Framemaker to Word and back to Framemaker?

[Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca>]

Pro TechWriter wondered: <<I have just heard about a contract  
position to create Framemaker documents, convert them to Word, and  
then convert them back to Framemaker... Does anyone know why anyone  
would *want* to do that?>>

Usually for review. Frame is a specialized tool, and I don't know  
anyone outside our little community who uses it. Yet everyone uses  
Word or has a copy available to them (it's pretty much inevitably  
hidden away somewhere on any Windows PC, sometimes as a demo  
version). So you can bet that just about anyone can read and revise  
Word documents -- and if they don't have Word, they probably have  
WordPerfect or OpenOffice and can use that instead.

Word's still a great choice if you need to use revision tracking  
(i.e., editing or revising more heavily than is feasible in PDF). I  
haven't used Frame, but from what people tell me, it doesn't have any  
significant revision tracking tools other than the "compare  
documents" feature*, and in my experience, that type of feature is  
useless when (as is often the case) you have overlapping and  
contradictory reviews by different reviewers in the same document.  
Word still beats the competition hands down when it comes to revision  
tracking -- though I'm way out of date on WordPerfect, so I may be  
misjudging it.

* If I'm wrong about this, please start a separate thread and provide  
details. I'd love to learn more about editing in Frame!


----------------------------------------------------
-- Geoff Hart
ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca / geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com
www.geoff-hart.com
--------------------------------------------------
Coming soon:  _Effective onscreen editing_
(http://www.geoff-hart.com/home/onscreen-book.htm)


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