FrameMaker is a long-document publishing tool. This guide to FrameMaker 5.5.6 offers information on features for producing effective long documents, including text editing and formatting, graphics, page design and creating templates. The CD-ROM contains templates, plug-ins and examples.
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Chapter 1
FrameMaker: The Long Document's Best Friend In This Chapter Deciding whether FrameMaker is for you Working with its word-processing capabilities Introducing features that make FrameMaker special Understanding templates
FrameMaker: The Long Document's Best Friend In This Chapter Deciding whether FrameMaker is for you Working with its word-processing capabilities Introducing features that make FrameMaker special Understanding templates
If you want to create a great oil painting, you probably would not use a piano. Okay, in today's modern art you just might, but bear with me here. The point is that you need to choose the right tool for the right job. FrameMaker Is for You If...
FrameMaker is a powerful, complex piece of document processing software that is for you if your documents
Are long
Need structure
Need consistency
Use cross-references
Have tables of contents
Have indexes
Have running headers and footers
Are delivered in multiple formats (print and online)
Have lots of graphics
Are revised often
Basically, FrameMaker is for you if you create long documents, such as books, technical manuals, and dissertations. FrameMaker includes many features that help you create documents that are consistent from chapter to chapter. For example, you can set up FrameMaker to grab the title of the current chapter and put that in the header automatically. You only have to touch the header once to tell FrameMaker what to include there. After that, the chapter title in the header is updated every time you start a new chapter.
FrameMaker is probably not for you if your documents
Are highly designed with little consistency from page to page
Do not need structure or consistency
For these cases, you should probably choose a visual page layout tool, such as PageMaker or QuarkXPress (or perhaps Adobe's new InDesign).
FrameMaker has a reputation for being difficult to learn. This is partly because it's packed with powerful features. This book gets you started with the easier, more familiar stuff, such as word-processing features, and then gently launches you into more advanced information. The old 80/20 rule applies: 80 percent is easy to learn and includes the basics, like general word processing. The other 20 percent is where you find the real power, and you can learn that as you go. Word Processing in FrameMaker
FrameMaker offers the basic word-processing features that you expect (see Chapters 2 and 3 for details). You may find, though, that FrameMaker is a bit more Spartan than some word processors. It does not, for example, support drag-and-drop editing. To me, it's a small price to pay for the power that FrameMaker offers in other areas. FrameMaker on Multiple Platforms
As you flip through this book, you'll see that I've included screen shots from Windows, Macintosh, and UNIX environments. FrameMaker works almost identically across platforms, so all the knowledge you acquire on the Windows version can be transferred immediately to the UNIX or Macintosh version (or the other way around).
Furthermore, the data files in FrameMaker transfer seamlessly from one platform to another. You may have an occasional font problem or a graphic that works on one platform but not another, but the FrameMaker content is not a problem. Special Features in FrameMaker
FrameMaker includes lots of powerful features that help automate book production: cross-references, indexes, book paginations, tables of contents, variables, cross-reference, and more. Each of these items has its own chapter (except for books, which has a whole part!). Just jump in with the features that you need most! Template Tantrum
FrameMaker can help you create a set of documents that is completely consistent the documents use the same numbering style, same type of headers and footers, same formatting for the text, same lines and spacing in the tables, and more.
You accomplish all of this using FrameMaker's formatting catalogs. Each major item in FrameMaker, such as paragraphs, characters, tables, and cross-references, has a list of formats. You can easily transfer formats from one document to another. This is a simple statement, but it means that you can set up the appearance of your pages in one document and then transfer that appearance to a completely different document.
These formatting catalogs are the basic feature that separates FrameMaker from other publishing tools. Most word processors nowadays have formats defined for paragraphs (often called style sheets), but FrameMaker uses formatting catalogs for lots of things, including the following items:
Paragraphs
Characters
Tables
Master pages
Content of headers and footers
Formatting for tables of contents and indexes
Cross-references
These extensive formatting catalogs, which "live" in each document, can be copied from one document to another. More importantly, you can overwrite the definitions in one file with definitions from another file (provided that the style names are the same). This makes it possible to maintain your formatting catalogs in a template file and periodically import the template into your documents to keep them consistent.
