Adobe FrameMaker 12 Default Document Templates

Adobe FrameMaker has not been a product in the past that offered a wealth of attractive templates to use.
For some reason FM developers have not considered the lack of templates a great issue even though it was. I have known quite a few technical writers who kept generating one average looking document after another (or shifted to InDesign for some pizzazz) simply because they lacked the design skills to whip up a graphically sizzling template.
While MS Word galloped forward by providing a treasure of beautiful templates and exciting clip art in every release, FM went to sleep on its laurels.
The situation has changed a little bit with the inclusion of new templates with FrameMaker 12, thanks to the efforts of our esteemed colleague  Bernard Aschwanden. Well done.
The templates offered by FM12 still do not reflect what’s ideally possible (see MS Word 2010 and 2013 templates for comparison) and I’m not saying this as a criticism of Bernard. No, not at all. As a daily FM user I’m grateful for Adobe’s decision to give Bernard a chance to improve our lot as tech writers.
However, in all fairness, we have to take these new templates as a modest beginning, as an indication of what’s possible, and not the end. I hope Adobe will have the budget in the future to keep Bernard generating the kind of templates that a great product like FM really deserves. I’m sure the collection will get only better in the future releases of FrameMaker.
FM12 templates come in two flavors: Standard (unstructured) and Structured Templates.
Here are some of the Standard Templates:





And here are the Structured Templates:

What do you think?

What’s your opinion of these templates? What other templates do you think Adobe should provide as a part of the default installation? Feel free to share your views in the comments section.

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