Adobe FrameMaker 7 review

Acrobat PDF files act as an excellent middleman between the printed page and on-screen delivery, but the most efficient way of publishing electronically is directly to the Web, which currently means directly to HTML. FrameMaker offers its own limited built-in HTML export, but greater control is provided through the bundling of a new version of WebWorks Publisher Standard Edition from Quadralay. By converting tags and embedded graphics based on rules and pre-supplied templates, WebWorks can take a FrameMaker document and turn it into a fully-working - if not fantastically exciting - browsable Web site complete with hypertext footnotes, cross references and built-in navigation.

The latest version of WebWorks also extends the formats that FrameMaker files can generate to include two PDA-based options in Microsoft's .LIT eBook (1.5 and later) and the Palm Reader formats. Significantly, the program can also be used to produce well-formed XML complete with styling information in either CSS format or the XML-based XSL (eXtensible Stylesheet Language). For the majority of FrameMaker users, this is an easier and more successful way to begin exploring and taking advantage of XML, which begs the question: why hasn't Adobe been developing its own system rather than buying in a cut-down third-party solution?

That's it in terms of FrameMaker's import and export capabilities, so what about its core design power? Master-page handling has been given a minor revamp with the ability to rearrange master pages in any order and to associate a master page with a specific paragraph tag or element. Otherwise, the big news that Adobe is pushing is that there's now a checkbox in the Import | Formats dialog that allows you to select/deselect all parameters.

The FrameMaker interface is prehistoric and its design capabilities haven't seen any significant new power since Adobe took over. It's almost as if the core cross-platform FrameMaker code is a blackbox that Adobe's developers are afraid to touch. Bundling Distiller, WebWorks Publisher and now the existing +SGML add-on has opened up important new output options to PDF, HTML and XML, but the program's antiquated working practices and design power have been left completely untouched - a reminder of the way things used to be in the days before Windows. Adobe needs to learn that you can't paper over the cracks forever - at some point, you need to restore, rebuild and renew.

FrameMaker's underlying principles and layout engine remain as powerful as ever, and for institutional users looking for long technical document handling and multichannel output it remains the most flexible choice. The fact is, though, that with the paradigm shift to XML-based publishing and repurposing, FrameMaker should be stronger than ever and winning new markets rather than trading on its past. Unless Adobe stops bundling and gets coding, that simply isn't going to happen and FrameMaker will remain a niche option.

Author: Tom Arah