[Framers] FrameMaker 2019 Issues and First Look

[Oran Petersen]

TCS 2019 
I have purchased and installed this new version on two Win 10 computers, fully updated with version 1803. One is a Surface Book with a native resolution of 3000 x 2000. The other is a Surface Pro 3 with a native resolution of 2160 x 1440. Both have a 2nd monitor of 1920 x 1080. This is now a 64 bit program.

*The initial download from Adobe failed, showing complete when in reality it did not complete, making it impossible to install. An Adobe tech did a “back door” alternate process to fix that, and was helpful with the download and install.

Thoughts and issues so far for FrameMaker 2019 include:
The display scaling is broken. The main high-res monitor is great, with 200% text scaling on the Book and 150% on the Pro 3. But when you move the window to the 2nd monitor it does not rescale, making the text, menus, etc. huge. All other apps, including Frame 2017 work as expected. This makes Frame 2019 almost unusable on the 2nd monitor, or imagine, on any lower res monitor. 1080 is not the newest, but is not old either. It is awful at even the lowest text display setting of 100%. Frame 2017 had some display issues, but the scaling worked fine.

The PDF engine is a complete remake. The TCS uses Acrobat 2017, the latest version. The processing no longer uses the distiller. It is all internal. Frame “Save As” PDF does not allow you to choose your file name or storage location. The location must be set first in the Publish pod and is not held on a file basis. Frame Print Setup does allow you to choose an output folder, but the Publish output setting overrides it, so I see no value there. The only purpose for the distiller now seems to be to process postscript files to a PDF. Making a PDF in Word, Excel, etc. does allow choices for name, location, etc.

You must set the Win 10 file associations to use Acrobat 2017 as a default for the PDF extension. If you don’t, you get nothing; no file, no error message. This may be the issue for Susan Corcoran on her Thursday post of blank PDF.

So, overall, settings and management and creation of PDF with Frame 2019 needs work. Lots of it. Very confusing and convoluted with lots of broken code and different places to set things, some of which do not work. They did not get the interface between PDF in and out of Frame correct. Settings often do not “take” because they are stepped on by the Publish function.

The color management is now totally automatic. There is no choice of RGB or CMYK anywhere. Evidently the new engine determines the color model for each graphic and uses it for processing. This is an improvement if it works. This was another of Susan's issues.

So the fixes needed include:
*Display scaling across monitors with different resolution. (High Priority)
*Save As PDF needs to work as it did in Frame 2017. Publish functions should be an alternative, not a requirement. The Frame settings should have priority and not default to the Publish Pod settings.

As a workaround right now, most of us will probably use the Publish pod for everything. A real pain.
-Choose the Source Document
-Choose the output type (PDF)
-Create or Choose a settings file that is what you want
-Choose an Output Folder
-Hit the “Generate selected Output” Icon in the pod
-Hit the “View Output” Icon as desired.

Wow. This is an improvement? Before I could set up the PDF in Frame once for a file and it would work for that file every time, and I could choose a file name and location if desired. The default file name and folder was always the Frame name and Frame storage location. This was much better.

The above is a quick overview of a quick look at TCS 2019. There may be settings and methods to fix some of this that I have not learned yet. 

Your input is appreciated.