Metrics for converting FrameMaker documents to Word

[Writer]

According to my coworker (who has more experience with this using Mif2Go software), worse possible scenario is a day of work for such a document. She hasn't tried it by saving the files as RTF directly from FrameMaker, but Mif2Go outputs to RTF files.

Too bad that Word's master/subdocument feature doesn't work.

Nadine


--- On Wed, 4/8/09, Saunders, Ian <ISaunders at syntellect.com> wrote:

> From: Saunders, Ian <ISaunders at syntellect.com>
> Subject: Metrics for converting FrameMaker documents to Word
> To: "framers at lists.frameusers.com" <framers at lists.frameusers.com>
> Received: Wednesday, April 8, 2009, 8:16 AM
> 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
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