Keep publishing on track in a world on the go with the 2019 release of Adobe FrameMaker Publishing Server. Significantly boost performance with support for a new 64-bit FrameMaker. Secure PDFs with a password. Remotely automate tasks via a web-accessible dashboard. Use templates and presets for consistent output.

To my understanding, yes. Adobe has two applications, PageMaker, and FrameMaker. PageMaker is an old desktop publishing standby, used to lay out a document. FrameMaker is much more ambitious, and I've never used it.

It is used to produce. As best as I understand it, the difference is between Netscape Composer (for HTML), and Adobe PageMill or GoLive, where one will generate pages, and one will generate sites. Or to put it another way, Adobe is setting up InDesign to be the modern update to FrameMaker, I believe. Part of InDesign's job description is allowing the designer to create one document, with the capability of outputting it into several formats: webpage/website, PDF for web, PDF for print, for print in general, etc.

I dunno if that description is clear to you, but FrameMaker allowed you to design and maintain collections of documents, and not just a document in the singular. PageMaker defined a document in the singular. So you can imagine FrameMaker being used to design and maintian the whole collection of O'Reilly books, where PageMaker might be used to design one single book. Full version minecraft.

This is of couse hearsay, since I've only used PageMaker, and worked with Techs who used FrameMaker. FrameMaker isn't really all that difficult to learn, particularly if you have any experience with markup languages like HTML. If you've done any development using HTML+CSS, FM should be a snap to pick up - the concepts are virtually identical when it comes to managing content and presentation. The reason a lot of people run screaming from FM is because it's not a Word work-alike. Word has a 'text-first, formatting-later' paradigm.

Framemaker is more of a 'structure+style first, content last'. But it's flexible enough that you can often do this backwards too. In FM, you basically build your structure independently of your text.

You define where the text will 'flow' and you decide on the appearance of certain classes of text (Headings, bullets, etc, etc). When you get your text into your flows, applying styles and formatting is a no-brainer (in fact, it's probably already done). If at some point you decide you want to change the appearance of all your headings throughout the document - a single change is all that's necessary, because it can be applied to all your 'heading' elements. (Word has this capability with Styles, but I've never seen it work well in practice).

What makes FM even more compelling is its ability to work well with massive documents and document collections. Because of FM's extensive use of markup and tags, you can automatically generate virtually any type of index imaginable on-the-fly. Cross-references are a joke, even across multiple documents. Creating books is easy in FM. Editing even a 100-pg document in Word can be nightmarish. The only major complaint I have with FM is that it hasn't yet been Carbonized. Others have complained (with good cause, IMHO) that its mathematical type-setting leaves something to be desired when compared to TeX.

But it is definitely the killer app for technical writers. Speaking of TeX, I think you'd be well served to learn LaTeX too as a tech writer.

Quote: Originally posted by OrangeCream: Or to put it another way, Adobe is setting up InDesign to be the modern update to FrameMaker, I believe. Part of InDesign's job description is allowing the designer to create one document, with the capability of outputting it into several formats: webpage/website, PDF for web, PDF for print, for print in general, etc. InDesign is worlds away from FrameMaker. The two are intended - I think - for VERY different uses. InDesign for highly-creative and flexible layout (magazines, brochures), FrameMaker for highly-structured documents (books, manuals, technical documentation). There is definitely overlap, but the difference is in the workflow. InDesign/PageMaker make it very easy to adjust your layout and it's assumed that most text will be linked in from an external file or editor.

FrameMaker makes it very easy to enter content in a rigid, standardized way. PageMaker and FrameMaker were both apps that Adobe gobbled up through strategic purchases (from Aldus and Frame Technology, respectively). The similarity in names is - I think - coincidental. Although maybe Aldus chose the name PageMaker to play on FM's reputation in the publishing industry.