In an attempt to keep its pole position in Web publishing, Adobe Systems Monday announced a revised version of its popular FrameMaker software.
This time around, the San Jose, Calif.-based company is taking advantage of new XML features to boost version 7.0 of the authoring and publishing software. Adobe says the markup language lets content creators distribute information to multiple channels, including print, Adobe PDF, the Web, eBooks and PDAs.
Adobe said it is also making its FrameMaker Server 7.0 available. The platform lets companies extract existing content housed in databases, document management systems and XML repositories for manipulation in FrameMaker.
Adobe FrameMaker 7.0 and Adobe FrameMaker Server 7.0 are slated for release in the second half of 2002. FrameMaker 7.0 desktop version will retail for US$799 for the full product with a special 90-day post ship upgrade offer (Mac and Windows only) of US$209 (US$349 thereafter). Estimated street price for FrameMaker Server 7.0 will be US$7,999.
In the past, FrameMaker offered word-processing functions for long documents, and FrameMaker +SGML included a full set of tools for structured authoring of valid SGML applications. With the upgrade, users can choose to work in the structured environment to address single-source information publishing needs and create valid XML files, or choose a simpler interface to create well-formed XML files for general word-processing usage.
“FrameMaker 7.0 supports us as we move in the direction of XML and consider WebDAV integration,” said Evan Olson, Online Products Developer at Fujitsu Network Communications. “The new features combine traditional FrameMaker benefits — advanced book-building capabilities and easy output of files to formats such as Adobe PDF and HTML — with the flexibility of XML for sharing and reusing information company-wide.”
With the FrameMaker software, the company said users can create, edit and import valid XML content in full WYSIWYG mode with real-time validation and context-sensitive guided authoring. Once valid, the XML content can be searched, shared and repurposed across the enterprise, integrating disparate systems and processes.
If you are not proficient in XML – no problem – Adobe packed FrameMaker with a variety of starter templates that lets them to work with xDocBook and xHTML DTDs (Document Type Descriptions) and map XML elements to tables, graphics, footnotes, cross-references and index markers.
The FrameMaker Server software also has a Frame Development Kit, which has a way to combine FrameMaker with server-based systems ranging from Web applications to legacy mainframes. The server software itself can handle text and graphics in a variety of formats with multi-language support.
