FM9 Newbie looking for best self training tools

[Gary Schnabl]

On 7/11/2010 12:24 PM, N Collins wrote:
> Hi!
>
> I'm still using the trial version and need to make a recommendation to a
> client on if FrameMaker is the right tool for their system instruction
> manuals.  Client has a job shop and sells many unique system configurations
> made from standard components to private and government clients.  The idea
> is to quickly assemble a unique manual for each system order shipped.  If I
> recommend FM, then client will buy FM and pay for training for several
> users.  The client is biased against Word, and frankly for any
> document larger than 50 pages, I agree.  Word gets tangled on itself over
> large files.
>
> I've never used FM before and trying to learn 9.0.  I'm an advanced user of
> Word, in Windows 7 (technical writer using Word for over 15 years).  I
> bought and went through most of "Classroom in a Book" for FM9, but I'm
> stumbling over the vocabulary (things like Headings versus Markers don't
> seem to be 1:1 meanings, for example).  Dummies books have always given me a
> great head start, but the only one out there I can find is Framemaker 5.5
> for Dummies.  My thought is that Dummies/FM 5.5 could at least help me
> understand how FM "works/thinks", achieve a rudimentary glossary, so then I
> can use other FM training tools.
>
> What I'm tasked to do is to create multiple individual files with unique
> content, and create various manuals with different file combinations - each
> manual with a table of contents and index and automatic page numbering.  I
> think I'm supposed to learn unstructured first in order to do this?  Or do I
> need to learn structured first and make some master templates?  Any
> suggestions or perhaps anyone care to send me an example to play with?
> Maybe I should forget about FrameMaker and try something else?  I'm open to
> your suggestions.
>
> Any help or suggestions are greatly appreciated!
>
> Thanks!
>
> Corrie in Tempe, AZ
>    

As mentioned before, try to pick up version 7.x inexpensively via eBay 
or whatever and bid low. The help guide and "online" PDFs has hundreds 
of copyediting errors (seem to have been written by those with poor 
English skills...), but are decent enough to learn both conventional and 
XML-structured FrameMaker. If you do any DocBook, make sure you use 
version 4.5 or 5.0 instead of 4.1.2 from 2002.

The help guide and PDFs from version 8 are better written and apply 
pretty well to the older 7.x. If you can get a version 7.x, try to get 
version 7.2. Otherwise, get a cheap version 8, if one is available.

Version 10 should be released soon, along with the rest of the technical 
suite that have not yet been updated. Once they become available, all 
older FrameMaker versions should become even cheaper. So, waiting a bit 
should not hurt.

Gary

-- 

Gary Schnabl
Southwest Detroit, two miles NORTH! of Canada--Windsor, that is...