Reviews

"Not all technical authors are the same. That's why it's hard to select a single authoring tool that meets the need of each and every contributor. FrameMaker 11 acknowledges this problem and provides a much-needed solution in its new role-based views approach. Customizable authoring experiences -- XML Code View for power using code junkies, Author View for writers, and WYSIWYG view for those who need a simple, desktop publishing-esque view of the content being produced. A much-needed addition to the professional technical communication tool arsenal."

“The Code View in Adobe FrameMaker 11 gives me real-time access to the XML code I'm editing. Most of the time I'm in other views, but direct access to the code is a huge help.”

“The code view in Adobe FrameMaker 11 is fantastic. This one feature alone convinced me that there is an entire new group of users being addressed. The audience has become more technically savvy and demanding.”

“Adobe FrameMaker 11 is stronger, faster, and smarter. Authoring and publishing for today's cutting edge technical writer is about to get a whole lot better. My favorite features include Smart copying and pasting from Word into DITA elements, an editable XML view, and a host of new keyboard shortcuts.”

“XPath support in Adobe FrameMaker 11 is a great new feature that increases productivity, especially when working in large projects that involve numerous XML files. Being able to search XML documents and find elements, attributes, attribute values, text, and any other XML structure is much easier now. XPath support enhances the Find Element functionality considerably—I can easily find any structure in an XML document using XPath and switch to the document view to the corresponding FrameMaker structure. It also saves the most recent XPath expressions so I don’t need to re-type or remember them.”

“There are several enhancements in Adobe FrameMaker 11 that change the experience from simply writing content, to creating materials that incorporate multimedia in the form of embedded Captivate content. With a rich interface, new DITA capabilities, and some of the best PDF output that can be imagined, we've managed to create content for clients that far exceeds initial expectations.”

“The PDF round trip function in Adobe FrameMaker 11 has been useful to us with a current client project where we have dozens of topics updated every day. Rather than send a single PDF of 1000+ pages every few days with a request to review specific components, we instead send a PDF related to a single topic. After client review, we import the mark-up, make our edits, and resubmit. The time for reviews has dropped significantly.”

“We use the built-in templates and updated support for the full DITA specification in Adobe FrameMaker 11 to impress clients with the ability to create dynamic PDF files, develop world class content, and almost effortlessly manage the documentation process.”

“There is a lot of improved functionality within the way each core tool functions in Adobe Technical Communication Suite 4. The ease of viewing DITA source content in a true source environment is what we've had more and more client demand for. To have this as a part of the Adobe FrameMaker 11 is wonderful.”

“A colleague and I recently ran into two situations where the FDK did not create the results we expected. We needed immediate assistance, and reported both situations through the FrameMaker Bugs & Wish List. In each case, we were contacted by FrameMaker engineering within 24 hours. We were very happy with both the responsiveness of the support team, and the quality of technical support. This kind of agile customer support will greatly enhance Adobe FrameMaker's already-strong reputation in the industry.”

“The structured documents in Adobe FrameMaker make it easy for writers to meet organizational requirements for document content. Automatic formatting helps ensure consistency throughout an individual document as well as across a document set. Numerous everyday editing tasks are performed more efficiently in the structured environment than in a typical word processor. Since the underlying document model is consistent with that of XML, structured documents can easily be expressed as XML—and XML documents can be brought into FrameMaker. At the same time, writers need not see or even learn XML syntax. In fact, many publication groups benefit from structured documents even when they have no XML requirement.”

“I take advantage of the many out-of-the-box Adobe FrameMaker 10 capabilities almost daily, including enhanced and easier features for XML, DITA, ATA iSpec2200, S1000D authoring and publishing workflows, CMS integration support, and scripting language for automation. My favorite new feature is the Adobe FrameMaker 10 Server for cost-effective and powerful automated enterprise publishing. The server offers advanced scheduling, shareable publishing tasks, and multiple format and multi-channel output such as PDF, HTML, WebHelp, Adobe AIR, JavaHelp, and ePub.”

“Adobe FrameMaker 10 was one of the first authoring tools to support DITA 1.2. Conref ranges automatically insert a series of elements; keyrefs provide greater and easier control over referenced text and graphics.”

“Adobe FrameMaker is a flexible and powerful editing and publishing tool that takes advantage of the ideas of XML to improve those processes. In contrast, competing software is often designed specifically for editing the syntax of XML with publishing capability provided as a secondary feature.”

“Adobe FrameMaker provides an authoring experience that is similar to working in word processing software, so it feels more intuitive for our authors and allows them to focus on creating the best content they can, a lot of the actual structure is transparent, so they don’t have to worry about managing all the little details that typical unstructured processes require.”

“Structured templates in FrameMaker automate all of the page layout and look-and-feel elements, this lets our writers create, edit, and publish technical content quickly and easily”

“We have a number of new people come on board with every expansion of our business and many are not familiar with structured authoring. Adobe FrameMaker is so intuitive, they’re usually up and running after just one or two training sessions.”

“The real benefit is that all the tools and features a writer needs to complete a project are already built in and available in a single authoring environment. We save a lot of valuable time and costs because writers don’t have to worry about searching for the functions they need. It’s all right there so they can complete a project and continue working uninterrupted.”

“With Adobe FrameMaker, we can update a guide at any point during production. If we see something that needs correcting, we can go in, make changes, and republish it within hours”

“FrameMaker is an amazing tool that has adapted to the changing needs of document publishers, in terms of both media for compatibility with the formats used by other editors, and channels of distribution. FrameMaker gives us peace of mind: it has always provided the answer to the publishing challenges we face.”

“We evaluated a number of offerings, and only Adobe FrameMaker gave us complete support for automating and delivering large-scale documents, quickly and efficiently. We are confident that Adobe FrameMaker is the most powerful technical documentation tool on the market….Our customers expect relevant, readable materials. It was imperative that we bring consistency to our documentation so that our literature reflected a high standard of quality, and Adobe FrameMaker enabled us to do exactly that…Our clients have congratulated us on the quality of our publications. We have made real progress and have control over our documentation, in both content and style.”

“Adobe FrameMaker allowed us to gain more precise access to the information through cross-referencing, like in a book. Of course, the table of contents is still there, but now there are hyperlinks pointing to different sections of a manual to give readers more complete access to information….With the Adobe solution, we were able to enhance the information available while maintaining the same volume of 6,000 pages….Previously, for each amendment—no matter how simple—we needed a minimum of three days for editing and verifying the revision and formatting. This is now reduced to only a half-day. Our engineers can focus on their work modifying the content; the rest is handled by FrameMaker.”

“Adobe FrameMaker mapped nicely to our demands for an enterprise publishing solution. Its ability to manage long documents is outstanding. Plus, its structured environment and support for standards give us the control and access we need… With FrameMaker, we have better control over the layout and overall look of manuals. There’s also a boost in employee productivity because our content specialists are free to focus on writing and editing text, not on learning how to be page-layout experts…. Now, we can revise and reuse content easily across manuals, and then automatically insert it everywhere it needs to appear. The efficiencies could accelerate creating manuals by as much as 25%.”

“FrameMaker is not just a great XML editor for us, but it is a very cost effective XML publishing solution as well.”