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Wednesday, December 3 2003

Adobe announced a new version of its FrameMaker document creation and publishing software and said it will be available in January.

FrameMaker 7.1 is more versatile in that offers better XML and graphics support, and can now import PageMaker and QuarkXpress files more easily, allowing for a smoother migration, Adobe said.

“Many customers have a good deal of information stored in Quark or PageMaker, and would like to move to the powerful features of FrameMaker without losing that legacy information, ” said Karl Mathews, product manager for Adobe. “This upgrade enables them to do that quickly and easily.”

This is because FrameMaker 7.1 now has filters that let users import documents created using QuarkXPress Versions 3.3 to 4.1 and PageMaker 6.5 to 7.0. These tools are for Windows-only files, however, Adobe said.

In fact, FrameMaker 7.1 no longer runs on the Mac OS and is available only for Windows 98 SE, 2000 and XP or Sun Solaris Version 2.6, 2.7, 2.8 and 2.9. Adobe said it will continue to sell Framemaker 7.0, which runs on Mac OS 9.0, 9.1, 9.2 or Mac OS X v10.1 Classic. The company said it has no plans to port FrameMaker 7.1 to Mac OS X.

XML brawn

But perhaps the biggest change is FrameMaker 7.1’s improved XML features, ranging from its support for “roundtripping, ” to support for conditional text in XML documents and improved cross-referencing features.

FrameMaker 7.1 now supports “roundtripping, ” or the ability to open, edit and save XML files and DTDs within FrameMaker and then use the resulting XML files with other applications for further processing. XML documents opened in FrameMaker 7.1 are saved back to XML by default. In the previous version, they were saved as .fm files, the company said.

Version 7.1 also supports conditional text within XML documents. Conditional text is a FrameMaker feature that allows authors to maintain multiple variations of a document in a single source file. “For example, you may want to create a manual to be printed on paper as well as published via the Web, but with different text depending on the audience, ” Mathews said. “Conditional text allows users to keep the variations in one source file.”

With Version 7.1, conditional text settings are retained when files are saved as XML, Matthews said. Version 7.0 did not support the retention of conditional text within XML files, he said. Plus, since the files are saved as XML files, they can be repurposed for other XML workflows or documents, Adobe said.

The new version also offers improved cross-referencing between XML documents. With Version 7.0, cross-referencing was supported only within the same document. With 7.1, cross-references between XML files now work across FrameMaker documents as well.

Better graphics handling

Version 7.1 also includes better graphics support, Adobe said. For example, users can now import native Photoshop files directly into FrameMaker, as well graphics created in the latest PDF 1.5 and 1.4 formats. Plus, it can now render SVG graphics as vector graphics in print and PDF, providing far cleaner images even when users zoom in closely. Previously, SVG graphics were rasterized in print and PDF, Adobe said.

The new version also includes the most recent version of Acrobat Distiller, Distiller 6, on both Windows and Solaris.

Source: http://www.publish.com/