Unlike some other desktop publishing packages and word processors, FrameMaker files don't have an external template file attached to the FrameMaker file. Instead, a complete copy of the formatting information is maintained in each file. You don't have to worry about keeping track of a separate template file to maintain the formatting in your files.
Any file can be used as a template, but to simplify maintenance (and prevent rogue formats from sneaking in), it's probably a good idea to create an official template file and make some rules about who's allowed to update it. Better yet, lock it up in a safe place where only the designated template owner has access to the file.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
77 of 77 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A very valuable and worthwhile book,
By
This review is from: FrameMaker 5.5.6 for Dummies (Paperback)
Well done! FrameMaker 5.5.6 is a solid, must-have book for beginner and intermediate FrameMaker users. I continue to be surprised at the lack of third-party books for this popular tool for writers, and this book is long overdue. Kudos to IDG and Ms. O'Keefe for putting this book together.Even after reading the book, cover-to-cover, FrameMaker for Dummies still strikes me as an oxymoron? Why? Because, if you compare FrameMaker to word processors, as people are apt to do, FrameMaker has a high learning curve (not so compared to real competing products, such as Interleaf and Ventura), such that folks using FrameMaker are definitely not Dummies. What doesn't this book do well? Let me offer my negative opinions, to get them out of the way. This book is not a substitute for Adobe's valuable FrameMaker Classroom in a Book. Dummies is definitely a reference tome, if you really want to get up and running, I recommend the tutorial-based Classroom in a Book *as well as* Dummies. Dummies might not be for you if you are an advanced or very experienced FrameMaker user (although, the appendices are worth a look-see and I recommend that it is still a handy reference), but neither is the book targeted at you (nor is there *any* book targeted at the advanced FrameMaker user, aside from Adobe's collage of printed and online information). Despite the fact that this *is* a reference book, I was still looking for, and missing, an overall flow from page setup through styles and chapter and book creation and maybe was looking for a little smoother organization and transition, from subject to subject and chapter to chapter. I'm probably being way too picky here, because this is a reference book. In addition, the chapter on importing graphics misses a few things, such as resizing imported graphics in FrameMaker and FrameMaker's treatment of import resolution. A chapter on color, while a welcome and necessary subject, doesn't discuss how the Windows GDI affects color output from the Windows version of FrameMaker and, I think I missed a discussion of using TIFFs and EPS to sneak 4-color past Mr. Gates. I also missed a discussion of FrameMaker's hypertext feature, and was looking for a really clear discussion of getting and installing the PPD and PS printer driver for use with PDFs, *although*, this book does include all the relevant information in one place, unlike any of Adobe's documentation. I suppose I was looking for a clearer explanation of PPD/PS drivers, particularly for the benefit of folks using TrueType, not PostScript, fonts. A brief discussion of subsetting fonts in PDF and binary versus ASCII might have been included, but perhaps that's a topic for PDF for Dummies? I would also have enjoyed more discussion on MIF, an overview of the Frame Development Kit and what it offers, and I am surprised Esc Flk was not highlighted and double-underlined (I know I saw it in there but cannot, now, find it). Please consider my critique in context: FrameMaker is a complex product with a host of bleeding-edge features. A Dummies book cannot possibly cover, in-depth, everything and still keep its target audience interested . . . it's just not possible. What does this book do well? Pretty much *everything*. FrameMaker for Dummies certainly hits on all of the important concepts, tools, and elements that you'd use in FrameMaker to get the job done. In particular, the excellent section on numbering will answer all of your questions, master/reference /body pages, page layouts, character and paragraph styles, cross-references, and index are all well done--index particularly so (TOC is covered pretty well, though I'm not sure the book will really get you going on this if you have no prior experience with it). Text flow is well covered, and the coverage of HTML export and import filters is great (and answers a lot of commonly asked questions). The discussion of conditional text, a feature I like to use, is complete and useful. Ms. O'Keefe also does a very good job in leading the discussion of FrameMaker templates (a bunch of customized templates for the CD would have been sweet), and includes some very useful discussion on workflow that is obviously based on having been there and done that! Especially valuable in this book is the discussion of building blocks, tables are very thoroughly discussed, the tips and tricks are on-the-money, Appendix B's list of resources is excellent, and the tools included on the CD are top notch (hey, the CD even includes a demo version of FrameMaker--on the internet I see requests for that all the time). More than that, the comments by the author, the asides that touch on workflow issues and FrameMaker peculiarities, along with the writing style, really help you get information out of this book. All in all, if you use FrameMaker, you should get this book. If your are an advanced user, this is a handy reference to have. If you are a beginner or intermediate, FrameMaker for Dummies is an invaluable tool, store this book close by your keyboard for ease-of-use. Now, if only Ms. O'Keefe can show IDG the error of their ways and persuade them to convert to FrameMaker as their primary production tool . . ..
