What We Do

Past Projects

The Tools We Use: FrameMaker and WebWorks Publisher

Our business is producing long, complex, and highly structured documents. Often, clients want us to deliver a lengthy document in different media. For example, a client might ask us to work on an 800-page printed manual and also deliver that information in HTML format.

For projects like this, we recommend FrameMaker (by Adobe Systems, Inc.) and WebWorks Publisher (by Quadralay Corporation).

FrameMaker

FrameMaker is designed for long, complex technical documents. It lets you specify a structure for the entire document and then flow your information into that structure. For large documents, this approach works much better than the traditional page-oriented approach.

It's important to recognize that FrameMaker is not the appropriate tool for all projects. For highly designed publications, such as annual reports, brochures, or other marketing pieces, PageMaker or QuarkXPress is usually a better choice. But if you have a long, structured document that contains numbered lists, cross-references, complex tables, chapter-based numbering, and running headers, you need FrameMaker. Its powerful features let you automate maintenance of all these items.

After creating your document in FrameMaker, you can create output in many different formats, such as PDF, HTML, or SGML.

WebWorks Publisher

Although FrameMaker includes a built-in HTML export filter, this filter is intended only for smaller documents. A typical industrial-strength conversion could mean converting an 800-page manual into HTML pages. For this, we use WebWorks Publisher, a conversion utility that lets you export your FrameMaker files to various flavors of HTML and to Windows online help formats.

WebWorks Publisher offers precise control over the mapping of FrameMaker formats to HTML or help tagging, which is especially helpful when your FrameMaker documents contain complex formatting. The software also converts your existing art to the appropriate format.

Our services

We offer training to help you learn FrameMaker or WebWorks Publisher and consulting to create templates, develop conversion processes, and more. Our services include the following:

	We offer an Accelerated Introduction to FrameMaker course and an Advanced FrameMaker course, as well as a WebWorks Publisher course and an Advanced WebWorks Publisher course. We can customize our classes to meet your documentation department's needs.
	We can work with your documentation team to create customized FrameMaker templates for your documentation requirements. We tailor templates for print or online delivery.
	We can convert your existing documents to FrameMaker, or we can develop a process for the conversion and then train your employees on how to do the conversion.
	We can optimize existing FrameMaker templates.
	We can work with you to develop a conversion process via WebWorks Publisher.

For more information about FrameMaker and WebWorks Publisher, contact sales@scriptorium.com.