Charles
Poynton -FrameMaker
Charles
Poynton -
Here are brief descriptions of several documents that
I have written about Adobe's FrameMaker product. These are old!
But I include them here because some of the techniques still retain
some relevance.
The documents are available in several formats: PDF, PostScript and in some cases, ASCII text. I encourage you to use the PDF format.
Before I go any further, if you use Frame (or any high-end DTP product) on a Mac, let me suggest that you rip out your TrueType fonts !
Raster Image Processing, or RIPping, refers to the conversion of a PostScript file to a high-resolution bitmap, a necessary process in typographic-quality printing. RIPping is performed by the PostScript interpreter that resides in a laser printer or filmsetter.
Here you can access four brief documents that introduce you to RIPping, in order to get a document from a Macintosh to a commercial printer. Information about printing from FrameMaker to a Xerox DocuTech is included.
This note explains how to use FrameMaker 4 on a Mac to make Portable Document Format (PDF) files suitable for Adobe's Acrobat Reader. The note concentrates on how to produce bookmarks. I assume that you have access to Adobe's Acrobat Distiller.
FrameMaker 4 does not produce PDF crossreferences on any platform other than Mac, and on a Mac produces crossreferences only within a single Frame document. These restrictions have been lifted in Frame 5.
Although Frame 5 can make bookmarks, this capability is limited to bookmarks that are extracted from paragraph text (say section heads). My technique can be used to make bookmarks from markers.
A forthcoming revision of the note will deal with Frame 5, and will explain how to include - in a Frame file - information that to cause Acrobat's document information to be set, and information to instruct Acrobat Reader to open at the size you like and with bookmarks open.
PDF format
(157,513 bytes)
Frame has six kinds of generated files. You can generate a file from paragraphs, from markers, or from references, and you can have the result sorted or not. A sorted file is called an Index (under the Generated Index category) or an Alphabetical List (under Generated Files category). This table summarizes the thirteen categories of generated files that are presented in the the Add File to Book and Generate File dialogs.
PDF format (12,591
bytes)
If you are using EPSF files on a Mac, by default they will have PICT previews which cannot be displayed on UNIX platforms. Adobe has defined the EPSI (interchange) variant of EPS; this variant has a bitmap preview image coded in ASCII comments at the front of the PostScript and should, in theory, be useable on any platform -- it is resource-fork-free and (potentially) ASCII-only and line-end safe. Unfortunately, Adobe has not implemented EPSI in its Mac products such as Photoshop or Illustrator. This causes fuss and bother when you exchange Frame files between Mac and UNIX. To convert EPSF files to the EPSI interchange format, obtain this program (from Frame's ftp site):
FrameEPSFConverter 3.0 (BinHex/SEA format, 30614 bytes)
I rummaged around the attic and came up with a handful of short articles that I have written on diverse subjects. All are in ASCII text format; most are less than 10 KB. Most are copies or direct adaptations of Usenet news postings.