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RE: Flare or Frame as an intermediary for migrating to DITA?
Subject:RE: Flare or Frame as an intermediary for migrating to DITA? From:"Janoff, Steven" <Steven -dot- Janoff -at- hologic -dot- com> To:Scott Turner <quills -at- airmail -dot- net>, Robert Lauriston <robert -at- lauriston -dot- com>, "techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Tue, 14 Oct 2014 00:33:53 +0000
Maybe I can make this more meaningful for you.
Let's assume you would prefer Frame for this purpose.
I would want to know, have you used a CCMS with a built-in XML editor or a third-party XML editor such as oXygen, XMetaL, or the like?
And if yes to that, then do you think you would get better ROI by using FrameMaker as an intermediary to prepare your raw source files in DITA format for use in the CCMS, or would you have been better off abandoning FrameMaker for that purpose and going right to the native tool in the DITA environment (the CCMS's XML editor, whether built-in or third-party)?
That's the question *I'm* asking, and Robert is suggesting that NEITHER FrameMaker nor Flare will buy me an advantage over the native tool.
Do you feel differently?
Thanks,
Steve
On Monday, October 13, 2014 2:39 PM, Scott Turner [mailto:quills -at- airmail -dot- net] wrote:
I disagree with Robert's assessment. Though the test is in what condition the imported file is in. If it's line formatted then no matter what you use to import the file for conversion, you will have a lot of manual work.
The import filters in FrameMaker do an adequate job of importing Word files and retaining the paragraph and character tagging.
When using Word files that include graphics I normally save the word file as an html file to export the graphics for latter inclusion by reference in FrameMaker.
I have had mediocre experiences with Flare, and I never found it particularly easy to use or create documents from.
> On Oct 13, 2014, at 11:28, Janoff, Steven <Steven -dot- Janoff -at- hologic -dot- com> wrote:
>
> Thanks, Robert -- this helps big-time.
>
> Steve
>
> On Sunday, October 12, 2014 11:39 AM, Robert Lauriston wrote:
>
> I wouldn't use FrameMaker as an intermediary. It's not very good at importing anything.
>
> Flare does a pretty clean job of importing Word and FrameMaker, and can export to DITA. However, I'm not sure that would save you any time over using whatever native tools your DITA environment has. Worth a try but I would not expect much if any of the content to be tagged correctly.
>
>> On Sat, Oct 11, 2014 at 3:13 PM, Janoff, Steven <Steven -dot- Janoff -at- hologic -dot- com> wrote:
>> Short version of the question: If you're converting legacy content from unstructured to structured in XML/DITA, and let's say you have or will have a CCMS with either a built-in XML editor or a third-party one like oXygen or XMetaL... Would it make sense to use either Flare or Structured FrameMaker as your intermediary to convert unstructured content to XML/DITA and then export to your CCMS with editor?
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