Why Use FrameMaker in Technical Writing?

Adobe FrameMaker is used widely in technical writing for a very good reason. Watch this video for a brief comparison with MS Word and Adobe InDesign.

[melissab]

Valuable info for folks who know very little about FM (me). Thank you for sharing your expertise!

[bfaithwick]

Thank you for sharing you experience with authoring tools in technical communication. Very helpful to me. Used MS Word for training docs and will explore Framemaker

[eadecamp]

Thank you very much for this video. I am returning to the field of technical writing soon. Back in 2003-04 I did more maintenance on engineering technical manuals written in Word than writing one from scratch.

[diradeb]

Extremely helpful! Nice to meet another PhD in a technical discipline.

[moniquemontague]

I have been a tech writer for almost 20 years and no job I have been in uses FrameMaker. I think it is valuable to learn, but I am shocked this is considered industry standard. Other tech writers I have spoken with do not mention this application at all.

[PrinceKlutz]

I've been a contract tech writer for 30 years, and have been frustrated with Word for all that time. I downloaded the free Fm trial to try and learn Fm, but my laptop doesn't display the info very well. Parts of the screen are very light grey, almost washed out, and the main part of the lesson display is composed of very tiny panels which are impossible to read. When I attempted to increase display size to 250%, only the washed out light grey became larger and started to crowd the main part off the screen. I would have preferred to use this trial on a twin-monitor desktop setup, but I don't have one. I'm now trying Youtube to see if I can gain enough familiarity with Fm to get a job using it as Word's days are numbered.

[BoomerNuke-elfj]

Having used Microsoft Word extensively for technical documents, I would have to agree that Word is inherently unstable with all my documents having Heading Styles changing their settings without input? Also, the Master/Sub document fiasco makes documents unsteady & requiring constant monitoring. Just now, due to a job change, I'll have an opportunity to use Framemaker hoping it will solve my issues, we'll see?

[xnavyro]

Sir, I work in the nuclear industry where time is critical, I find that FM is difficult taking long periods of time to learn & use? If I had my choice, for what we do, I'll stick with MS Word, FM is too complicated!

[dutta.alankar]

How does Framemaker differ in comparison to LaTeX? I have been using LaTeX to write my scientific papers. The experience I can say has some learning curve but works well.

[Snacktime-]

Hope you are doing well Could you please make a video on API documentation and a real time example of it?

[hypercomms]

I have fond memories of learning to use FrameMaker back in 1992... these days I am becoming a software developer, but I am glad FM is still being used....

[llothar]

Does it work for software development?
Can it allow automated source code coloring via external tools and allows user defined scripts that hint where page breaks are most welcome?

[TuckFrump-rh]

I wish someone would do a video that explained how or whether high expertise in InDesign is or is not transferrable to FrameMaker. Does knowing ID really well give you ANY leg up on learning FM, compared to someone who doesn't know ID at all?

[alandaughtrey]

Should I use FrameMaker if I am producing scientific reports? I have multiple researchers creating these scientific report documents and giving them some me for editing. I use word now, but formatting is always an issue. As they are over 30 different customer projects the requirement for formatting is different. Most of these documents aren't longer than 20 pages or so. Is there something better suited for my task?

[SirMikeyD]

Please bear in mind that very few technical writers (the main audience for videos like this) are illiterate. Once they notice that the entire content here consists of a static slideshow being read back to them, they may well feel insulted! You do, however, make good points and deserve thanks for taking the trouble.

[ozy]

Word sucks... always has done, always will. The x-referencing in Word is just a nightmare and has been like that for donkey's years. Numbering in Word is another pet hate - always has been, always will. Framemaker, one you get the hang of it.. is a dream. solid as a rock, does everything.

[meetpatel]

Hi, I have a question and hope you can resolve that ..
So when I save an image via Snagit with LZW CMYK compression and .TIF format and when I import that image in Framemaker, the color of the image changes. The image turns little bluish. When I tried importing the same image in RGB format, the color remains actual and unchanged. Can you please tell me how can I resolve this issue. The image I want should be .tif only and LZW cmyk compression.

[llothar]

Shouldn't it be a comparison against MS Publisher instead of MS Word.