Adobe Framemaker

"Adobe FrameMaker was one of the first mainstream DITA authoring tools. Now, with DITA 1.3 support in the new release, FrameMaker provides so much more, including the ability to create troubleshooting topics and support for new elements in maps, tasks, concepts, and references. The learning specialization is totally integrated—it's a single tool that lets you create, edit, manage, update, and publish DITA! Add to that, the fact that FrameMaker is connected to CCMS tools, third-party plug-ins, publishing systems, FrameMaker gets to be an easy argument for a one-stop DITA 1.3 solution."

FrameMaker is a life saver for Technical Writers (I am one and so I know it)! Its true strength lies in its ability to handle a variety of layouts within a single document, its strong cross referencing and indexing features, strong graphics import filters, color printing capabilities, and its stability in handling lengthy documents. This increases the flexibility and efficiency of the authoring process for complex documents. It is fully WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get), giving the authors a clear view of their work.

I have used it for about five years and will vote for the fact that it is the software a technical writer should have to create a good, usable document.

• FrameMaker 7.0 comes bundled with Quadralay WebWorks Publisher that will allow you to convert the documents to HTML format. Some of the important features are:

  
  




• Strong graphics import and placement capabilities. Graphics can be either imported by reference or copied in the document. You have a choice to maintain a graphics library if you want to by importing the graphics by reference.

  
  




• FrameMaker has flexible header and footer capabilities. The format and style can be changed in a matter of minutes.

  
  




• FrameMaker has powerful paragraph and character formatting tools that gives the users tremendous control over how their document will look.

  
  




• FrameMaker contains an Equations palette that contains the commands you use to create and change equations, as well as the symbols, operators, functions, and other math elements you insert in equations.

  
  




• The latest version of Adobe Acrobat Distiller is included with FrameMaker and it offers an interface for PDF (Portable Document Format) generation.

  
  

The cost is $800, a little high, but the initial investment will worth it when you consider the quality of documentation, ease of use, and no other headaches as you use it.