The Masters Series: FrameMaker 6

Rating:
Summary: Getting into Framemaker 6.0 couldn¿t be easier.
Review: Framemaker 6.0 is one of those applications whose fame precedes it, making one wish that they had it for all that nitty-gritty work that is such a horrible chore by other means. So you get it, and launch it, and are underwhelmed at a dishwater plain interface more in keeping with some kind of share-ware, and you wonder: 'What is this about? Where's all those floating palettes that Adobe love to sprinkle across your screen? Why is a new document placed in that offset window with the zoom controls nicely hidden at its bottom edge ( z Z ), along with a pop-up menu to sort out the document pane? Have I been suckered out of some big bucks, and should have gotten that lovely, nice Indesign 2.0 instead?'

So you have a quick root around and discover that it's not too dissimilar to the Word application you're familiar with, but knowing, because of all that fame that preceded it, that there must be a lot of useful stuff under the hood. The help guide is a help, but doesn't give you the big picture. Getting the 'Classroom in a Book' is an option, but knowing, from previous outings, that you won't get much beyond the help guide's contents, necessitating something a bit more substantial.

My choice was to go with the Thomas Neuburger option. And I didn't regret it. It's so plainly written, comprehensive, and understandable. A paradigm of explanation that Adobe would do well to abide by instead of their own ramblings. It's a comparatively expensive book, but Framemaker 6.0 is an expensive application, which needs to be clearly explained to get the value out of it.

Rating:
Summary: Great Resource
Review: I was a self taught FrameMaker user. This book polished my skills and made the entire process more enjoyable.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent -- Recommended
Review: The task-oriented procedures provided in this book make it an excellent supplement to, or replacement for, the documentation that comes with the FrameMaker product. Ignore the funky-looking font on the cover. Inside the book, the organization, writing, and illustrations are all clear and instructive.

The book is divided into five major sections, Part I through Part V. Parts I and II cover the basics, providing step-by-step instructions for beginning FrameMaker users. Parts III, IV, and V cover more advanced features that users of previous versions of FrameMaker will find useful. Features that are new for version 6.0 are clearly noted in the page margins. Differences between Windows, UNIX, and Mac versions are also clearly noted.

The book provides good coverage of advanced features such as text and paragraph formatting, graphics, color, book files, tables of contents, indexing, hypertext, and HTML/XML generation. It also points out many tips and tricks, obviously learned from a user's perspective.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is serious about using the advanced features of FrameMaker 6.0, and to beginners who can benefit from the step-by-step instructions in the earlier sections of the manual.