FrameMaker Hands-on for free and a personal story

[Jeremy M Lerman <jeremy -at- INSPEC -dot- COM>]

Its easy to gain FrameMaker hands-on experience for free. Call Adobe, ask
for their sampler CD-ROM. When you have the CD, navigate to the
Tryouts>FrameMak directory. During setup you have the option to install the
demo or registered version. Choose the demo mode. Once installed you can
work in Frame as normal but the Save and Save As menu commands are disabled
- er, turned off - but you can still have a blast with this fabulous piece
of software. If you have an FTP connection, you can also download
FrameMaker 5.1.1 from ftp.adobe.com. Both methods install the 16-bit
version of Frame, which is ample for demonstration and hands-on purposes.

The registered version requires a serial number and many can be found on
the Internet. Even though I don't recommend this approach (it is illegal
and fraudulent), it might prove mission critical in the short term until
your purchased version of FrameMaker arrives from the software distributor
because you ARE going to buy FrameMaker in the end; there's no doubt about
it.

Here's a real world personal example for you. In an effort to
convince my new boss that Word 7 is a great pre-production tool but NOT the
best book production tool it is made out to be, I installed Frame as
detailed above and quickly created a couple of complicated templates for a
Reference manual using Frame's conditional text feature as a pseudo
layering facility for eventual Acrobat PDF, Internet, CMYK, and End-User
Medium Resolution PostScript versions of the same document. Then I saved
the templates to RTF, and opened them in Word 7 and Front Page 97 Beta (to
prove their retention of formatting in both applications and to satisfy
both his and my own curiosity.) Flabbergasted at the speed of the results,
my boss handed me a Word 6 file and a Word 7 file which Frame opened
immediately with index entries and headers and footers intact.

Then I uninstalled FrameMaker.

My boss called a managerial meeting where it was revealed that not only had
our R and D manager used Frame for years on the Unix platform (a twinkle
came into his eyes when he remembered those good old Frame days) but our
support manager in the States (he was visiting here at the time) also had
been using Frame for years but on the Windows platform. They both raved
over Frame's easy to use interface, autonumbering/titling feature and
speed; then they panned Word's implementation of the same features. That's
when I chipped in my tuppence-ha'penny worth; I've been using Frame on both
Mac and Windows platforms for a number of years and have never looked back
since and, no, Frame does not render Word useless. On the contrary, they
both require each other for professional, streamlined word crunching and
speedy book creation. And I mean speed.

The outcome of the meeting was unanimous; We were to purchase three Unix
Frame licenses and, yes Jeremy, one Windows Frame license for NT
Workstation.

Welcome to FrameMaker.

Regards,

Jeremy M Lerman

jeremy -at- inspec -dot- com