How to Insert Text and Images to a FrameMaker Side Bar

Imagine you are using Adobe FrameMaker and you’d like to insert a Note, Warning, or Caution text or icon into your Side Head (or Side Bar). It’s easy when you know how to do it, as explained in this video. Just make sure to create the necessary paragraph styles (or tags) for this task. MORE…

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How to Import a Word File into an Adobe FrameMaker Document

How to Import a Word File into an Adobe FrameMaker Document is an essential skill every technical writer using FrameMaker should know. 1) Create a FrameMaker (FM) file. Place your cursor in the first line of the file. 2) Select File > Import > File to browse to the Word document you’d like to import. The…

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Mini-TOC in Adobe FrameMaker – A Life Saver!

One of my most favorite features is mini-TOC which I know I’ll be using during my daily work. I’m grateful for it. No one has any idea about the untold hours I’ve spent in the past constructing this chapter-specific mini-TOCs. Such mini-TOCs are a must when you have chapters in a book as long as…

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How to Write Goal-Focused and Structured Technical Documents

PREMISE Most of the technical documentation that exists in the world today is feature-focused. It is also unstructured: there is no well-defined hierarchy between the components of the document. For example, there is no enforcement of a hierarchical rule like “every task description shall be followed by a reference section.” See this related article. PROBLEM…

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How to Add Background Color Box in Adobe FrameMaker

Did you know that you can easily add a background color box to an Adobe FrameMaker paragraph without adding a table cell? No more tables to add color background 🙂 Follow these easy steps: 1) Create your text and place your cursor someone inside the paragraph. 2) Select Paragraph Designer (Ctrl+M). 3) Create a new…

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How to Generate a QR Code with Adobe FrameMaker

FrameMaker has an excellent built-in QR code generator. To generate this code, select Special > Generate QR Code option from the menu to display the QR Code Builder screen: NOTE: For the QR Code to work, the user must first download a QR code reader application (usually free) to his or her cell phone or pad. Here…

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How to Compare Multiple Outputs of RoboHelp and FrameMaker

I’ve made a test to compare Multiple Outputs of RoboHelp and FrameMaker. I generated different output versions of the same simple file both by using Adobe FrameMaker and then Adobe RoboHelp. Since these two great products are sold as part of Adobe’s Technical Communication Suite, I wanted to see what would one lose without RoboHelp…

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Publishing an Adobe FrameMaker Book in Multiple HTML Formats

Adobe FrameMaker can really do an excellent job in publishing FM files straight to HTML, without going through another third-party application like RoboHLep, WebWorks, Flare, etc. Here is a test I conducted to publish an FM book with 5 individual chapters to three different HTML formats. The attempt to BATCH publish to Kindle and ePub…

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