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Adobes FrameMaker is used to create the printed and PDF documentation. FrameMaker (FM) files are single-sourced into an HTML system using Mif2Go.
It is beyond the scope of this manual to discuss all of the details for effective use of either of these tools.
For more information on FrameMaker, refer to www.adobe.com.
For more information on Mif2Go, refer to www.omsys.com.
What is appropriate for this chapter are the tips-and-tricks that are employed to get these tools working together with each other and the TechPubTools to achieve a comprehensive HTML system.
FrameMaker (FM) is used to create structured information that is intended to be handled like a printed book even if electronic in nature. In particular, this means that:
Information is organized with a table of contents (TOC).
Die-hard readers can go from the beginning to the end of this documentation and not miss any topics.
More realistically, it means that when readers land on a topic by whatever means (e.g., TOC, index, external hyperlink, context-sensitive links), the books structure allows them to easily acquire background information from previous topics and more detailed information from the next topics.
However, just because a FM book structures the information, this does not mean that it any less useful in an online format. In fact, I believe that this effort to provide organization and order makes the information even more useful when presented online, mostly because it provides the reader with at least one form of navigation with which they are already familiar.
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Open-Source tools compliments of Voyant Technologies, Inc. and Glenn C. Maxey.
01/13/2003
TP Tools v2-00-0a
# tpt-hug-02