Adobe FrameMaker Books

Publishing Fundamentals: Unstructured FrameMaker 8

Sarah S. O'Keefe, Sheila A. Loring, Terry Smith (contributor), Lydia K. Wong (contributor)

Amazon Price: $49.99 List Price: $49.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Scriptorium Press Amazon Marketplace: 1 new & used starting at $43.00

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Editorial Review:

The unstructured interface of FrameMaker 8 is ideal for publishing complex documents. Publishing Fundamentals: Unstructured FrameMaker 8 helps you implement automated workflows that let technical communicators focus on creating content instead of struggling with tedious formatting tasks.

Publishing Fundamentals: Unstructured FrameMaker 8 shows you how to:

* Use FrameMaker's word-processing features format text with paragraph and character tags, design complex tables, insert automatically linked cross-references, and store reused content in variables.

* Design page layouts with running headers and footers, place graphics in your documents, and use FrameMaker s drawing tools.

* Import animations and 3D renderings with new support for rich media.

* Implement advanced features such as conditional text, hypertext, equations, and text insets.

* Use FrameMaker's new Unicode support to create content in multiple languages.

The book also includes a long list of FrameMaker resources and information about add-on software that can further boost your productivity. Written by veteran FrameMaker users, Publishing Fundamentals: Unstructured FrameMaker 8 is the must-have reference for anyone using the unstructured interface of FrameMaker 8.

For detailed information about using the structured interface of FrameMaker to create documents based on Extensible Markup Language (XML) and the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA), refer to Publishing Fundamentals: Structured FrameMaker 8 (ISBN 978-0-9704733-5-6).

Adobe FrameMaker 7.0 Classroom in a Book

Adobe Creative Team

Amazon Price: $42.00 List Price: $60.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Adobe Press Amazon Marketplace: 48 new & used starting at $25.73

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 2.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Adobe FrameMaker has long been the software of choice for technical documentation and large-scale document publishing because of its versatility and ability to handle the entire publishing process--from word processing and page layout to electronic distribution. Now, with the introduction of version 7.0, the popular publishing program has gone even further to accommodate businesses' growing need for multi-format publishing by adding the ability to automatically reformat the same document for delivery in a number of formats, including Web pages, Acrobat print files, Palm handheld devices, and more.

And that's just the beginning: Adobe's official Classroom in a Book training series guides you through all of the program's features, tools, and techniques--both old and new--using hands-on projects and end-of-chapter review questions to make sure the newly acquired knowledge sticks! If you're a beginner, you'll want to read the book from cover to cover for a start-to-finish explanation of how it all works; all of you FrameMaker experts can skip right to the information you need. From the basics (such as character and paragraph formatting) to more advanced tasks (like cross-referencing text and creating indexes)--Adobe FrameMaker 7.0 Classroom in a Book covers it all.

XML and FrameMaker

Kay Ethier

Amazon Price: $40.45 List Price: $49.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Apress Amazon Marketplace: 21 new & used starting at $35.00

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Debafflement 5 out of 5 stars.
35 of 38 people found this review helpful.

This is a great introductory crossover text for both xml programmers and FrameMaker users who want a cram course in structured layout. The first third of the book is devoted to FrameMaker for the XML expert-how to set up a document and master pages, create and use style sheets, and manage templates. The rest of the book explains, in clear and concise prose, how to get started with FrameMaker's approach to XML.
Because I am an expert Frame user, I immediately zoomed to the XML stuff, and found it a grand introduction to a complex subject. Before I found this book, I had read the entire 600+-page manual that Adobe supplies with Frame, but didn't feel like I had a solid, fundamental understanding what was going on. After reading this book and working through the tutorials, the information in the user manual suddenly made perfect sense.
This book won't make you an expert in structured FrameMaker-it's a Byzantine subject, complicated by Frame's own quirky implementation (read bugs), plus a startling lack of Frame-specific intro material on the Internet. What it will do, though, is give beginners a good foundation in both Frame and XML. Highly recommended.

Editorial Review:

This book is designed to teach anyone working in data-intensive publishing how XML can be leveraged to make the job of presenting data easier. While the XML discussions within the book are general, FrameMaker is used for all of the examples since it supports a wide variety of XML import and export options. In addition, author Kay Ethier shows you how FrameMaker's powerful formatting features lend themselves to publishing XML documentswithout reworking them.

This book is written for a professional audience, including writers, database administrators, developers, and production staff. Ethier shows you how to

• Capture or emit XML from existing documents or databases
• Use XML to create documents that may be published to many other formats
• Build an "XML round-trip" for Adobe FrameMaker 7

This book is also a featured publication at the Society for Technical Communication.

