Re: SUMMARY - Error on importing Word file to Frame+SGML

["Jeremy H. Griffith" <jeremy@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, 16 Feb 2002 10:31:41 +0100, m.oritz_b.erger@t-online.de 
(Moritz Berger) wrote:

>IMHO we are victims of Adobe's general attitude towards the 
>un-loved FrameMaker product.

I'm sorry, I can't let this pass.  At least it's Saturday, so
there's plenty of extra bandwidth available... ;-)

I'm not noted for being an apologist for Adobe.  In fact, I
was one of those outside Adobe's corporate HQ a few months
ago, waving a "Free Dmitry" sign (now on my office wall)
while Adobe reconsidered its assault on Sklyarov in some
tense negotiations with EFF attorney Robin Gross inside.
(Yes, our presence outside, me and about a hundred other
chanting engineers, made a *profound* difference.  We won.
I've got the t-shirt.  Really.  ;-)

That said, this import filter problem is *not* evidence of
malfeasance by FrameMaker engineering, for which I have the
highest regard.  It's actually evidence of some cynical
manipulation on the part of Frame Technology's management
shortly before Adobe bought Frame.  They wanted to have a
long list of import/export formats for marketing, in their
struggle with the 500-lb gorilla of the time, Interleaf.
They didn't really care if the filters worked well, it was
enough if they worked at all; they *did* care about spending
as little money as possible, regardless of consequences.
So they bought MasterSoft, a filter company with a product
called Word4Word (identified as AW4W in maker.ini), which
was cheap because it was failing due to poor quality (IMHO).

Since the whole idea was to make money for top management
(hiya Enron), the first thing Frame Tech did was fire the
entire staff of MasterSoft.  This effectively made the code
unmaintainable and often unfixable by ordinary mortals, or
even, in this case, demigods.  Adobe inherited this mess
when they bought Frame out, and sold the shards of MasterSoft
to MasterSoft's old rival Inso (also gone now).

Now Adobe, *not* known for irresponsible engineering, had a 
problem.  They couldn't just drop the filters again, there
was a reason Frame needed them.  They weren't fixable, as
it would be cheaper to start over.  But the cost of doing
it right would be enormous, and had to be weighed against
other improvements the core product badly needed (many of
which have indeed been made).  In the end, they left the
coprolites in place, merely adding new filters as needed.

For example, when Japanese support was needed for RTF,
Adobe simply commissioned a *competent* Japanese firm to
write a new pair of RTF filters, which are certainly the 
ones to use for Word in any language.  These are shown in 
maker.ini as [APIClients] and are identified as IVY.  

And *that* is the first thing to try.  When you use
File | Import | File, and get the Unknown File Type 
dialog, look for "RTF Japanese" (filters are listed in
alphabetical order) and use that one.  It may not be
perfect, but it's way better than "Microsoft RTF"
which is unfortunately the default selection.

Similarly, when exporting via File | Save As, go down 
to the very *bottom* of the list (*not* alphabetical),
and pick "RTF (Japanese)".  (If that doesn't do it,
look at our Web site for another plug-in option.  ;-)

My modest suggestion to Adobe for Frame 7 is to drop
the AW4W RTF filters entirely, and just call both
the Japanese filters "RTF" (maybe list them twice in 
the dialog so nobody would think the Japanese version 
had gone away).  That's a real easy one, and would save 
on support calls and minimize user rage.  Please???

>I'm trying to move over some of my production work to 
>InDesign + scripting, which clearly isn't as powerful 
>as Frame in many areas but at least doesn't rot from 
>the core without hope for improvement ...

I've heard from designers I know that InDesign is a
fabulous product.  But it's for an entirely different
purpose than FrameMaker, and it's hard to imagine a
document that really *uses* Frame's capabilities where 
this transition would make much sense.  Try the Japanese
RTF import filter first.  It worked as well as can be
reasonably expected, considering Word's own issues, for 
the original poster on this thread (hiya, Rachel).  ;-)

>Frame diagnosis: Terminally ill.

As are we all; like Jim Morrison of The Doors said, 
"Nobody gets out of here alive."  <bg>  But in the 
meantime, even with its infirmities, old FrameMaker 
still gets a Gold from me.

--
Jeremy H. Griffith                        jeremy@omsys.com 
VP, Software Development             http://www.omsys.com/
Omni Systems, Inc.             California and Vermont, USA               

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