RE: FrameMaker's Future

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

hizzoner Shlomo Perets said:
> Based on Arbortext-generated PDF samples which I inspected in the past,
> interactive features may be limited or implemented awkwardly, compared
> to what is available in FrameMaker.

I think this would be true in their 'old' and 'new' PDF generating environments although the quirks are probably different.


> Incidentally, a small-scale example -- Arbortext's Technical Support Guide
> (26-page PDF) -- was briefly described in my Hmmm... corner,
> http://www.microtype.com/Hmmms.html#0408


I went and clipped your comments:
> Arbortext's Technical Support Guide (26-page PDF), "created
> and published using Arbortext Software", has a Contents
> page with 32 entries which use 226 links -- that's an
> average of 7 links per entry. 

Multiple links per entry is probably the rule given how Epic creates links. Whether 7 is truly an average multiplier or not is hard to say. I'd be willing to run some numbers against our documents if you teach me how to highlight/count the links.


> The links point to the
> corresponding pages (and not to the specific location of
> the heading on a page, which is less convenient if the
> heading happens to be placed at the bottom part of the
> page), but otherwise they are all valid.

This appears to be true of ours, too.


> The PDF has bookmarks, but does not specify these to be
> displayed initially. Bookmarks for chapters are present as
> numbers only, with no text; bookmarks for the headings
> include the paragraph number together with text (in the
> case of 3- and 4-level headings, numbering often causes
> heading text not to be displayed in full in the bookmark
> pane).

With recent versions of Epic you can author PDF Bookmarks through the FOSI (stylesheet) so you have control over bookmark text. I do not know whether you can specify whether the bookmark panel displays or not. I think you do have control over whether a bookmark section is expanded or collapsed initially.

These features require coding in the stylesheet to access. They are not "automatic" like they are with Frame. In Frame, when you author the autonumbering for the heading and any generated text like, "Chapter," you are authoring the PDF bookmark. In Epic/FOSI, you must author those separately. Good news: They can be different, so if you prefered a short version for the PDF bookmarks, you could create that. Bad news: Extra work!

Note: It's been a while and a few versions since I worked with FrameMaker (5.5.6) so I may not understand current functionality in this regard. Many PDF advances were incorporated after I left.

------
Paul Nagai

Tsunami relief portal:
http://www.networkforgood.org/


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