TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:RE: Process for sharing FrameMaker files as RTF?? From:"Brierley, Sean" <Sean -at- Quodata -dot- Com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 15 Mar 2001 10:57:33 -0500
Hallo:
I understand. However, some options:
1) Use Adobe Acrobat Business Tools to let remote personnel mark-up PDFs.
2) Send PDFs. Have the remote's e-mail text back to you in any format,
referencing the pages of the PDF to locate the comments.
3) Send PDFs. Have the remotes print out those pages they need to, mark them
up, and fax them back.
The problems you face by sharing source files, be they Word, RTF, or
FrameMaker, are illustrated by your thought:
"Of course, it hasn't been working that way. I just got one Word
file back
that has no changes highlighted. Another person didn't understand
(even
though my email explained it clearly) that the table of contents
would be
automatically generated, so he went through the whole Word document
and
regenerated a (useless) TOC. Arrrgh."
Tracking changes works if you are collaborating with somebody who
understands how to use it. However, there is a reason that you are the
professional writer and "they" are not. However, if you have people creating
ad-hoc TOCs, changing styles, and the like, you are making more work for
yourself than any of the three suggestions I provide above.
My vote is that you implement and use Business tools and turnaround PDF for
review copy.
Cheers,
Sean
sean -at- quodata -dot- com
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Caitlin Gannon [SMTP:caitlin -dot- gannon -at- groupsystems -dot- com]
> Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2001 10:32 AM
> To: TECHWR-L
> Subject: Process for sharing FrameMaker files as RTF??
>
> Hello all,
>
> I am the only FrameMaker user/official TW in my company. More and more, I
> am
> finding a need to share source files with other people for editing
> purposes.
<snip>
> Here's what I hoped would work -- save the FM file as RTF (Japanese, since
> the other RTF format doesn't work); then, in Word, turn on all Track
> Changes
> options in the RTF document so that when the reviewers make changes, I can
> easily see what they are. I give the reviewer the RTF file, get it back,
> then input the new info into Frame, and all is well in the world.
>
> Does anyone else use an easier process for sharing FrameMaker docs? Any
> suggestions that might work better? I thought I was being so smart ....
IPCC 01, the IEEE International Professional Communication Conference,
October 24-27, 2001 at historic La Fonda in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA.
CALL FOR PAPERS OPEN UNTIL MARCH 15. http://ieeepcs.org/2001/
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
