[Framers] transitioning from Frame 7 to 2020

[Reng Winfried]

Hi Wendy,

I think that FM 2020 is much better than FM 7!
And Acrobat does not cause any problems.
In my experience FM 2020 in the latest version is very stable.
After the installation update to FM 16.0.4 (Help | Updates).
16 is the internal major version number.

Yes. Saving as MIF from FM 7 and then saving this with FM 2020 is a good idea.
If you have lots of files, you might buy FrameScript and ask
one of the developers on this list to provide a script which saves
as MIF automatically.

Your fonts should only be a problem, if you have a font with a special
encoding, e.g. for Eastern European languages.
(In marker text this could be a problem.)
FM now transfers also old non-Unicode fonts without issues.
Generally I would strongly recommend to switch to a Unicode font!

Apart from this I never heard of any issues.
And also users who upgrade with each version have old files which they have
to update.

Yes. You can install as many FM versions in parallel as you like.
(With Acrobat you can install only one version.)
You do not have to uninstall FM 7.
Only install Acrobat first and then FM.
If you install on a new PC, install Acrobat first, then FM 7 and then FM 2020.
Then the fm file name extension will be bound to FM 2020.
If you have Acrobat Standard or Pro, do not install the headless Acrobat Distiller of FM 7!

Best regards

Winfried

-----Original Message-----
From: Framers <framers-bounces+w.reng=carecom-solutions.com at lists.frameusers.com> On Behalf Of Wendy McGovern
Sent: Thursday, April 21, 2022 8:26 PM
To: framers at lists.frameusers.com
Subject: [Framers] transitioning from Frame 7 to 2020

Hi, Framers,

We are finally going to bite the bullet and upgrade our nice, stable Frame 7 to the newest version. Theoretically, an old version of Frame should have no problems being opened into the newest version. But I have a feeling there may be problems opening some of our really old files because of old graphics and font problems and other miscellaneous weirdnesses. And IT will probably be upgrading us to the new Acrobat version as well.

>From what I saw of the installation instructions on the internet, you have to uninstall the existing Frame in order to install the new version. So my question is-are there any gotchas to know ahead of time to make sure old Frame 7 files open into the new 2020 version? (I know you list people haven't had such a large gap in versions as we have.) What happens if the new Frame refuses to open a file and we don't have the old version to be able to alter it in some way? Can you change an .fm extension to a .mif extension to try to open it?

I may be worrying too much and it may work just fine; just want to be proactive based on my experience with upgrades screwing up things that used to work.

Wendy