Metrics for converting FrameMaker documents to Word

[Saunders, Ian]

Hi,

Does anyone have a set of metrics that they use to estimate the time required to convert a FrameMaker 8 document to an MS Word equivalent?

My experience has been that saving a Frame file to rtf is fairly quick, with reasonable conversion of text and layout. But after that you need to do the following post-processing for each Frame file:
* Recreate xrefs and hyperlinks 
* Re-insert index markers (after first removing whatever it is they are converted to)
* Re-insert variables (or the Word equivalent)
* Re-apply some colours
* Convert the paragraph style names (if the Word and Frame templates use different ones)
* Remove odd blank paragraphs
* Possibly recapture graphics and re-apply callouts
* Tweak paragraph formats - like removing extra line spacing
* Edit tables so that row heights are not fixed and better fit the cell contents

The conversion and basic tidying seems to take about a minute a page (no variable or index marker insertion), and each xref takes about a minute to re-add; so a 50 page file with 2 xrefs a page would be at least 150 minutes of work. Does this seem right to you?

Then one needs to:
* Weld the individual files together into a Word file
* Sort out page and paragraph numbering.
* Add a TOC and index

I've not done these. Are they problematic? Are there any other major steps that I have omitted?

Will any third-party tools simplify the job?

Thanks for any advice you can give!

Ian Saunders 
Syntellect Inc, UK