atw: Re: Who Uses What and Legacy Document Conversion (Word > Frame)

  • From: Michael Edward Granat <megranat@xxxxxxxx>
  • To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 14:19:52 +1100 (EST)

Dear Bruce (White),

From recent discussions here on the same topic, those dead keen developer 
types, 
using UNIX (with FrameMaker on that platform) can write their own macros in 
something horrid like the VI notepad development tool.

Yes there are tools to write (as in hand tool from scratch) macros (probably in 
C or C++, on UNIX) for FrameMaker, but there is no macro <<recording>> facility 
built into the product.

If you want, need and use readily accessible and editable automation, Word 
(although NOT a desktop publishing tool) is really your only choice.  
FrameMaker, for all of its nice ways, is still an object oriented tool working 
on a mid 1980s operational paradigm.  Macros run much more reliably with a page 
based tool anyway, as I would speculate that it is almost impossible to create 
a 
macro that will search for randomly placed, off page objects.

I am afraid that FrameMaker is still very much stuck in its old ways, for all 
its marvellous capabilities. You can blame Adobe for this, for not taking FM 
seriously as they (initially) saw it as a challenge for PageMaker, when they 
acquired the Frame Corporation for the Acrobat technology.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,

Michael Granat
Write Ideas

Quoting "White, Bruce" <white@xxxxxxxxxx>:

> Mick,
> While you are doing this can you find out about FM's
> equivalent to Word's macros.
> I own a copy of FM but have not been able to find a way
> to record macros.
> 
> Word macros are a fundamental part of what I do with
> documents.
> 
> 
> ?..Bruce?..
> WinHelp IT Editing
> ...we edit into hypertext formats
> mailto:white@xxxxxxxxxx
> (02) 9955 0344
> http://help2.nu
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