FrameMaker 6: Beyond the Basics

Lisa Jahred

List Price: $45.00 By: Waite Group Press Amazon Marketplace: 17 new & used starting at $3.97

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Power Users Rejoice! 5 out of 5 stars.
27 of 29 people found this review helpful.

I use "Framemaker 6" eight hours a day, five days a week. I am a power user. This is the book I have been waiting for. It streamlined my everyday procedures and took me step by step uncharted territory I was afraid to use before. Even a power user FM^ can be intimidating. The closest I can come to how I felt after reading the book is it is like having a personal trainer. I accomplish more with less effort, and my documents look great. I am not kidding, FM6 can stress out, I feel better. When I get backed in a corner I use this book first to resolve my problems. I subscribe to the Adobe Tech support. This book has helped me in situations that had Adobe TS stumped. I recommend they buy a copy or even better, include it with the software.

This book works on so many levels. The first time I read the book it was like taking a very informative college level class in FM. I learned a more streamlined approach to template setup that eliminated so many little annoying problems. For the first time I have FM..books that have no error log listings!

I also use it like a reference book. Unlike the user manual you get with FM 6, this one is truly useful. I prefer it for several reasons. It is filled with workable universal examples that are complete, all the steps are there. The format makes it easy to use and find topics.

Editorial Review:

Framemaker 6: Beyond the Basics discusses holistic approaches that save time, solve problems globally, and make creative uses of FrameMaker's features. Since FrameMaker is intended for large document creation, this approach is advantageous, even critical. Through real-world scenarios, the book explores typical tasks technical document creators perform daily. Each chapter provides principles and techniques needed to perform each task, along with tips on best practices and how to achieve repeatable outcomes. Rather than covering everything about the software, the book focuses on the challenges FrameMaker users face, helping them apply efficient, innovative solutions.

FrameMaker(R) 7: The Complete Reference

Sarah S. S. O'Keefe, Sheila A. A. Loring

List Price: $59.99 By: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media Amazon Marketplace: 9 new & used starting at $74.30

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Good Information, but Some Deficiencies 3 out of 5 stars.
14 of 15 people found this review helpful.

FrameMaker 7: The Complete Reference is, as described in virtually all of its reviews here at amazon.com, a good reference book and a good choice for learning FrameMaker. Its information is good; however, the book's paper, print quality, and binding are all very poor. The spine on my copy broke after just a few days of handling. My copy is destined to shortly fall into several pieces. If you compare this book's physical quality to the quality of Adobe's FrameMaker 7.0 Classroom in Book, you will see a world of difference. Again, the information the book contains is good. The book is mostly complete, excepting its structured application development deficiencies. With respect to structured application development, I must say it is almost, but not quite completely, deficient.

Steve Whitlatch

Editorial Review:

Covering both FrameMaker and FrameMaker+SGML, this comprehensive resource explains the full range of features and offers little-known tips and tricks for maximizing this powerful desktop publishing application.

Adobe FrameMaker 6.0 Classroom in a Book

Adobe Creative Team

List Price: $45.00 By: Pearson Education Amazon Marketplace: 28 new & used starting at $0.01

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

An elevator for a steep learning curve 5 out of 5 stars.
30 of 33 people found this review helpful.

Adobe FrameMaker is a high-end product for desktop-publishing professionals and as such does not have a large customer base. If you need to create and design your own books, look no further. You probably have heard that this program has a very steep learning curve. Once you master the mysteries of this complicated and convoluted program, book design will be very easy and time-consuming. The problem is - where to start.

Adobe provides a very detailed manual in the product box. I am a first-time user, and although I understood the first few chapters I read, I was still unable to begin working on the second edition of my book (the first one was typed and set in MS Word). The point is - the USER GUIDE, or the enclosed manual is very detailed - it describes and explains every possible setting. Thus, it's more appropriate function is a FrameMaker encyclopedia, and not the "guide" for starters. This is only good, because there are too many programs out there whose manuals are too general. They are just bare overviews, and usually you have to buy a separate "Bible" textbook.

So, you have all documentation you will ever need - included in the program shrink-wrapped box. In order to learn the basics, it's best to purchase some introductory book. Adobe's "Classroom in a Book" provides this very important introduction which in the format of hand-guided lessons will let you go up that curve in a leisurable way of your own.

I finished reading the book in one day, performing all lessons included on the CD. Tell you what - I am ready. Not only I know the "basic basics", but I KNOW WHAT TO LOOK FOR in the User Guide documentation.

