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From: debra@salt.acc.com (Debra Tivetsky)
Newsgroups: comp.text.desktop,alt.sys.sun,comp.text
Subject: Re: FrameMaker
Message-ID: <1990Jul19.052702.16165@salt.acc.com>
Date: 19 Jul 90 05:27:02 GMT
References: <392@echbull.bull.fr> <12980002@hpspdra.HP.COM>
Reply-To: debra@salt.acc.com (Debra Tivetsky)
Followup-To: alt.sys.sun
Organization: Advanced Computer Communications, Santa Barbara, California
Lines: 48

In article <12980002@hpspdra.HP.COM> on comp.text.desktop 
   howeird@hpspdra.HP.COM (Howard Stateman) writes:
>>I'm a new FrameMaker user. The product is easy to use, but for some specific
>>things (like importing troff) it's not trivial.
>>My question is : is there a group (or mailing list) of Frame users ?

>Me too!

I'm installing FrameMaker on a SparcStation cluster, and we need to
migrate a stack of existing documentation part of which is done in
Microsoft Word and part of which is done in pic/tbl/troff/postscript
using a homegrown macro package (extensions to -me).

We are having problems getting the Frame import filters to work, and
Frame's support group is *very* hard to get in touch with (like several
days to call back :-( :-(). So far, the only other person I have talked
to about troff import filters, had tried but given up.

(1) Has anyone successfully used filters to migrate from a troff
    environment to a Framemaker environment?  

    I'd be interested to hear what works and what doesn't work.

(2) Would you pre-process the macros to "raw" troff, or is the filter
    supposed to "know" -me macros and translate them to equivalent
    structures ?
    If the translation is done AFTER the macro pass, how editable is the
    resulting FrameMaker document ?

(3) Also, what filter packages are available and what are their merits
    and their problems ?

(4) Are there any conversion utilities available from 3rd parties or
    from net.people ?

(5) Same questions about Microsoft imports ?

I have crossposted to both comp.text groups and also to alt.sys.sun with
followups to alt.sys.sun; the choice of the latter for followups, is
because as a system manager, I hardly ever get time to get down to
comp.text.

If you email me responses, I'll summarize to comp.sys.sun and
comp.text.desktop when I've learned something.
-- 
/ Debra Tivetsky           805-963-9431                  debra@ACC.COM
  Advanced Computer Communications, 720 Santa Barbara St, SB, CA 93101
/* Opinions ?  My employer has no opinions that I'm responsible for */