Converting with Framemaker9

[Guest]

My work purchased Framemaker 9 to convert PDF Files to Word is

this possible?

[MichaelKazlow]

If that is the reason your work purchased FrameMaker, then the people who asked for the software as well as the people who approved the purchase of the software need to find a new line of work. FrameMaker is desktop publishing software. It helps you prepare/create documents for print and distribution through other mediums like pdf files. FrameMaker is not capable of converting pdf files into any other format. In some sense, FrameMaker is similar to QuarkXpress, InDesign, PageMaker, and Microsoft Publisher (bite my tongue).

Adobe Acrobat is Adobe's PDF software suite that is generally used to create, edit and sometimes convert pdf files to other formats. Acrobat can convert some pdf files into Word files, but the ability to do that is limited by how the document was created in the first place. If the original document is a scanned raster image, then the chances of creating a workable word document is slight. However, if the pdf file was originally created from Word and used tags appropriately, then the ability to recreate a document that looks like the original is greatly increased. A new version of Acrobat was announced this week and should be shipping by November.

[peter_minneapolis]

fxdl wrote:

My work purchased Framemaker 9 to convert PDF Files to Word is

this possible?

Mike's right about FrameMaker being the wrong software for this purpose.

Search Google for pdf2word for links to a service that may serve your needs.

HTH

Regards,

Peter

_______________________

Peter Gold

KnowHow ProServices

[Guest]

I was informed today by the people at work that chose Framemaker9 as a

method to convert PDF's to Word that once you have a .fm

file you can save it as an RTF that can be opened in Word and saved as a Word Document this appears to work.

Any possible negatives to this method that I should know

[Arnis_Gubins]

You can get good RTF from FrameMaker content, provided you use a third-party add-on, i.e. Omni Systems mif2go product. Otherwise FM's native RTF export is sadly lacking (to put it mildly).

The question is how do "the people at work" expect to handle the PDF's in FM? FM treats each page of a PDF as a graphic object, so if some one intends to import PDFs into FM, then all they can export are drawings to manually place as graphics in Word. (Ouch!!)

[Guest]

Thanks for the reply. I am

working with a technical manual for automated equipment. I have been provided with the .fm

files and Framemaker. I have been breaking the manual out into smaller sections

and saving them as .fm's, pdf's and now as rtf's as well.

The ones I have done as rtf's look pretty good I must say and work finds them acceptable.

My understanding from your post is if they were pdf's this would not work well if at all as

rtf's.