Adobe "classroom" books are high-quality texts that are used for ACE training (Adobe certified expert). If you want to be an ACE, I do not need to convince you to buy this book. If you want to get quick, but good hands-on the best desktop-publishing product on earth, look no more. It's here.

Editorial Review:

The fastest, most comprehensive way to master FrameMaker 6.0! If you've picked up a recent textbook or technical manual, chances are very good that it was created with Adobe FrameMaker. Production professionals rely on FrameMaker to create illustrated documents, catalogs, and textbooks. FrameMaker goes beyond the scope of standard desktop publishing tools with its document comparison and reporting features, math equation features (to make it easy to typeset equations), powerful book creation features, and automatic numbering and list generation. Adobe FrameMaker 6.0 Classroom in a Book offers the ideal learning solution for this high-end publishing tool. Users proceed with self-paced lessons in FrameMaker, using images and files from the CD-ROM. Developed and tested by the training experts at Adobe, readers come away with a thorough understanding of FrameMaker's tools and features.

FrameMaker 7 for Macintosh and Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide)

Victoria Thomas

List Price: $21.99 By: Peachpit Press Amazon Marketplace: 7 new & used starting at $53.99

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Good for a reference, but for actually learning....? 3 out of 5 stars.
18 of 20 people found this review helpful.

To be fair, I'm only halfway through this book at the moment, but I can't really say that I've "learned" anything more than I would have just playing around with the program on my own and using the online help. It doesn't seem to me that there was much thought put into a logical progression from one section to another, building certain skills off of previously-learned skills. Just about every section has a "see page xxx" reference on it, and most of those refer to pages much later in the book. So if you are actually trying to teach yourself, you are constantly skipping forward to successive lessons. In trying to learn tools on page 13, I have to skip forward to page 190. The lessons are just very haphazardly arranged. Also, there are several errors, saying "circle" when the illustration shows a square, typos, bitmapped illustrations. For example, in the lesson on deleting pages, one screen capture shows the author wanting to delete page 255. In the next screen capture, the Framemaker popup window is showing "Deletion of page 256 cannot be undone. OK to continue?" Mostly just boneheaded little things like that, but I would expect more. Like I say in the subject line, this may be better for a quick reference, not so much for actually trying to become competent and confident using FrameMaker. Maybe get this book to introduce yourself to the absolute (and I mean ABSOLUTE) basics, then get another book to actually put those skills to use.

Editorial Review:

You don't need to be a rocket scientist to use FrameMaker productively, or so says Victoria Thomas, author of Adobe FrameMaker 7 for Macintosh and Windows: Visual QuickStart Guide. A 12-year veteran of high-tech publishing with a passionate interest in information design, Thomas uses the Visual QuickStart's trademark straightforward approach to teach you how to do everything from using tables to working in books to creating slide presentations in this notoriously challenging program. Even if you've never used FrameMaker before, this task-based guide will have you creating full-featured FrameMaker documents in no time. Step-by step how-tos and plenty of screenshots show you just what to do at every stage of the program. By the time you've completed this handy guide, you just might agree with Thomas that "If you're not using FrameMaker, you're missing out on one of the great joys of desktop and enterprise publishing!"

FrameMaker 5.5.6 for Dummies

Sarah S. O'Keefe

List Price: $24.99 By: John Wiley & Sons Inc (Computers) Amazon Marketplace: 11 new & used starting at $18.16

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Framemaker for Dummies by Dummies 1 out of 5 stars.
11 of 20 people found this review helpful.

I own over 500 computer books and this is the first I've felt compelled to review, and now only because this book is truly awful. Like many computer people, when I buy a book, I usually give it a quick reading and then look up troublesome items in the index as I work with the program. After a quick reading of FFD I knew little more than when I started, because it's very chaotic, but it wasn't until I started trying to use the index that I really grew to hate this book. FrameMaker is a program for making books, but there is no entry in this book for captions, no entry for crop marks, no entry for color profiles, ICM or Pantone. These are standard words in the publishing biz but they don't even rate an index entry, let alone decent treatment. There isn't even any information on how to make FM respect your font selection. You will, however, find an index entry for Easter Eggs, and index entries for half the people who have written dummies books... Is there anything useful in this book? Sure. You can't write 360 pages about anything without saying something useful, but good luck in finding it.

Editorial Review:

FrameMaker can be intimidating -- but not with FrameMaker 5.5.6 For Dummies! Find out how to create technical manuals, research reports, and other long or complex documents -- without spending a fortune on training.

