Re: FM-to-Word & vice-versa (was Re: Another newbie question:

[Dov Isaacs <isaacs@xxxxxxxxx>]

I have been following this discussion all morning and want to confirm
that in the general case there is no way that one can do round-tripping
from Word to FrameMaker and back yielding a Word document that matches
the original Word document exactly.

Neither Word nor FrameMaker are supersets of the other. They have 
different feature sets that make different in-context assumptions
about the content involved. Only with the simplest of text-based
layouts can one come even close to a "round-trip" identity. And
this isn't just a FrameMaker issue with Word or vice versa. Unless
two document processing programs have identical feature sets, a
common document format, an identical interpretation of those features
and format, and a common layout engine, conversions of content between
two such document "systems" will always at best be a series of guesses
and compromises. And workflows that depend on round-tripping, except
for simple, well-crafted situations, will always be highly problematic.

This also extends to issues such as FrameMaker to PDF and then attempting
to reconstruct a FrameMaker document from the PDF file. At best, the
text and a large amount of the formatting can be resurrected. The original
document, including styles, cannot be.

        - Dov



At 8/8/2002 11:23 AM, Sean Brierley wrote:
>Why would you expect roundtripping to work?
>
>My perception is that FrameMaker and Word do things in
>very different ways for very different audiences.
>
>Each has its own strengths and weaknesses, but neither
>one duplicates the other. They do not completely
>overlap each other; Word and FrameMaker each do things
>the other cannot.
>
>I think the idea of near-seamless roundtripping is not
>reasonably possible.
>
>Cheers,
>
>Sean
>
>
>--- Barbara White <bjw@sei.cmu.edu> wrote:
>> eric.dunn@ca.transport.bombardier.com wrote:
>>
>> In an environment where you have Word people and FM
>> people, it would be
>> nice to have a way to go back/forth between Word and
>> FM in collaborating
>> on the same document.  


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