RE: FrameMaker's Future

["Aiken, Jason" <jason.aiken@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I wouldn't panic about FrameMaker going away anytime soon. It rocks and I still use it often.

When it comes to getting your business content into XML from Frame, Mif2go does the job for us. I've never had reason to use Epic Interchange. I can't even remember whether it's an add-on at cost right now.

Converting legacy data raises an interesting series of questions. Again, are we really writing individual documents that do not share any content from one to the next? If so, then converting every single document to XML is probably required (if you're going to a database publishing option).

However, you may find that as much as 60% or even 80% of your content is identical. Once your database is populated with one or two representative files, conversion becomes something you do very infrequently.

There's also Adobe Document Server. It's the enterprise-wide application that can use XML-related standards to create pretty PDF files as well as other output formats. I think one can set it up for use with FrameMaker templates as well.

Whether you're thinking about Arbortext E3 (with support for slurping Word or web browser-edited documents into XML) Adobe Document Server, the enterprise solutions are significant investment in terms of money and calendar time.

Interesting discussion.

Best regards,
Jason

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-framers@xxxxxxxxx 
> [mailto:owner-framers@xxxxxxxxx]On Behalf
> Of Nagai, Paul
> Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2005 3:03 PM
> To: framers@xxxxxxxxx
> Subject: RE: FrameMaker's Future
> 
> 
> > 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
> 
> Tsunami relief portal:
> http://www.networkforgood.org/
> 
> 
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