Discover how to

Build books of any length Create templates to simplify layout Use indexing tools Output to paper, XML, HTML, or PDF Save time by using autonumbering Create and maintain multiple document versions

FrameMaker 5.5.6 For Dummies comes complete with a bonus CD-ROM containing a tryout version of FrameMaker 5.5.6 for Windows and Macintosh, a QuicKeys demo (Windows/Macintosh), Filtrix and IXGen 5.6 demos (Windows), and trial versions of FrameScript and WebWorks Publisher (Windows).

Dr. John Warnock, CEO of Adobe Systems, Inc., calls FrameMaker 5.5.6 For Dummies "an information-packed book that will make FrameMaker work for you." Tap into the power of FrameMaker with FrameMaker 5.5.6 For Dummies.

The Masters Series: FrameMaker 6

Thomas Neuburger

Amazon Price: $51.50 List Price: $51.50 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Twelfth Night Books Amazon Marketplace: 15 new & used starting at $21.95

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Excellent -- Recommended 5 out of 5 stars.
62 of 62 people found this review helpful.

The task-oriented procedures provided in this book make it an excellent supplement to, or replacement for, the documentation that comes with the FrameMaker product. Ignore the funky-looking font on the cover. Inside the book, the organization, writing, and illustrations are all clear and instructive.

The book is divided into five major sections, Part I through Part V. Parts I and II cover the basics, providing step-by-step instructions for beginning FrameMaker users. Parts III, IV, and V cover more advanced features that users of previous versions of FrameMaker will find useful. Features that are new for version 6.0 are clearly noted in the page margins. Differences between Windows, UNIX, and Mac versions are also clearly noted.

The book provides good coverage of advanced features such as text and paragraph formatting, graphics, color, book files, tables of contents, indexing, hypertext, and HTML/XML generation. It also points out many tips and tricks, obviously learned from a user's perspective.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is serious about using the advanced features of FrameMaker 6.0, and to beginners who can benefit from the step-by-step instructions in the earlier sections of the manual.

Editorial Review:

The Masters Series: FrameMaker 6 is the complete tutorial and reference guide to FrameMaker's latest version. Covers Windows, Mac, and PC versions. Includes enhanced tips, work-arounds, and tricks, plus hints to installing FrameMaker 6 and its associated products, such as Distiller and the Adobe print driver. Updated from the best-selling Mastering FrameMaker 5 by the same author.

Learning Adobe Framemaker: The Official Guide to Adobe Framemaker

Adobe Press

List Price: $60.00 By: Adobe Pr Amazon Marketplace: 11 new & used starting at $11.75

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Excellent step-by-step. Lacks advanced material. 4 out of 5 stars.
16 of 16 people found this review helpful.

I've taught FrameMaker 5 to hundreds of technical writers, engineers, marketing communicators, and administrative support people, from the original Frame Technology, Inc. materials on which this book is based. This book puts covers around the three days of Frame's five-day course they called "Basics," but does not touch on the topics in the "Advanced" materials. The series does not include an advanced book, yet.

Depending on your learning style and experience, you might want to move faster, scan through some detailed elaborations, jump around in a different order, but nearly everything you need to know about that 3/5 of what FrameMaker can do and how to do it, is in this book, well-presented and illustrated. Because FrameMaker is now nearly identical in 95% of its features and menus on unix, Macintosh, and Microsoft Windows platforms, this one book works on all three. Where there are differences you need to see, screen shots or illustrations are shown; where are there differences in how to perform an operation or task, written instructions are given. Only a few, trivial, typos.

What's in the book is good. The downside is what's missing - the material in the two-day "Advanced" course - building books from scratch, using the book tools (managing multiple-file projects by one or more authors as a single set of tasks), tables of contents, indexing, and building templates for these tasks. A "lite" look at these, enough to acquaint authors with their simplest use should be in this book. The "how-to" accomplish tasks and operations is clean, but another thing that's missing is the "why would you want to do this?" context that is important to users not familiar with large complex documentation projects. Experienced technical writers know the why, but as the "technical writing responsibilities" hat is added to more and more multi-hatted job descriptions, the why becomes increasingly important for newcomers.

My rating of what's in the book is 95% or better, but the lack of even introductory peeks at the tools that would complete an author's tookbox is an oversight that needs to be corrected.

Editorial Review:

This comprehensive tutorial covers the Macintosh, Windows, and Unix in one book. It serves as the only book users need to quickly learn the complexities of this powerful document publishing software. It is organized in an easy-to-access manner that can be followed along as a self-paced tutorial.