FrameMaker <-> InDesign conversion?

[sznsx]

It is possible to either directly or create a script to import a FrameMaker file into InDesign?

We are converting over from FrameMaker to InDesign and would really not like to loose all of our FrameMaker work.

Please point me in the right direction! Thanks!

 

[Angus27]

I’d be interested in this as well.

We convert our older FrameMaker docs to InDesign by exporting the FrameMaker doc as a text file and importing that into InDesign. Then apply formatting/styles and insert graphics. It’s really slow and tedious though.

 

[sznsx]

I have been reading on InDesign scripting and I hope that somehow I can create a script to format the exported text files from FrameMaker. It seems to be straight forward and I am familar with JavaScript which is a supported language in InDesign.

Some Example Script:

http://share.studio.adobe.com/axBrowseSubmit.asp?t=54

Also found this to be very helpful:

http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?13@834.mx23e6sltQY.0@.3bb74847/1

 

[McKinney01]

Another way is to Create .pdf's of the FrameMaker Document and then import the pdf's into the InDesign document. You loose editing capabilities though.

 

[Blindcorpse]

Re switching from FrameMaker to IDCS2:

I would be very interested in your experience, since I have made (or am making) this switch. My uses may be close to unique, since I have not been a long-time FrameMaker user because of its structured document capabilities. Instead, I have used it on the Mac for years and years because (a) it is rock-solid in the treatment of the mixed text that I use (mostly English, lots of diacritically marked Sanskrit words, plus Chinese and Japanese characters for names and terms); (b) I love the auto-numbering and cross-referencing features; and (c) the printed and PDF output is great.

The problems with FrameMaker for me are that (a) it won't support Unicode, (b) footnote treatment is terrible (no breaks across pages, placement of notes well after the reference number), and (c) they've orphaned the Mac product. At the moment I do most of my writing on a PC, using XP and MS Word, and then output stuff on the Mac. Word allows me to use the same files on both platforms -- although many features of the program drive me crazy.

My big problem is how to convert my "legacy" (i.e., still unpublished research) FrameMaker files to IDCS2. Last night I realized that on the PC I can use FM7.1 to convert them to PDF, then use Acrobat 6.0 to convert those files to Word. The footnotes are placed in the files as text, and sometimes mysterious "objects" in the files block the PDF generation. However, the mixed diacritical Latin + Chinese + Japanese text comes through OK. Note that I cannot get the Mac version of FrameMaker to make anything useful for me -- the RTF and XML "save as" options fail in different ways.

I would deeply appreciate suggestions on how to make the conversion process less painful! In particular, it would be nice to get some help from Adobe, which puts out all sorts of material on converting from Quark and PageMaker, but nothing on conversion from FrameMaker... Or, is there a doc somewhere I haven't seen?

Thanks in advance for your help!

-- John McRae, Indiana University (but about to move to Japan... Wheee!!)