[Framers] Oh for the Good Old Days

[Steve Rickaby]

Hello Framers

The last time I used FrameMaker in anger (to typeset a book) was six years ago. I did it in FrameMaker 7 for Mac, under Classic, on a 2003 Apple Mac.

Just recently I fired up FrameMaker 12 (the most recent version I have or ever will have) to typeset a simple document. Oh my, what a hassle! Try as I would I could not get paragraph formats to 'stick', or to override paragraph formats that the app seemed to have unilaterally invented for itself. Even importing formats from a 'good' document didn't work. And now that my eyesight is poorer, I searched in vain for a setting to make the text in pods bigger. Or a way to get them to stay on the left side of the screen, as I'm left-handed.

This is absolutely not a request for assistance, just a howl of regret for what was. I took FrameMaker 7 on Mac to the level of setting up a semi-automated structured writing environment for a team of authors, the documentation for which ran to 70+ pages. I am heartily glad I don't have to do anything like that in a current version. (And yes I know that FrameMaker 12 is far from current, but from what I've read here things are little better now.)

-- 
Steve