FrameMaker/MSWord workflow

[Michael.Long at thomson.com]

 Jenelle,

We use a FrameMaker-Word combination in a process similar to that
described by someone else, and it can be fairly painless although not
ideal of course. And despite the kludgy sound of it, our productivity
has been steadily improving since converting from Word a few years ago. 

But Word has its advantages, no argument there. A question for you: To
what main resources and/or consultancies do you attribute your mastery
of Word?

Mike

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-framers at omsys.com 
> [mailto:owner-framers at omsys.com] On Behalf Of jenelle
> Sent: Thursday, March 01, 2007 1:47 PM
> To: 'Batsford, Steve'; 'Dauphin, William M.'; 'Studio 
> Smalbro'; 'Free Framers List'; framers at lists.frameusers.com
> Subject: RE: FrameMaker/MSWord workflow
> 
> At 1800 pages, you *may* have an edge. I have created/edited 
> 1200 page documents (a single file, not a book), with 
> graphics, in Word. That's probably the max, though; 
> performance gets sluggish, esp. with track changes enabled (I 
> think the network setup was interfering, too); however, the 
> call for 1200 page docs is relatively slim in the MANY 
> commercial software/hardware corporations I've worked for.
> 
> I also admit I got a bit of PTSD (post-traumatic stress 
> disorder) going here, because the recent laments on the lone 
> writers list serv had been about Word's bullets (with replies 
> that proffered some less than wise solutions). 
> Most company docs I've created were published for commercial 
> use in the form of PDFs and/or online documentation, so I'm 
> unaware of the Houghton Mifflin or MS Press publication 
> workflow. When I saw Bill's workflow that involved converting 
> from Frame, to RTF, then Word (and accepting all changes, 
> then back to Frame via
> RTF) in the development stage of a doc (collecting info from 
> SMEs and the review/feedback stage of content creation), I 
> went apoplexic--that seems like a horrendously 
> less-than-efficient process-heavy method! 
> On the other hand, I've rarely used conditional text 
> (different info for different models or clients)--the DITA 
> approach using a content management tool would seem like a 
> better approach (look out--here comes XML!)--and this I am 
> intimately familiar with because the approach in one 
> corporation had 4 separate documents, all saying the same 
> thing differently, for different "models" of the same product 
> (each with it's own versioning)--it was a maintenance 
> nightmare, and a silly one at that. Given my experience in 
> the corporate world, efficiency has to be planned, it doesn't 
> happen if it's treated as a future add on.
> 
> Jenelle Anderson
> Technical Writer, Software Engineering Technologies
>