February 28, 2013 @ 5:23 AM, By Maxwell Hoffmann
Speaking from my over one thousand hours of experience “optimizing” unstructured FrameMaker files for translation and localization, I can vouch for the following fact: FrameMaker 11’s ability to handle catalog styles more efficiently than FrameMaker 7.x and its ability search and locate format overrides can reduce some production preparation tasks by as much as 90%! read more…
February 26, 2013 @ 12:51 PM, By Parth Mukherjee
“We left Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint off the survey because they are so ubiquitous in the IT industry. In past surveys over 90% of respondents indicated using Word.“ - 2012 WritersUA User Assistance Tools Survey Word is one of the most pervasive and widely used documentation tool in the world. It however does not meet read more…
February 26, 2013 @ 7:26 AM, By Parth Mukherjee
In the first part of this 2-part article, I explained how mixing structured with unstructured content in the same publication process was vital to the success of several conversion projects I have undertaken in the past years. It is simply not feasible for a company to stop for months while rewriting their legacy documentation or converting all read more…
February 22, 2013 @ 6:45 AM, By Maxwell Hoffmann
Versions of FrameMaker after FrameMaker 7.2 introduced two potent features that could be reason alone to upgrade to FrameMaker 11: (a) track changes and (b) ability to import PDF review comments and annotations “in place” in the source FrameMaker document. Both of the features streamline the edit and review process substantially. Sample documents used for read more…
February 20, 2013 @ 6:28 AM, By Maxwell Hoffmann
Our third “video blog” on FrameMaker 11 for Word users focuses on the dynamics of page layout. This is possibly one of the areas in “basic” FrameMaker where feature advantages over Word are most pronounced. Since Word was originally developed as a personal, productivity word processor on a platform (PC with DOS) that did not read more…
February 18, 2013 @ 6:18 AM, By Maxwell Hoffmann
This is the second in our series of blogs that highlight key differences between Microsoft Word and FrameMaker 11. Simple page headers and footers show a dramatic contrast between product capabilities. FrameMaker 11 page headers update in real time A major difference between the two products is the lack of manual updates required to update read more…
February 11, 2013 @ 12:59 PM, By Maxwell Hoffmann
This is the first in a series of several brief blogs that highlight some videos we have created to compliment our #WriteRight compaign. Be sure to visit and register for our new micro site, http://www.douwriteright.com/, for a chance to voice your opinion and also to see a growing collection of “mini-videos.” The first feature comparison read more…
February 11, 2013 @ 12:54 PM, By Parth Mukherjee
Even if it is crystal clear that structured authoring has many advantages, many companies cannot afford to make the jump into the new paradigm. There is too much legacy documentation that cannot be left behind, and there is never time enough to stop all the presses for months while the old content is being converted read more…
February 7, 2013 @ 11:27 AM, By Parth Mukherjee
Ray Gallon or The HumanistNerd just completed a fabulous series of webinars for fans of User Assistance. The complexity of today’s technical products means ‘how-to’ information may no longer provide users with all they need. More than procedures, users need to acquire skills and concepts that enable them to be autonomous, make decisions, and work read more…
February 6, 2013 @ 10:44 AM, By Parth Mukherjee
“It’s your Word against…my FrameMaker!” It’s time to write technical content on the leading technical writing tool. There’s so much we could say. But for now, visit: www.DOUWRITERIGHT.com