72 of 72 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It's About Time,
By Cindy Brown Bair (Raleigh, North Carolina) - See all my reviews
This review is from: FrameMaker 5.5.6 for Dummies (Paperback)
It's embarrassing to be overjoyed about the publication of a software book, especially one with the word "dummies" on the cover. But until now, FrameMaker users have had no good reference text at all. We've been struggling to decipher Adobe's online help files, and we've been solving each other's problems through online mailing lists and local FrameMaker Users Network meetings. It's ridiculous that a tool as widely used as Frame has had no comprehensive reference. Every Frame user should nab a copy of FrameMaker for Dummies before it sells out.If you're a beginning Framer, be certain to start with pages 7 - 10, which explain why you want to fiddle with this complicated & powerful tool in the first place. Frame has a long learning curve, but I think mine would have been much shorter if I'd had this book. And if you feel like a real dummy because you don't understand everything that Frame can do, don't worry - no one needs or understands it all. Except, evidently, for O'Keefe, but not all of us aspire to that level of geek wisdom. As an experienced Framer I've found the answers to four questions so far by using the index, and the book saved me at least 2 hours on one problem alone (which paid for the book right there, with cash left over for therapy). "Tip" icons and question sidebars hold the promise of knowledge I don't even know to look for. The appendices have great information, especially Appendix B: Online Resources. Truthfully, I'd probably be thrilled to get any book on Frame. I'm especially glad this one is easily referenced, well written, and useful.
89 of 91 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ohhhhhh, now I get it!,
By A Customer
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: FrameMaker 5.5.6 for Dummies (Paperback)
I purchased the "Adobe FrameMaker Classroom in a Book", faithfully completed all the lessons, then tried to create my first document. I was completely lost within fifteen minutes. I grumpily logged on to Amazon and ordered "FrameMaker for Dummies" and all I have to say is, "Ohhhhhh, now I get it."One of my complaints about "Classroom in a Book" was that it worked from existing documents, rather complex ones at that. It did not start at the logical starting point, creating a new document. The "Dummies" book does a better job with this. Chapter 2 starts with the steps needed to create a new document. Through chapter 7, the "Dummies" book focuses on functions available in most word processing programs. If you are a modestly advanced word processor user, this material will be comfortably familiar. In Chapter 8 "Dummies" starts to delve into features unique to FrameMaker, covering functions completely ignored by "Classroom", such as creating document templates. My other complaint about "Classroom in a Book" is that it seldom explains why. It just says, "Select the zot option." I kept whining, "Why? What are these other options? What happens if I click this?" FrameMaker for Dummies answered all those questions. It takes a reference manual approach. Each dialogue box has a corresponding table listing each option and its function. Here and there the explanations are not absolutely thorough. An option may be described as, "This option turns on the whatsit socket." Perhaps readers with a background in printing and publishing know what the whatsit socket is, but I don't.I don't find this particularly troubling since I probably won't be needing those features. I worked my way through this book, creating my own sample documents. In Chapter 2 I created a new document. In subsequent chapters I added paragraph and character formats, graphics, and tables. As each new feature was introduced I tried it out and increased the complexity of my sample document. I also tried most of the options as I read about them so I could see the effect. I was able to use it as a tutorial, even though it is certainly not one. This took a lot longer than working through the lessons in "Classroom", but when I was done I felt I had learned a lot more and was better equipped to create my own documents. "Dummies" worked better for my style of learning. Others may prefer "Classroom". The ideal is probably some cross of the two.
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