RE: FrameMaker's Future

["Nagai, Paul" <pnagai@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Paul, do you happen to know what the migration path might be for 
> Frame->Epic for nonstructured docs? I've made an appointment to speak to an 
> ArborText rep, but if she doesn't know FrameMaker and I don't know Epic, it 
> will be difficult to get an accurate feel for what might be involved in 
> converting large libraries. If docs need to exit Frame as SGML or XML, then 
> Epic won't be an option for my business.

If your rep doesn't know FrameMaker, request another rep ;)

Arbortext sells Interchange, a conversion tool, for mapping a variety of sources to XML (and out again). FrameMaker MIF is a supported input.

For the best results, you should develop the following items at the same time:
	a "conversion" FrameMaker template 
	your XML Document Type Definition (DTD)*
	Interchange Mapper file

You will preprocess your actual FrameMaker files, converting them to the conversion template and saving them as MIF. Using your mapper file, Interchange will convert tags from your MIF files to elements in XML files. Expect to post-process your XML files in Epic. The entire migration may be re-run several time on several test documents so you can tune each of the components.

Balancing where to handle certain components (in the conversion to the FM conversion template, the mapper, or after the files are in XML), is something of an art and is, of course, highly application dependent.

Overall page count (per input type and DTD type ... you may have multiple DTDs) is a significant factor over how much effort goes into which parts of the migration. On the low end of page counts, cut and paste, element by element performed by someone competent in both Frame and Epic is often the fastest (if least elegant) solution. On the high end, automating as much as possible is obviously highly desirable. It takes time to do, though.

*In XML, the DTD describes what tags are legal next to, before, after, inside of, etc. etc. other tags (in XML these are referred to as elements).

------
Paul Nagai

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http://www.networkforgood.org/


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