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Subject:RE: Guide to Visio for FrameMaker users? From:"Guy K. Haas" <guy -at- hiskeyboard -dot- com> To:"Dan Goldstein" <DGoldstein -at- riverainmedical -dot- com> Date:Thu, 15 Oct 2009 14:41:25 -0700
Not quite, Dan.....
Long ago, in a company un-merged, a developer created drawings in Visio
2003 and used them in a specification document created in MS Word 2003. As
is often the case, the developer was not a graphic designer versed in the
systematic use of the tool, but rather a software engineer drawing figures
with the tool he was given.
During the conversion process of the merger (actually, a two-stage merger
wherein Company A was merged into Company B which was shortly thereafter
merged into Company C), a tech writer read the specification, interviewed
the developer, and created a FrameMaker 7.2 document. The writer
recreated derivatives of (some of) the spec's Visio drawings in FrameMaker
graphics.
Company A had long been publishing its documentation using FrameMaker.
Company B had converted its documentation from FrameMaker into DITA in the
months prior to the A-into-B merger.
Company C had begun using XML before DITA was created, and the writers
from Company A were unsure which XML would be their ultimate target, so
they continued in FrameMaker for the duration, pending a Clear Plan from
The Powers That Be.
As the merger progressed, the Clear Plan chose to go with converting the
FrameMaker documents to DITA documents, and to use Visio artwork. But, by
that time, the organization had upgraded to MS Office 2007, and the writer
installed Visio 2007.
The writer began to address the issue of the drawings by exploring how
feasible it might be to just recreate the drawings anew in Visio, because
he had not kept notes with the FrameMaker artwork about which of a
collection of specs the drawings came from. When it became clear that it
would be far easier to use the original Visio drawings, the writer
enlisted the help of developers to track down the original drawings within
the MS Word 2003 documents and needs to:
1. move a handful of the drawing into Visio 2007.
2. alter some of them to match the derivative FrameMaker drawings because
the design of the system being illustrated changed since the original
specs with drawings were created.
--Thanks for all your help, folks.
Guy K. Haas
Software Exegete in Silicon Valley
On Thu, October 15, 2009 2:11 pm, Dan Goldstein wrote:
> Even worse! Visio is being used to edit a drawing that was copied from a
> Word doc and pasted into Visio. No source files, no joy -- just "oy."
Free Software Documentation Project Web Cast: Covers developing Table of
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2009 tips, tricks, and best practices. http://www.doctohelp.com/SuperPages/Webcasts/
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