RE: Conversion of Word documents to structured frame documents

[Dan Emory <danemory@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Kevin's description sounds like the real world to me. We can yell all we
want that there's a better way, but widespread acceptance of that better way
is still a long way off. In the meantime, piecemeal solutions such as better
tools for things like round-tripping between Word and FrameMaker are needed.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
At 04:10 PM 4/12/99 -0400, Kevin McLauchlan wrote:
>That sounded like a "whoops" to me...
>
>Mr. Finger said:
>
>	****[snip]****
>	Arguing about whether Microsoft will take over the world because
>FM+SGML
>	and Word can't cleanly round trip is like arguing how many camels
>can be
>	taught to ride bicycles -- fascinating but pointless.  Does Dan
>seriously
>	contend that Ericssons (100 000 employees), HP (96 000 employees),
>Boeing
>	and other civilian and military manufacturers everywhere, the
>Australian
>	Defence Forces and other militias everywhere, the Australian Federal
>	Parliament and national legislatures everywhere, Melbourne
>University (35
>	000 undergraduates) and other universities everywhere (are you
>getting my
>	drift by now), are going to dump FM+SGML for Word?
>	****[snip]****
>
>
>I worked for Ericsson in Montreal from 1991 'til August '98.
>We were a Word house (having changed from - mostly - 
>WordPerfect, in order to mollify Ericsson in Dallas).
>
>When I started, the vast majority of developers used SUN 
>stations, but before I left, the change was well on, to switch to 
>a mostly NT shop in Montreal, Toronto, Richardson (Dallas), others.
>
>We constantly swapped docs among the several thousand 
>employees in Canada, the ten(s of) thousand(s) in the USA, 
>Sweden, Ireland, India, Australia.... you get the idea.  
>The format was Word, with occasionally some of the other 
>business units being behind us in adopting the latest version 
>of Word.
>
>I didn't see the other locales, so I can account only for 
>Ericsson Montreal, when I say copies of FrameMaker 
>were about as plentiful and common as hen's teeth. But 
>when we sent and received docs, nobody groaned 
>about Word, and nobody EVER said "hang on while I 
>import it into FrameMaker".
>
>I'm sure there were user-doc groups all over the place 
>using FrameMaker, but every engineering document 
>and support document that went between/among us, or 
>out to our customers (I worked for the Technical 
>Assistance Center [TAC]) was either a Word document 
>or something off a Unix station (but that last was rarer).
>
>We had something called EDML (Ericsson Document 
>Markup Language), which for-god-knows-what-reasons 
>was some strange-not-quite-compatible offshoot of SGML, 
>and used Text-and-Graphics Tool (TAG-Tool) on Sun, 
>which was said to be a "corporate standard" -- as in 
>corporate worldwide.  That one was always resisted in 
>Canada (and much of the US, I understand...) and was 
>probably a big part of the reaction that swung us toward 
>WP and then Word. 
>
>A couple of years before I left, there began a big push 
>to:
>
>a) convert any still-useful EDML docs over to SGML
>
>b) begin having everybody do all documents in SGML
>
>[This was around the time we were all going ISO9000].
>
>The latter was "accomplished" (yeah, right...) using Word 
>and broken filters, but mostly by having people use 
>TAG-Tool. Of course, since TAG-Tool was on the 
>Sun systems, that meant EVERYBODY (formerly 
>just certain engineers) needed to run an emulator or 
>remote terminal session on NT desktops, to access the 
>Sun servers and tools. But, there was growing use of 
>SGML, despite the kicking and screaming...
>
>And still, I could have burnt the place down and never 
>singed a single copy of Frame (in Montreal). 
>
>All that to say, my experience of Ericsson, at least, was 
>that they were not primarily (in fact, barely detectably...) 
>a FrameMaker house.  Word, unfortunately, ruled among 
>MOST -- out of the 100,000 worldwide -- who were using 
>PCs, and that probably included more than 90% of 
>admin/secretarial staff worldwide.  Could we then apply a 
>similar grain of salt to your mentions of other big corporations?
>
>I mean, Ericsson as an example, may have used bucketsful 
>of Frame licences, but at the same time, they used shiploads 
>of Word licences.  Part of the reason was that the same 
>situation prevailed at our customers: AT&T, the various BELLs, 
>British Telecom, AUSTEL and so on and on...
>
>When you need Frame, you need Frame.  But I think not 
>all that many people do.
>
>
>
>Kevin McLauchlan
>kmclauchlan@chrysalis-its.com    (aka  kevinmcl@netrover.com)
>Journeyman techy writer, duffer skydiver, full-time unrepentent chocoholic
>
>
>
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>
     ====================
     | Nullius in Verba |
     ====================
Dan Emory, Dan Emory & Associates
FrameMaker/FrameMaker+SGML Document Design & Database Publishing
Voice/Fax: 949-722-8971 E-Mail: danemory@primenet.com
10044 Adams Ave. #208, Huntington Beach, CA 92646
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