Converting to word

Ingrid,
I'm no expert at FM-to-Word conversions, but I can tell you that
trouble-free round-tripping is impossible. You *will* lose
features and even content in both directions of conversion.

I'm not sure how your group is organized, but it seems like an
odd decision to have you use FM while the other writers (?)
will use Word. If this is a group of writers/publishers, you
need to use the same tools. However, if you're responsible for
the publishing part, and the other people using Word are really
developers or other SMEs (Subject Matter Experts), then it's
workable for you to use FM and the others using Word. However,
if the others really are considered writers or have as their
task to edit (author) source documents, then it won't work.

You have to convince them and your boss that you're responsible
for editing the manuals, and the others are reposnsible for
providing input and comments, i.e. work as reviewers rather
than writers. A reviewer should either use Acrobat Reader with
commenting-enabled PDFs, or possibly Word files. In either case,
it's your job to take their comments (PDF) or edits (Word) and
incorporate them into the source documents (FM). This has to
be done more or less manually, no round-tripping will work.

> My boss has asked that we have the manual in both versions
> simultaneously. Am I using the wrong tool?

No, you're using the wrong boss ;-)
Seriously, there's no practical reasons for having the manual
in more than one format. If you cannot convince your boss of
this, then you may have to give up FM...

> Should I have simply stuck with Word.

Hard to say. Perhaps your manuals can be authored and maintained
using Word without trouble. Most writers will find that FM handles
a lot of things better than Word, though...

For information on FM-to-Word conversions, see:
http://www.techknowledgecorp.com/public/word2frame.pdf
http://www.omsys.com/dcl/mif2rtfp.htm

--
/Thomas Michanek

Ingrid,

Read Thomas Michanek's previous post 10 times and then read it 10 times more. And then take it to heart. Trying to maintain or roundtrip a large manual in two DIFFERENT formats is virtually impossible and a waste of time. If the manual's being in Word is just for the convenience of the reviewers/editors/SMEs, then they should learn to use Acrobat for reviewing.

If it boils down to using one or the other, I would vote on Frame, even though you can probably do it in Word also. I just prefer Frame to Word for large manuals.

Good luck,
Van