[Framers] What do you say when FrameMaker disappoints?

[Yves Barbion]

Yes, I'm afraid you're the only one, Alan. I've just tested Help > About
FrameMaker and this works for me. ;-)

@Rick: does FrameMaker crash consistently in a given chapter or on a given
page? Maybe there's a vector graphic on that page which does not have the
fonts embedded (used to be one of those old problems)? And have you tried
to select RGB instead of CMYK in the *PDF Setup *dialog?

For me, this is one of those weird things in Frame: If there is a problem
in the PDF file, say random text missing
​ on some pages, Adobe Support's advice was to select RGB instead of CMY​K.
Usually, this solved the problem indeed, but what if I wanted to create a
CMYK PDF file with ALL of my text in there? And how are different color
models related to missing text? This problem still seems to be there in Fm
2017 because next to the CMYK option in the PDF Setup dialog, I read the
ominous message: "Recommended to choose RGB option for Right-to-Left
document". That's a nice warning but... how do I create a CMYK RTL PDF
(nice acronym stack ;-)) then?

Still, I like FrameMaker's flexibility to format DITA-structured content
and generate pretty nice PDFs (with some help from DITA-FMx, of course ;-)):

http://flowtime.be/DITA/PDFs/index.html


Cheers

Yves Barbion
www.flowtime.be








On 10 February 2017 at 15:42, Alan Houser <arh at groupwellesley.com> wrote:

> This issue has frustrated me for some time. The FrameMaker app appears to
> be a whack-a-mole of unhandled exceptions. Am I the only one who gets an
> immediate crash on "Help>About FrameMaker" in FrameMaker 2017?
>
> Still, for FrameMaker's "sweet spot" (desktop publishing of large PDFs,
> which many orgs will continue to require into the foreseeable future), I
> don't see many good alternatives.
>
> One recurring issue among my clients ... FrameMaker is rather intolerant
> of network latency. This usually shows up when saving FM files to a network
> drive, but may be an issue when generating PDF. I also see PDF failures
> relating to graphic file corruption. I know you're aware of these issues,
> but thought I would mention them.
>
> -Alan
>
>
>
> On 2/10/17 8:54 AM, Rick Quatro wrote:
>
>> Hi Framers,
>>
>>
>> I received this from a client earlier this week:
>>
>>
>> Rick,
>>
>>
>> We've been adding a lot of material to the ... Service Manual and today
>> when
>> ... attempted to run a PDF it crashed the same way the ... Service Manual
>> is
>> crashing.
>>
>>
>> This is a huge problem for us. Our whole workflow is predicated upon
>> FrameMaker working correctly with these large files. Have you had any luck
>> finding out why the ... Service Manual is crashing?
>>
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> ...
>>
>>
>> As you can image, this is very frustrating for me as a FrameMaker
>> consultant, especially since I recommended that they use structured
>> FrameMaker for their manuals. It is frustrating for my client because they
>> have been asked to quote on another large set of manuals, but now they are
>> afraid to move ahead with FrameMaker. I have tried to run the books with
>> FrameMaker 2017, but this crashes also. I have reached out to some of my
>> contacts at Adobe, but have heard nothing.
>>
>>
>> We need structured FrameMaker because custom HTML5 output is a
>> requirement.
>> But to not be able to create PDFs from FrameMaker? This is very
>> disappointing.
>>
>>
>> My suggestion for the next version of FrameMaker: go 64-bit and rewrite
>> the
>> print engine to make PDF generation faster and stable.
>>
>>
>> In the meantime, I will start looking at alternative solutions.
>>
>>
>> Rick
>>
>>
>> Rick Quatro
>>
>> Carmen Publishing Inc.
>>
>> rick at frameexpert.com
>>
>> 585-366-4017
>>
>>
>>
>
> --
> Alan Houser
> Group Wellesley, Inc.
> Consultant and Trainer, Technical Publishing
> arh on Twitter
> 412-450-0532
>
>
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