🚀 go-pugleaf

On 2009-02-09 17:02:28 -0400, stellarivera@adobeforums.com said:

> I just downloaded the 30-day trial version of FrameMaker 9. Our company 
> is thinking of buying it for our technical documentation. I have never 
> used it before and am finding it very user-unfriendly. There are no 
> free video tutorials available. I imported a Microsoft Word document 
> and was trying to set up a master page and fix the page numbering with 
> odd/even page numbers. I followed the instructions (or so I thought) 
> and all my page numbers were "4". I am a little frustrated and am 
> having second thoughts about this program. I thought Word was difficult 
> to manipulate for technical documents but I can't even get started with 
> FrameMaker. If anyone knows of a good video tutorial or even good hard 
> copy step-by-step instructions--not the user guide, I would sure 
> appreciate it.

It is called a steep learning curve. There used to be some example of documents
available on the Adobe web site. Back about FM5. Worth looking at and 
taking apart.

Once you get over about 10 pages the learning curve pays off. At two pages I
used MacWrite, but that is no longer a real option.

Word to Frame is had row to hoe! More an example of how it can be hard than of
how to do it even if it is an early and common path with available files.

There used to be third party manuals but I have not seen them recently. I
expect others will have consructive suggestions of tutorial material.

This same question was recently asked on another forum. I am a former user of FrameMaker and have been getting reacquainted after some time away from it. I found that the learning curve on FrameMaker really isn't any harder than most of the other software packages that I have used. They all have their little idiosyncrasies that you have to adjust to.

Since version 9 was just released (in the last couple of months), I don't know if you will find any non-adobe created books on the latest release. However, I would think books on versions 7 and 8 would give you a good foundation.

I saw a couple of people mention the following:

O'Keefe and Loring, "FrameMaker 7: The Complete Reference",
ISBN 0-07-222361-8, published by Osborne/McGraw Hill, which has now
been republished as "Publishing Fundamentals: FrameMaker 7", ISBN
0970473338, at: <http://www.scriptorium.com/books/fm7/index.html>

They also have an excellent book on Frame 8, "Publishing Fundamentals: Unstructured FrameMaker 8", ISBN 9780970473349, at: <http://www.scriptorium.com/books/fm8/unstrfm8.html>

In addition, they offer their workbooks for free on a wiki: <http://wiki.scriptorium.com/tiki-index.php>

Another user suggested Classroom in a Book, Framemaker 7.0.

I personally haven't used any of these, but you might give them a look.

I have been using FrameMaker 8.0 for almost a year. When I started, I found the Classroom in a Book very helpful for learning the basics. The only copy I could find at the time was for version 6.0, and even though it was 2 versions old, it was still very applicable, user-friendly and helpful. I have also found the workbooks at scriptiorium helpful. Those are the only 2 sources other than the user guide I have used so far.

Good luck,
Janice

... and fwiw, importing a Word file and trying to clean it up is something that even long-term FrameMaker users can find challenging <g> Try starting from scratch, though you can use Edit > Paste special to copy content in as Text or Unicode text without any "problematic" formatting.

Good luck with the book recommendations! and with FrameMaker - well worth struggling up that initial learning curve, 'cos the view from the top is fantastic.