You can now download the FrameMaker 9.0.3 patch.

Mahesh (http://blogs.adobe.com/techcomm over on Adobe does a great job of keeping us up to date with all things FrameMaker. This is available through Adobe Update Manager (AUM). This patch (9.0p250) must be applied on top of 9.0.2 (9.0p237) only. You can check for updates through Help->Updates Menu in FrameMaker.

Manish writes that the following workflows are now enabled and/or supported with this patch:

• API Command — The “New document command” in the quick access bar doesn’t get disconnected from the API command “F_ApiDefineCommand”.
• DITA — On converting DITA map, which contains nested topicrefs, to a book the content of the topic files was hidden in folder templates. In 9.0.3, the folder containing template will be labeled as: []
• DocBook — The starter kit unifies the XML and SGML applications and fixes various formatting inconsistencies in the XML application.
• Fonts — Opening/importing files created in FrameMaker 7.2 with virtual fonts applied to the text now correctly shows the text in FrameMaker 9.
• Markers — The correct Index of Marker(IOM) is generated for a file containing Markers that use structured building blocks.
• Memory — Memory leak shouldn’t happen while creating a book with FrameMaker components from DITA map.
• Message Box — FrameMaker doesn’t crash while displaying a message box during FA_Note_PreQuitBook notification, on the second call of F_ApiUpdateTextInset() and when F_ApiAlert() is called from within a FA_Note_PostQuitDoc notification.
• PreserveEntity FDK client — This can be combined with XSLT in XML applications to preserve variables and special character handling when documents are round-tripped between FrameMaker and XML.
• Spelling Checker — This allows words with special characters to be added to dictionary. It also shows the words with suffix “(s)” as correctly spelled now.
• Table Designer — FrameMaker doesn’t crash on switching on different tabs of table designer when context is set for book and panels are iconized.
• Tables — Table row element hides while using DITAVAL filter.
• User Variables — Deletion of multiple user-variables from Variable Pod should not crash FrameMaker.

Image courtesy of Adobe.com

Structured Documents

Manish adds that in structured document, now you can hide child elements even when in Show state if the parent element is hidden using conditional text. This is an additional option.

How Conditional Text works in FrameMaker 9.0.3

Download PDF on how Conditional Text works in FrameMaker 9.0.3

Get the PDF on Acrobat.com - https://share.acrobat.com

DPI resolution for PNG, JPG and GIF files

Adobe says that the dimensions and default dpi resolution for PNG, JPG and GIF files should not get corrupted when imported in FrameMaker.

FrameMaker 9.0.3 Release Notes

Technical information is at: http://blogs.adobe.com/techcomm/2009/10/framemaker_903_available_now.html

Wording of this technical document

Some of the wording is a bit odd. It refers several times to features that ‘may’ work.

What do they mean it may work? When will it not work? And why not?

Maybe I’m just being picky but these vague statements don’t encourage me to believe that it actually works. It’s more like Adobe is saying “well, whatever, it might work…”

I find this a bit odd. Does it work or not?

C’mon guys!

Of all the technical writing tools I’ve used over the years, Epic Editor was probably the most impressive, especially when it came to doing tech documents that involved DocBook and Dita.

It was difficult to learn – no point pretending otherwise – but once I got the hang of it, I used it non-stop for over 2 years. Then I switched companies are haven’t had the opportunity to use it again. With that in mind, here is a brief intro to EPIC Editor, Ivan’s favorite XML Authoring Software!
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What type of document types does EPIC Editor support?

First up, let’s define a document type. According to EPIC it “refers to a collection of files that together create an application for creating and publishing documents.”

Examples of different document types include:

• Schema or DTD
• Stylesheet(s)
• Sample and template instances
• Configuration files
• Programming files that further customize the authoring or publishing environment

What document types are available in EPIC?

EPIC Editor supports the following types:

ATI XML DocBook — version of the DocBook DTD extended to provide profiling and equation editing.

• ATI Simplified XML DocBook Article — extended to provide profiling and equation editing.
• ATI Very Simple XML DocBook Article is a schema-based (.xsd) XML document type based on the ATI Simple XML DocBook Article. This document type has no DTD.
• ATI Catalog is an Arbortext-developed document type, based on DocBook 4.0, for catalog applications.
• Article is an article format based on ISO 12083.
• DITA Concept, Reference, Task, and Topic — the primary categories used for technical documentation.
• Book – book format based on ISO 12083.
• DocBook V4.0 – used for computer software documentation.
• News Release – format for preparing news releases.
• Correspondence – for business letter or memo format with several styles to choose from.
• General Purpose Document  - reports, books, and other types of documents.
• ATI-MIL-M-38784C – CALS standard document type.
• HTML V4.01 – for publishing information on the web.
• XHTML V1.0.
• Free-form XML – for creating valid XML documents that do not have schema or DTD declarations.
• ASCII  - standard unformatted text character set.

How does it work?

The interface is simple and lets you get at the XML tags very easily.

This screenshot shows the results of a test on the clarity of the document (ie its readability) and the number of words.

Next is the toolbar.

This offers a range of features that should keep most all Technical Writers satisfied if they want to develop nice, compliant XML and DocBooks.

Note that you can create tags, split sections, insert tags, and check their integrity.

EPIC Editor won’t let you add tags if they are in the wrong sequence. It this sense it can be very unforgiving – but it is simply trying to retain the integrity of the underlying code. Once you understand how XML works, it gets much more intuitive.

You can also import text files from your PC and add them to the document set.

Once you have the document ready, you can compile it to Windows Help or transform it to:

• ASCII
• DITA
• Docbook source
• XHTML

You can also add entities and prolog definitions, but this is more for advanced users.

Tip: you can also select part of the text and validate it only.

Here you can insert markups into the content, usually as tags.

Preferences

You can configure it in different ways. For example, you can ask it to show Attributes, Comments, and Tag prompts. Whichever suits your style of working.

This gives you an idea of how it checks the xml code. Work your way through the errors and fix each one after reviewing it.

Like I said, I haven’t used this for a while. Let me know if you’ve used it recently and seen any changes.

How does it compare to other technical writing tools you have used?
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Syntext has released a free edition of its XML editor.

This is designed for technical writers who work with DITA, DocBook and other common XML formats. To reduce time from the authoring process, composite documents are rendered using XSLT and XSL-FO to achieve a print-like appearance.

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The XML editor supports Entity and XInclude editing, along with
drag-and-drop and instant validation against XML schemas.

You can publish content to multiple channels in a variety of languages, with support for multilingual spell-check.

Serna Enterprise adds drag-and-drop from Microsoft Word and web
browsers, along with support for large XML documents. Users can insert and edit DITA constructs including conrefs, xrefs, related links and topicrefs.

The enterprise version also integrates with publishing engines,
along with support for enterprise configuration and customized APIs.

Serna Free is compatible with both Windows and Mac platforms.

The Enterprise edition carries a price of $560.