Frame versus XSL-FO

[Scott Prentice]

Hi Ed...

If your PDF layout requirements are very simple, XSL-FO *may* be a good 
option for you. However producing two 1000-page publications once a year 
doesn't seem like it's worth the cost of implementing an FO-based 
publishing workflow, considering the fact that you've already got a 
perfectly good PDF publishing engine, and (it sounds like) the 
knowledge/inclination to make it work (FrameMaker).

In my opinion, FO is good for high volume and moderate to low PDF 
formatting requirements. Yes, you can make it do most of what you can do 
with Frame, but it'll require a huge amount of coding and effort. I have 
seen people spend well over $200K on FO development over many years to 
achieve moderate looking PDFs. Something that might take a week to 
develop with FrameMaker. The big thing that FO brings to the table is a 
simplified publishing pipeline. Implementing an automated XML+FM-based 
publishing workflow requires a bit more effort than a comparable 
FO-based workflow .. but in my opinion the PDF quality and the ability 
to easily make formatting adjustments to the FM-based process makes it a 
much better solution in most cases.

However, if you're just producing two 1000-page publications each year, 
you don't need an automated solution, so the rationale for FO would be 
reduced.

FO does also offer benefit if you're publishing to many (20+) languages, 
because managing FM templates/apps for many languages can be tedious 
(although I've got one client who is using DITA-FMx [the DITA+FM 
solution I offer] to publish to 27 different languages).

XSL-FO is a very complex language to learn and develop .. probably the 
most difficult I've encountered. People often head down the FO path 
because it's "free" (but no). First, you'll start with the default 
transforms provided with the DITA-OT .. this provides a very rough proof 
of concept .. sure, you'll get PDFs, but they are really ugly. So you 
start tweaking the FO code. Then you end up paying someone else to tweak 
the FO code .. more and more .. and finally get to something that looks 
acceptable. As long as your formatting requirements don't change, you're 
OK, but if you need to move a header or change a font, you'll probably 
need to hire that developer to tweak your code again.

With FM, you may need to hire someone to set things up (maybe not if 
you've got the expertise), but once it's set up, you'll be able to go in 
and tweak the templates or EDD as needed. Also, with FM you have access 
to the intermediate file (post rendering and pre-publishing), in case 
you need to make a manual adjustment. With FO, you're stuck if something 
doesn't render properly. You either have to weak the FO code more and 
hope it works, or just accept the formatting deficiency.

As you can see, this is something I feel quite passionate about. I may 
be a little biased, but I try to remain open minded, and do know that FO 
is a good solution for some situations. I don't think it's a good 
solution for you, but you may want to travel that path for a bit to see 
for yourself.

Cheers!

...scott

Scott Prentice
Leximation, Inc.
www.leximation.com
+1.415.485.1892

On 2/25/13 7:40 PM, Ed Nodland wrote:
> I have been using Framemaker to produce two 1000 page publications 
> every October since 2006.  Now I am faced with two issues.
>
> 1) Clean up my XML, EDD and template file for full round 
> trip capabilities; and
> 2) Convert to a DITA structure prior to adding several other publications
>
> The DITA community is leaning towards an editopr like OxygenXML and 
> using XSL-FO and a rendering package such as RenderX or Antenna House 
> to produce the PDF.
>
> _I am interested in any opinions_.
>
> Also, I could not find the search capability on frameusers.com 
> <http://frameusers.com> to search older topics by keyword other then 
> the archive that looks like something out of the 90's.  Am I missing 
> some capability somewhere?
>
> Thanks
> Ed
>
>

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