Help Creation Flow and Upgrading from version 7.2 to the latest version

Tue May 12 06:14:22 PDT 2015

Hi Caroline,

I recently did this same upgrade (going from FM 7 to FM12). The learning 
curve was not bad. Mostly, it's getting used to a totally new (and way 
better, in my opinion) user interface. I recommend taking the FrameMaker 
10 essentials course that is in Lynda.com. Adobe changed the UI at ver. 
10, so virtually everything that is in that class applies to FM12.

File conversion, so far, has been pretty clean. I've had only minor 
problems, I have a set of templates that I use for various parts of our 
manuals (Title pages, TOC, Preface, Chapter files, and Appendices. Each of 
these templates has a number of paragraph and character formats that are 
unique to them. Once I was up to speed on FM12 (about a week, I think), I 
converted the FM7 templates to FM12 (start by opening the files in FM12 
and allowing FM12 to make them FM12 docs). Then, I went through my 
paragraph and character format catalogs and modified the tags, as 
necessary.

>From this point on, when I open a manual that was created in FM7, I first 
open the book file, then open each doc in the book file, save it (as 
FM12), then close it. Then I open my templates and import  the formats 
(usually just paragraph and character) as appropriate. I then save the 
book (as FM12) and I'm ready to work! I have some manuals that are 600+ 
pages and the whole process for them took maybe an hour or less.

Good luck!

Tom Beiswenger
Manager, Technical & Training Documentation, Project Manager - Inspection 
Business
Emhart Glass Mfg. Inc.
1140 Sullivan St.
Elmira, NY 14901
PH: +607 735-4279
FX: +607 734-8278
Mobile: +607 769-4779
Email: tom.beiswenger at emhartglass.com

From:   "Caroline Tabach" <Caroline at radcom.com>
To:     <framers at lists.frameusers.com>
Date:   05/12/2015 05:58 AM
Subject:        Help Creation Flow and Upgrading from version 7.2 to the 
latest  version
Sent by:        framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com

Hi,

At the moment we are using FrameMaker 7.2 and ePublisher Pro version 9.2 
to  create PDF files, and a collections of help files which are mostly 
html,  with 2 or 3 .chm files

The applications mostly run on Internet Explorer (and the .chm files are 
for the 2 that are not over IE).

I would like to upgrade our applications as they do not really run on my 
current operating system and because I want to also produce more modern 
output.

I need to make PDF, ePub, Responsive html and .chm.

What do you all recommend?
Is FrameMaker 12 enough to use stand alone?

Do I need ePublisher Pro or RoboHelp?

How would I go about importing my Frame 7.2 files into Frame 12.
Does it support them or would I need to save as MIF and then open the MIF 
files.
I have quite a lot of user guides.

 To what extent will FrameMaker let me change the design?

What is the learning curve from 7.2 to 12?

thanks

-- 

-- 
Caroline Tabach
Technical/Marcom Writer
e-mail: caroline at radcom.com
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