You might evaluate migrating to Flare, its Word export and import are significantly better than FrameMaker's, and its FrameMaker import is very good.
MadCap now claims that Flare supports round-tripping for use as an add-on for FrameMaker. I don't know if that's an exaggeration or if it still requires some manual cleanup in FM after import as it did in 7.1: http://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=13473 In my last job I was unable to get RoboHelp's Word export to do what I needed it to do, but if you've ordered TCS5 anyway, you might as well give it a shot. But that won't improve import. On Fri, Feb 21, 2014 at 6:20 AM, Harding, Dan <dhard...@illinois.edu> wrote: > Good morning, > > We have used the same authoring process for eons: Authors/editors work in MS > Word, as well as preliminary indexing work. I then take the MS Word file, > import into FM (unstructured) and do the final print-ready formatting, making > things adhere to our publishing standards and tightening up consistency. > > As a process it work well... until it's time to revise the book for the next > edition. > > Our authors and editors will ONLY work in MS Word. PDF comments/revisions > will not work, as there frequently are extensive revisions including > insertion of new sections (multiple pages) of content, as well as shuffling > of content. > > When I export the final FM version back to MS Word for them to work on, the > conversion is VERY crude and frequently requires extensive work on the > post-conversion Word files for the editors to be able to work within the > files. > > Then of course there's the reformatting from scratch in FM when the revisions > are done (which actually is faster and more reliable than trying to reconcile > changes in the MS Word version with the existing FM version). > > Is there a better way to perform the round-trip process given the MS Word > requirement, and barring that, are there better ways/tools to get cleaner MS > Word files from FM than exporting to RTF? _______________________________________________ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
