Converting to word

Hi,

I have read various posts about the difficulties converting from Framemaker to word and I hope that I don't have to investigate a third party.

I have tried to export my entire book to word- impossible. So, what I ended up doing was saving each chapter as an RTF and then converting that to word. Now, I have all my various chapters in word but, they are all so large. Should I just delete all my graphics and re-import them. Likewise my tables (which I will have to re-create??) Surely Framemaker can't be this impossible with compatibility? Going from Framemaker to word is becoming a huge headached- unless I am missing a feature that does work.

This process is very time consuming and frustrating. My document 150 + manual is text heavy and graphic heavy. I am using Framemaker 8 and the Technical Communication Suite.

Any help would be appreciated as I am about to loose all faiith in Frammaker completely.

Ingrid Exner

I think it would help if you could explain why you need to
convert to Word and how often you need to do this.

Is someone requesting a Word version because they want to
edit the document, provide feedback or insert review comments?
In many cases, PDF is a much better distribution format.

Is this a one-time single request or will it be done regularly?
Are you expecting to perform round-tripping via Word, that is,
edit using Word and then bringing the results back into FM?
Or are you moving from FM to Word completely?

FM and Word use very different document models, and some features
are impossible to transfer or will have limited use. If you expect
to have a fully functional Word/FM document after conversion, you
will become disappointed.
Also, high-quality Word conversion is not considered an important
feature by Adobe, and so the built-in capabilities are limited.
There are much better third-party tools, such as Mif2go.

Finally, remember that FM is not to be used as either a back-end
or front-end to Word. FM is an authoring and publishing tool on
its own, and your workflow should not be dependent on Word.

--
/Thomas Michanek

Ingrid,

From my experience, the best way is copy, then paste special>plain text. Forget about graphics, cross references, TOC's, and all formatting and numbering. That will all have to be redone. It really is a pain in the rear!

I picked up a PDF a couple of years ago from www.TechKnowledgeCorp.com that was very useful. The article goes into great depth to explain the problem and solution/work around. I could email the article if you'd like. Jonathon.Goff@L-3Com.com.

-JG

Thanks for replying Thomas,

It looks like I am be round tripping it a number of times. As it stands, I am the only one in the office with Adobe products on my machine (the others only have Acrobat reader and of course Microsoft word.) Word is used most often and is familiar to the others. The person editing right now, is using word. For his convenience, I have saved all the various chapters as RTF and then as word so that he can use the track changes option which he is familiar with in Word. As far as I know this is the only way that he can track changes and make changes directly on the document as he only has adobe reader and no other adobe products available to him. I am using Framemaker 8 in the Technical Communication Suite.

Do I basically have to re-build my document as I am converting back and forth between Framemaker and Word. My boss has asked that we have the manual in both versions simultaneously. Am I using the wrong tool?

Should I have simply stuck with Word. It seems that I have wasted a lot of time and effort determining that we cannot use Adovbe Frameker if the ediotr does not know adobe products and does not have adobe products on his machine.

You menioned editing the PDF- could he do this if he only has the free reader?

Thanks,
Ingrid

Hi Jonathon-

Unfortunately, when I tried to e-mail you, I received an invalid address error. Can you e-mail me the article at: ingrid.exner@viziy.com

Much appreciated and have you tried to send out the PDF and have someone edit the PDF? Does this person need more than just the free reader? My ediotr only has the free reader.

Thanks,

Ingrid

I tried your address again. No Luck. Please send article.

Thanks,

Ingrid Exner
ingrid.exner@viziya.com

Also, do I also have to re-do all my tables if I use the copy and paste method?

Ingrid,

If you have Adobe Acrobat Pro, you can set up a single file or a multi-person review so that anyone can use Reader to cut in edits, comments, attach files, add audio notes, whatever....

Unless there's something you haven't mentioned in your workflow, it's something that many of us do every day -- write in FM and have comment reviewed in PDFs. It's a much more standard workflow operation than trying to provide interactive support for Word from Frame.

Art

Hi Art- I have Acrobat 3-D. Does this work the same way? Where can I find this feature. I still think that they want the manual in Word as they are very familair with word and the track change option but, the multipe editing option (if it existsw in 3-D sounds promising.

Thanks,

Ingrid

Ingrid,
Yes, it's in 3-D, although I don't have it in front of me, so you may have slightly different menu entries than these:

Look on the Main menu under Comments (you need to have a PDF open).

* To set up a review, pick one of the Review options.
* To just enable one file for commenting in Reader, select Enable Commenting in Reader

These are fully documented in Acrobat Help and online, and there are tutorials for reviewers online too, I think,

Art

Ingrid:

I've successfully used a FrameMaker to RTF workflow for purposes of capturing review comments for several years.

Normally, saving a file to RTF will produce a reasonable facsimile of the FrameMaker file, albeit with a few formatting "inaccuracies". I use is a piece of email boilerplate that explains to the addressee that things like clickable cross-references and other niceties are lost during the export process; if an addressee is concerned about document appearance, I send a PDF along with the RTF for their viewing pleasure. The boilerplate also reminds people how to enable Word's Track Changes feature.

Before transmitting an RTF for review, I prefix the filename with "yyyy-mm-dd_hhmm_[iii]", where "iii" identifies the reviewer. This is for my own sanity, enabling me to keep track of iterations and reviewers as various review drafts fly around the organization.

Because RTF files are text-based rather than binary (ala DOC files), that you can use an archive tool like ZIP to compress the files. Since the primary reason for using RTFs is to avoid version incompatibilities, if you're sure a reviewer can open also an RTF in Word, then save it as a binary, and thus smaller, DOC file...

When it comes time to incorporate the RTF-based changes I typically just use copy "CTRL+v RETURN" to paste revised content from the RTF as plain text, then apply whatever formatting is required.

Cheers & hope this helps,
Riley