[Framers] Contents of Framers digest... Why so many of us feel the way we do....

[Dennis Hays]

Way back in the dark ages, when FrameMaker was first ported to Windows, 
I worked with a FM staff member, Mercedes (still fondly remember her), 
to address bugs and issues. She sent me updates via overnight courier 
and these were multiple disk sets, calling for a fresh install. The 
reason I remember her name is because we talked almost daily and 
installation disks arrived weekly or more until the issue count dropped.

Of course, I don't expect this level of customer service anymore from 
any software publisher, but through the years I have had bits and pieces 
of exemplary support. On a contract to bring a trade book to press, I 
worked with Dov over the phone as to why illustrations with schematics 
wouldn't reproduce lines. and this from the printer's site in Michigan. 
More recently, I worked with Adobe to resolve an issue where importing 
and converting a MS Word document crashed FrameMaker (MS Word Track 
Changes caused the problem - this was last year).

I am not happy with the subscription model as I believe it's an 
egregious affront to hold the software hostage when missing a 
subscription payment. From a business point of view, it's a cash flow 
solution, reducing the seasonal vagaries of software sales. But it's not 
customer-centric.  And this is a problem.

A while back, someone on this forum mentioned difficulty finding a 
FrameMaker manual. I have a 1241 page Adobe PDF version dated June 1, 
2021 on the cover page. It's a 46MB file, but if anyone wants a copy, 
I'll post it where it can be downloaded.

Dennis Hays
Ex-Publisher of the now-extinct InFrame Magazine


Böðvar Björgvinsson wrote on 10/20/2021 7:54 AM:
> Dear Wim,
>
> I do think Adobe reads this list, at least from time to time. So it is
> IMNSHO essential that we discuss, not only the day-to-day problems we are
> facing in our tasks with FM but also its pros and cons. I for one welcome
> the discussion of the attitude that Adobe seems to show regarding
> development, pricing, etc. of FrameMaker. I am of the view that Adobe is
> (intentionally?) making it less of a competitor to InDesign by refusing to
> add features that ID has and we have asked for to be added to FM. If they
> did, and if they would enable you freely to add spell checker and
> hyphenation for your language of choice, FM would be the absolutely best
> tool for writing, editing, publishing any kind of literature. Then even I
> would pay for upgrades. Until then I am not upgrading. I can do with older
> versions quite easily.
>
> Kind regards,
> Bodvar Bjorgvinsson (retired)
> Iceland.
>
>

-- 
DENNIS
Hays
Quantum Mechanic
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/dennishays/>

	
+1 518.779.2322
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