First Time Framer!

Tue May 29 09:37:13 PDT 2007

Mark Poston,

Thank you very much, that is certainly a kind and generous offer, and it's one that I certainly cannot refuse as I'm sure that I will gain a great deal of valuable insight by attending.  I gather from the X-pub website that some of the workshops will be pitched low enough for a newbie like me to get to grips with.  Wonderful, thank you again for your thoughtfulness.  Would you like to invoice me - if so you may need me to supply my company details, or is there a number I can ring to provide CC details, or do you have a promotional code for my discount?

If you have time I would be good to meet up for a few minutes at the event, 

Kind regards, Mark   

Mark Lawrence
Director
First Read This
+44 01865 30 40 52
www.firstreadthis.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Poston [mailto:mark.poston at mekon.com] 
Sent: 29 May 2007 16:14
To: Mark Lawrence
Subject: Re: First Time Framer!

Hi Mark,

Whilst FrameMaker does not have a mail merge function built in, there are a
couple of options that are available to you. Firstly, you could try and use
FrameMaker varaibles in the places where your variable content would go. You
could then simply modify these variables when you need to change things.

The second approach would be to use a third party software tool to script
the mail merge process. You could use FrameScript, or another option,
developed by Mekon Ltd. is FrameAC. This would allow you to create a
database connection to your PDF.

Importing from Excel is possible but relying on OLE linking is not the best.
FrameMaker has a very nice table functionality although it's no spreadsheet
:)

Mekon are actually at a conference next week in Reading that you might be
interested in. You can find out more at www.x-pubs.com. If you want to come
to the event we can give you a discounted price of £200 (excluding dinner).
Otherwise, if you wanted to arrange a time for a chat during one of the
breaks (not lunch) then please let me know.

Adobe will also be at this event and you can learn more about the future of
FrameMaker.

Kind regards

Mark Poston
Senior Consultant
Mekon Ltd.
Tel: 020 8722 8461
Skype: mark_mekon.com

On 25/5/07 17:09, "Mark Lawrence" <marklawrence at firstreadthis.com> wrote:

> 
> Hi,
> 
> I hope you don't mind me introducing myself to the list and then asking
> a 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 loathe
> the 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 product
> on 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 using
> mailmerge.  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 share
> their 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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