What do make use of when you need to change large technical papers with intricate build and cross-references? The answer used to be simple: FrameMaker. We experienced this effective, multiplatform authoring device back the ’80s on Sun workstations, and had been very happy to continue using they on Macs whenever writing all of our basic publications for O’Reilly. But FrameMaker is not addressed kindly recently. Whenever Frame development happened inside ’90s, cannibalizing their technical writing markets by attempting to broaden into the pro market, Adobe acquired the product, largely due to strong interest from Adobe co-founder John Warnock. But the guy resigned from energetic contribution when you look at the business before he could encourage someone else regarding the distinctive appreciate in FrameMaker, which includes since withered from neglect (it will not actually operate on current Macintosh programs).

What exactly do you really need instead? Presentation-focused editors like Word are entirely inadequate to the sort of projects.

For some time, items seemed more and more desperate. We installed on, working old FrameMaker versions in Apple’s Timeless OS emulation function (which operates only visit the site here on older PowerPC equipment). Cheerfully, an alternate possess appeared according to the DocBook XML format, an unbarred traditional for symbolizing technical records. There can be an expanding instrument chain because of this format, with a family group of editors and processors that formatting production as HTML or printing.

One publisher stands apart through the pack. The XMLmind XML Editor (XXE for small) is a good general-purpose XML publisher, but has actually interestingly powerful service for cooperating with DocBook resources in an author-friendly way. Lees verder →