible ways. If you set the above setting to Off, 
it makes the characters fit the pixels on your monitor for clearest display 
of the individual characters. But this means it ignores line length, so 
lines of text will be of incorrect length (on screen, not in print) and may 
overlap borders on screen. I find this a little confusing. It makes it look 
like word-wrap is working incorrectly.

If you set the setting to On, preferred by most, Frame makes sure the line 
length displays correctly, even if it has to jam characters together a bit 
in the display. Again, they will print correctly, but the kerning will look 
bad on screen at low magnifications. If you display at 200% or more, the 
kerning will display properly on screen, too.

2. Choose a printer before you work in or print a document.
If you run Windows, FrameMaker displays your document according to the 
_default_ print driver in Windows, or whatever driver you set _after_ you 
load Frame. So, if compose your doc with an HP printer set as default, Frame 
will display it the way it would print on that printer, using that printer's 
kerning tables and font metrics. If, instead, you pick a different printer 
at print time, Frame will reformat the doc according to the settings for 
that printer. This is likely to cause text reflow and change the appearance 
of your doc. You don't want that.

There are three solutions. Either set a different printer as default before 
loading Frame, choose a printer in Frame before opening a doc, or download 
the free SetPrint plugin. I could never remember to do the first two, so 
SetPrint was a godsend. It sets a default printer for Frame without changing 
the default printer elsewhere in Windows. Most of us set AdobePDF as the 
default printer in Frame because it has the advantage that, if you create a 
PDF instead of printing directly to a desktop printer, you can then print 
the PDF to ANY printer without changing it's appearance. Download SetPrint 
here:(http://sundorne.com/FrameMaker/Freeware/setPrint.htm)

Mike Wickham

First Time Framer!

[Doug]

IMO, if the results I'm getting from FrameMaker aren't good enough,
then the problem is in how I'm using it.  IOW, the problem is with me,
not Frame.  (grin)

--Doug