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Re: FrameMaker > Help > FrameMaker?

Subject: Re: FrameMaker > Help > FrameMaker?
From: David Knopf <david -at- knopf -dot- com>
To: wpsynek -at- datadesignservices -dot- com
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2003 08:04:47 -0700

wpsynek -at- datadesignservices -dot- com wrote:

<snip>

So far so good, but here's where my question comes into play... the
software group's plan is to have me incorporate the accumulated "minor"
changes into the FrameMaker source at periodic intervals as part of a
"major" update.

Is there any way to easily (or not so easily) get these changes from the
help files back into FrameMaker?


Easily? No. RoboHelp does not provide any change tracking mechanism that would help you identify what changed and where. Not so easily? Sure. You can manually check every topic to look for things that have changed.

At this point I have no clue as to how the changes to the help files could be tracked so that the FrameMaker source files can be updated
relatively painlessly.


With the workflow you've described, you'll have to give up on the "relatively painlessly" objective. That's just not going to happen.


Any suggestions?


Yes, change the workflow. You're trying to combine two tools, RoboHelp and FrameMaker, that don't play nicely together. You could: (a) write all the content in FrameMaker and use WebWorks Publisher or Mif2Go to produce the online Help directly from the FrameMaker files; or (b) write all the content in RoboHelp and, when content is finished, export it to .doc format, import the .doc into FrameMaker for final production. Either approach would make more sense than the one you've described.

Regards,


--

David Knopf ~ Knopf Online ~ San Francisco
mailto:david -at- knopf -dot- com ~ http://www.knopf.com

Consulting & Training for Technical Communicators
FrameMaker ~ WebWorks ~ Structured Authoring ~ XML
WebWorks Publisher Certified ~ Adobe Certified Expert: FrameMaker
Member, JavaHelp 2.0 Expert Group
Moderator, HATT & wwp-users





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