Early feedback and quotes: FrameMaker 11

On 24th July, FrameMaker 11 was launched along with the rest of the Adobe Technical Communication Suite launch.

There have been several reviews techcomm and content strategy experts have written about the latest launch. We wanted to highlight some of the key things that these reviewers and other experts have said about FrameMaker 11.

Overall:

• “With new structure views, TCS4 integration, and the newly rebranded FrameMaker Publishing Server, FrameMaker 11 moves squarely into the XML Editor arena, and into the Single Sourcing and Multichannel Output markets.” – Matt Sullivan’s review
• “Customizable authoring experiences — XML Code View for power using code junkies, Author View for writers, and WYSIWYG view for those who need a simple, desktop publishing-esque view of the content being produced. A much-needed addition to the professional technical communication tool arsenal.” – Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler
• “Adobe FrameMaker 11 is stronger, faster, and smarter.” – Jacquie Samuels, Writer, TechWhirl.com
• “I could see that the company is trying very hard to keep up with the needs of technical communicators, and they are taking the necessary steps to embrace mobile technology, which is highly evident in this upgrade.” – Danielle M. Villegas, TechCommGeekMom

Structured Authoring:

• “The Code View in Adobe FrameMaker 11 gives me real-time access to the XML code I’m editing.” – Matt Sullivan, Independent Adobe certified instructor
• “XPath support enhances the Find Element functionality considerably—I can easily find any structure in an XML document using XPath and switch to the document view to the corresponding FrameMaker structure.” – Tassos Anastasiou, Information Technology and Services Consultant
• “The ease of viewing DITA source content in a true source environment is what we’ve had more and more client demand for. To have this as a part of the Adobe FrameMaker 11 is wonderful.” – Bernard Aschwanden, President and owner, Publishing Smarter
• “While authoring in Code View or Author View if you want to verify the final print output, you can do so by just switching to WYSIWYG view. Just a mouse click does that for you!” – FrameGurus review
• “The XML view is my personal favorite. You can expand/collapse elements easily and use the line numbers to troubleshoot easily. It’s even color coded. Plus you can use the tree view on the right for a quick view of the structure of elements.” – Jacquie Samuel’s review on TechWhirl
• “In my opinion, FrameMaker can now be considered a full featured XML editor. That combined with its ability to perform impeccable page layout functions, makes it the ideal authoring and publishing tool for all types of documents and workflows.” – Scott Prentice in his Leximation review

Unstructured Authoring:

• “The PDF round trip function in Adobe FrameMaker 11 has been useful to us with a current client project where we have dozens of topics updated every day.” – Bernard Aschwanden, President and owner, Publishing Smarter
• “A big addition to FM 11 is ability to include rich media objects like vector images with hotspots, video, and 3D modeling. One of the features I liked that was demonstrated was one where play, pause, and jump buttons were created around a video/animation presentation within the content. Nice!” – Danielle M. Villegas in TechCommGeekMom’s review
• “If you’re using a connector with Documentum or SharePoint, you’ll now have custom metadata support too.” – Jacquie Samuel’s first look on TechWhirl
• “I really like the new options for creating custom controls via Hyperlink markers. The resulting Play, Stop, Cue Point links reinforce the presence of embedded media, and allow for jumps to specific places within the video.” – Matt Sullivan’s review
• “Just draw any shaped object with the graphics tool conforming to the image area that I want, right-click and select Hotspot Properties, then pick the named destination from a drop-down list just like for a cross-reference. This I’ve got to see. Wow. I can even specify an URL for the destination and create custom tooltip text. That’s really nice and easy.” – Arnis Gubins’ review

If you’d like to add to these quotes, do visit the FrameMaker 11 page, download a 30-day free trial or test-drive it without downloads or installations.

Hoping to hear more encouraging words,

Team TechComm @ Adobe