Learn about other features from FrameMaker (2019 release) that would help you author and publish your documents easily.
- Faster file performance
With improvements in the file operations and publishing engine, you get much better experience when you perform any file operation or publishing task. Operations like opening and saving a file are much faster and smoother. The time taken to open or publish files to PDF or responsive HTML5 output is a whole lot faster.
See a video on Faster file performance.
- Interactive real-time progress bar
With the introduction of informative progress bars, you will always know at what stage a book update or publish process is in. For example, when you update a book, the progress bar displays status like opening a file, processing a file, generating index files, and so on. Similarly, when you are running a publishing task, the progress bar shows you what processing is being performed on the files, such as file opening, conversion process, application of some transformations, and so on.
The following screenshots captured at different stages of book update and publishing tasks.
See a video on Interactive real-time progress bar.
- Enhanced image handling
Inserting multiple images at once has been a challenging task in FrameMaker. However, with this release, you will be able to import hundreds of images in your document without any lag. With the new image handling process, scrolling through your image-heavy document will work seamlessly.
See a video on Enhanced image handling.
- Out-of-the-box Microsoft SharePoint 2016 support
The connection manager now supports Microsoft SharePoint Online and Microsoft SharePoint 2016 servers. Access your files from the latest version of SharePoint server without having to use any third-party plugin.
See a video on Out-of-the-box Microsoft SharePoint 2016 support.
- Quick access to the Welcome screen
The Welcome Screen (also known as Starter Screen) is now accessible from the workspace drop-down menu. The Welcome Screen provides quick access to your recently worked documents, document templates, repository connections, and much more. The Welcome Screen can also be customized as per your authoring and publishing needs. For example, you can add links to the most commonly used document templates or provide instructions to create a particular type of document. You can now have access to the Welcome Screen at any point and without closing your open documents.
For more information, see Welcome Screen.
- New Duden dictionary support
Support for German dictionaries has been completely revamped. From the earlier Hunspell dictionary, now FrameMaker supports the Duden dictionary for German users. The Duden dictionary is regularly updated and is one of the most widely used dictionaries by German users.
See a video on New Duden dictionary support.
- Interactive HTML5 dialogs for plug-ins
FrameMaker now supports rich HTML5 dialogs. Using HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript, you can create interactive HTML5 dialogs for the plug-ins that you create for your users. The support for interactive HTML5 dialogs significantly reduces the effort that was earlier required to create dialog boxes using DRE files.
- New Windows-based File Open dialog
The existing File Open dialog is enhanced to provide more seamless working experience. The File Open dialog is based on Windows native dialog box technology, which is powerful and provides a variety of customization options.
- WebP and ICO image support
FrameMaker now supports importing WebP and ICO (icon) images in your documents. The WebP image format is developed by Google and it supports both lossy and lossless compression. It is considered as an alternative to PNG and JPEG file formats due to its smaller file size and better image quality. While inserting image, choose the WEBP (*.webp) or ICO (*.ico) format from the Files of Type drop-down list to add a WebP or an icon image to your document.
- More control over PDF
The new PDF generation comes with comprehensive publish settings. The PDF publish settings are bucketed under five categories—General, Marks and Bleeds, DITA Template, and DITA Options.
The General settings allow you to configure the output preset, PDF standard, compatibility, viewing options, and more. The Marks and Bleed setting can be used to set the crop, bleed, registration marks, and bleed and slug settings. The DITA Templates settings are used to configure the templates that you want to use to publish the document. Finally, if you want to save the PDF via Book route, then you can choose what to include or exclude from the published PDF in the DITA Options settings.
For more information, see PDF output.
- WYSIWYG color output
While generating PDF output, you no longer have to select the RGB or CYMK color settings. The new PDF generation technology publishes the same colors of text and images as you see them while authoring. This gives you a consistent look-and-feel of your document whether you are authoring or viewing the published output.
- Faster XML file handling
FrameMaker uses a new Java-based XML parsing engine that significantly reduces the amount of time required to parse XML files. With the new parsing engine, opening, editing, saving, or even packaging your XML files is much faster.
See a video on Faster XML file handling.
- Effortless EDD creation
Creating EDD can be a time-consuming and complex process. FrameMaker now gives you an easy-to-use interface to create EDD quickly and easily. This new EDD creation feature supports Lightweight DITA and DITA 1.3 document types.
The new Customize DITA plugin uses the RELAXNG schema. Currently, DITA 1.3 and Lightweight DITA specifications have been used in this plugin. You can customize the existing DITA shells by including or excluding modules, domains, or elements within a shell. The plug-in also allows you to easily apply a CSS to give a new look and feel to the DITA topic. Once you have your customizations in place, a new document can be created by simply choosing menu.
For more information, see Customizing DITA using the plugin topic in Customizing DITA for Adobe FrameMaker guide.
- Saxon Enterprise Edition
FrameMaker comes with SAXON Enterprise Edition. You can create a variety of pre- and post-processing scenarios or run XSLT transformation on XML files. You can define the scope of transformation tasks to execute on a file, all files in a folder, DITA map, or all child topics of a book and use the possibilities of XPATH 3.0 and XSLT 3.0 and the power of the SAXON Enterprise Edition.
- XPATH 3.0 support
FrameMaker supports XPATH 3.0 via SAXON Enterprise Edition. Use XPath queries to quickly find elements and attributes in a long XML document. The query builder allows you to easily create custom XPath queries, get suggestions, define the scope of queries, use the history drop-down menu and save the search results for later usage.
- XSLT 3.0 support
FrameMaker supports XSLT 3.0 via SAXON Enterprise Edition processor. You can create a variety of transformation scenarios by applying predefined or customized XSLT on XML files, and execute them using a range of JAXP-compliant processors. You can define the scope of transformation tasks to execute on a file, all files in a folder, DITA map or all child topics of a book.
- Enhanced Packager
The package manager has been enhanced to create packages quickly with the support of new parsing engine. You can easily create a self-contained package of your documents, books or DITA maps—with all referenced files, images, and configurations included.
For more information, see Create packages.
See a video on Enhanced Packager.