Gal Aviel wrote:
[wants to switch from FrameMaker 5.5 to LyX] I wrote a proposal a couple of years ago to do just that where I work, kind of tongue-in-cheek but it got this -| |- close to being approved. > However this morning I saw that FrameMaker has a newer version, > namely 7.0, and it's suppose to support DTD/XML/SGML. [...] > > The restriction which is imposed on me, is that I must supply other uses > with valid FrameMaker files. > > My suggested intended flow is to write with Lyx/SGML, and when I'm done - > open in FrameMaker and save as FrameMaker native .fm file, thus distributing > to other users to continue to maintain my documents. It's possible to set up a DocBook-based interchange between Frame and LyX, but if you're not familar with SGML/XML it will be difficult. There are several factors: First, you have to get used to writing in a fairly strict, structured environment. I've been doing this (using Frame and a homegrown DTD) for several months now. It's hard at first, not being able to use any paragraph/character style anywhere you want to, but it does enforce consistency and makes the document easier to maintain over time. The really hard part is setting up the environment. The good news is that (I think) Frame 7 comes with a fairly complete DocBook "application" (the files it uses to drive the transform between DocBook & Frame). The bad news is that LyX does not provide the same strict structure for editing DocBook, so you have to make sure that files from LyX are valid before importing them into FrameMaker. Finally, you should assume that once you import your file into FrameMaker, that it may be hard to return the file to LyX without losing some formatting information. Speaking as a technical writer, FrameMaker is about as good as *graphical* writing tools get[1]. If you push it beyond basics, not even LyX can match it -- and LyX is one of the finest open-source tools around. To be specific, Frame's cross-reference support is extensive and very flexible[2], not to mention things like document variables and conditional text support... or the very flexible page layout (especially compared to LaTeX, which I personally find too rigid). It also does a fair job of typesetting; not as good as (La)TeX but much better than Word. (But Frame's footnote support is rather poor for heavy use -- I don't use footnotes at work though.) I assume that LyX is a good fit for the type of documents you're writing... but converting those documents to Frame may turn out to be non-trivial or require too much hand- editing afterwards to be of much use. It's certainly worth trying, and I hope it works for you. [1] Note the qualifier, "graphical." It's kind of frustrating that after 17+ years of WYSIWYG, there are still things that troff & TeX can do that are difficult or impossible with GUI tools. I'm pushing Frame *hard* at work these days with my current project, and sometimes I'd like to move the whole thing to groff (the other writers would scream bloody murder though). [2] You can build references that include paragraph text, numbering, page number, chapter number, on & on, with Frame. One instance where Frame beats the text-based tools for ease of use even for complex cases. -- Larry Kollar k o l l a r at a l l t e l . n e t "Content creators are the engine that drives value in the information life cycle." -- Barry Schaeffer, on XML-Doc