XML authoring made easy
FrameMaker is a top-notch long document editor, capable of managing documents that contain thousands of pages. It is built from the ground up with consistency in mind, as you can see from this list of items that you can import from a template in both structured and unstructured documents. But when you start working with truly…
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Win great stuff from Adobe!
Adobe is running their 2018 Customer Experience Survey and their swag game is in top form! The survey should only take about 7 minutes, so hop over there before June 8th to qualify for the drawing. Be sure to let me know if you win so we can let Adobe know that their Tech Comm Tools…
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FrameMaker Templates
FrameMaker is a powerful tool for creating books and other long documents. If you’d like free training (including sample files and a 30-day download of the software) on how to get started with FrameMaker, see https://techcommtools.teachable.com/ Defining a template A template stores formatting information so that it can be applied to one or more documents…
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Making Your Life Easier: The 10 Coolest Features in Adobe FrameMaker
Listen in to the live version I’ll be giving an Adobe-sponsored webinar on May 3, 2018. To attend the webinar or listen to the recording afterward, register at https://2018-05-03-framemaker-with-matt-sullivan.meetus.adobeevents.com/ The back story OK, so you’re a technical communicator. And Adobe FrameMaker is one of the few tools you’d consider using for content creation. But let’s…
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Why FrameMaker costs less than Word
Interested in the recorded webinar that accompanies this post? I will add a link to the recording as soon as it’s posted by Adobe FrameMaker is better than Word for tech docs Of course, you probably already know or suspect this, since the MS Word fan club can be a lonely place to hang out. You’ve…
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The Top 5 Ways FrameMaker eliminates your MS Word cash leaks
I’ll be giving a webinar for Adobe on April 18 where I’ll be showing why FrameMaker is so much better and more cost-effective than MS Word for technical content. If you’re already a FrameMaker user, do your Word peers a favor and share this with them so they can move up to a more powerful platform! This…
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My Fm secret weapon: FindChangeFormatsBatch
FrameMaker does an amazing array of things. In particular, its ability to store formats in document catalogs can be both powerful and overwhelming when you have many documents to manage. One way that I keep my own work straight, and how I help clients get control of their own work, is by using the FindChangeFormatsBatch…
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FrameMaker 2017 update released (14.0.4)
FYI, if you haven’t updated your FrameMaker install in a while, Adobe released the 14.0.4.511 update on March 15, 2018. Here are the details per their post at https://helpx.adobe.com/framemaker/kb/resolved-issues-framemaker-2017.html Resolved issues When using FrameMaker’s CMS connector to access Adobe Experience Manager repository that hosts Adobe XML Documentation Add-on, the file check-out and check-in features do not…
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Customizing the FrameMaker Welcome Screen
Did you know you can fully customize the FrameMaker welcome screen? It’s easy with some basic HTML and CSS. But even if coding web pages isn’t your jam, you can still make some quick welcome screen changes just by swapping out a few files in your FrameMaker directories. See the end of this post for…
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FrameMaker – Aligning frames in HTML5 output
Author’s note: I’ve included a step-by-step video below, in case you need to solve this specific problem in your own work. I’ve written and presented many times on FrameMaker’s ability to publish to HTML5 and other web/mobile-friendly formats. I love how easy it is to work with HTML5 and how gorgeous the output is, especially…
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Fonts missing in PDF
Ever produce a PDF file that has weird boxes in place of the characters you had in your source application? It might have to do with the PDF setting you used to process the file. Check out this video to see what the problem looks like, and how you can produce a .joboptions file that will ensure…
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February 23 Video Newsletter
It’s amazing how much time it takes to do the “little” stuff! Here’s a peek at what I’ve been up to in February. Things I mention/demo in the video: TC Camp Mammoth Mountain Example of Recordings Only option for courses Gear List page Testimonials page Next week: Info on new 3-part webinar/blog/video series with Adobe…
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(FIXED) Spark feature request: Adobe Stock integration
Jan 2018 UPDATE: Adobe rolled out Spark/Stock integration along with a branding option within Spark posts. As a result, I can create images with a tighter, more connected feel in about a third of the time it took previously. The Stock integration allows me to search Stock’s images from within Spark, and allows me to…
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FrameMaker PDF Tips and Tricks
UPDATED Jan 20, 2018 I wrote this post in response to issues I encountered in getting PDF output from FrameMaker 12… While researching the problem, I found a number of potential solutions, so I decided to write this as a reference for the next time a setting goes awry! NOTE: While I prefer to use…
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Psst…Want some more free Dropbox space?
You probably already know you can get 2 free gigabytes of cloud storage by signing up for a free Dropbox account. But if you haven’t signed up for a free account yet, you can get an extra 500 megabytes of permanent space free (a total of 2.5 gigabytes) by clicking below. Sign up for Dropbox…
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