This is the first of a series of four reviews that will cover what is contained in the Adobe Technical Communication Suite. Unlike the Adobe Creative Suite, the Technical Communications Suite is geared for technical communicators, help authors, instructional designers, and training professionals. The suite contains four products; FrameMaker, RoboHelp, Captivate, and Acrobat 3D. The goal of this series it to define what each product does and provide information of what the new version brings to the table.
What do you need to run Adobe FrameMaker 8? You need Windows, an Intel® Pentium® 4, Intel Centrino®, Intel Xeon®, or Intel Core™ Duo (or compatible) processor, Windows 2000 (the trial version will not run on 2000), XP SP2 or Vista, 512 MB RAM, video card capable of displaying 256 colors recommended, 600 MB hard drive space and CD-ROM Drive, Adobe Postscript, PCL or GDI printer (Postscript printer recommended).
Adobe FrameMaker 8 is a desktop publishing and word processing application that is geared for the creation of large documents. Originally created by Frame Technology, FrameMaker was acquired by Adobe in 1995. There has been off and on talk around the industry that Adobe was going to wind down development of the FrameMaker product. This came to a peak after they ceased support for the product on the Macintosh in 2004. Now with the release of FrameMaker 8 in July of 2007 and with the inclusion as a major portion of FrameMaker 8 in the November release of the Technical Communications Suite, it should put an end to those rumors.
FrameMaker 8 is a key functionary in the Technical Communications Suite that provides for creating and publishing technical documentation. It combines word processing capabilities and XML-based structured authoring with template based publishing.
With FrameMaker 8 you can create, edit, and publish content with features for automatic numbering, cross-referencing, table of content, indexing, books, and more. You can work in style tagging word processor mode, or in a fully structured environment optimized for editing and producing valid XML and SGML. You can manage content entirely in XML, use XSLT during editing, and conform to industry standards such as DITA and DocBook.
So what is new with Adobe FrameMaker 8?
• Unicode Support – you can now edit and support content in multiple languages as well as author content for global audiences with dictionary and hyphenation support for more languages.
• DITA Support – FrameMaker 8 now supports the DITA standard. DITA is the XML-based architecture for authoring, producing, and delivering technical information. You can now use a prebuilt DITA application to author, publish, and distribute topic-oriented information in XML as well as creating DITA maps.
• Rich Media Support – Now with the Technical Communications Suite, you can combine content into multiple forms. You can create more engaging online documentation by incorporating 3D models, rich Adobe Flash Player compatible animations, and simulations created with Adobe Captivate software, as well as creating Adobe PDF files incorporating live 3D models.
• Text Edit Tracking and Multiple Undo – now allows you to highlight, accept, and reject text changes as well as undo multiple changes with a single click using the History Palette.
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