First Time Framer!

[azdunczyk at triad.rr.com]

Hi Mark,

One thing that I have not seen mentioned is that there are changes to 
the autonumbering starting with 6.0. In 6.0 Adobe added 2 additional 
system variables ($chapnum, $volnum). These can be used at the book 
level and document level. These are vary good additions that makes 
numbering across the book much easier.

Z

Ann Zdunczyk
President
a2z Publishing, Inc.
http://www.a2z-pub.com



----- Original Message -----
From: Mark Lawrence <marklawrence at firstreadthis.com>
Date: Friday, May 25, 2007 5:43 pm
Subject: First Time Framer!
To: framers at lists.frameusers.com

> 
> Hi,
> 
> I hope you don't mind me introducing myself to the list and then 
> askinga question straight away.  My name is Mark, I am based in 
> Oxford, UK,
> and I write reports that assist pharmaceuticals with their marketing
> authorisations - at least that's the interesting part of my job. 
> 
> I've been looking at Framemaker for some time now, basically as an
> alternative to grappling with changing layouts in Microsoft Word and
> Publisher.  The bottom line is that I enjoy writing content but I 
> loathethe fiddling around with layout.  The fiddling always seems 
> to involve
> 1) thinking that everything looks ok 2) printing a hardcopy, and then
> realising that it doesn't look so good so editing it until my 
> waste bin
> is, well, full of waste.
> 
> My first step into Framer-dom (other than watching the Adobe demo and
> downloading some whitepapers) was buying a cheap sealed copy of
> Framemaker 5.5 in March on Ebay, which I plan to upgrade, either 
> to 7.2
> or 8 (when it's available).  The reason I am being so hesitant to 
just
> go out and buy the software and subsribe to every training course
> available (other than cashflow) is that I am basically unsure whether
> Framemaker will do the job I want it to, hence I will try to describe
> what I need as follows in the hope that someone can advise me.
> 
> My job involves producing 40 page reports in Microsoft Word.  These
> reports are  nearly identical.  I use the mailmerge feature in 
> Word to
> import variables such as the date of the report, the name of the 
> producton which the report is based, the final score that the 
> product achieved
> and so on.  These are inserted at the relevant points in the text 
> usingmailmerge.  Tables and graphs from an Excel spreadsheetare 
> are then
> copied and pasted into the report manually.
> 
> Is this something that I can do better using Framemaker?  Please 
> bear in
> mind that I am something of a perfectionist and would like to make my
> reports look beautiful, but easy to produce.  Would listees please 
> sharetheir experiences in terms of how long it took them to get to 
> grips with
> this kind of functionality (I speak of mailmerge type things)?
> 
> I hope I have expressed myself clearly.  If there is any further
> information I need to provide please let me know.  I really 
appreciate
> your attention and look forward to making your acquaintances,
> 
> Best wishes, Mark 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Mark Lawrence
> Director
> First Read This
> +44 01865 30 40 52
> www.firstreadthis.com
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