Conversions between Framemaker and Word

[DanCaleb]

Hi!

I am embarking on a large in-house translation project and
have run into several situations with regard to converting
documents from FrameMaker to Word (and then back to
Framemaker).

Essentially, what I have to do is convert my FM documents
into Word (with all index markers, styles, etc., maintained).
I then have the documents translated (the translators use
MS Word). Following this, I import the translated documents
back into FrameMaker while at the same time maintaining
all of the styles, index markers, etc. In the process of
doing all this, several problems have come up with styles
being dropped, index markers getting corrupted,
etc.

I really need help in finding out how others have approached
this and successfuly dealt with the documents conversion
process between FrameMaker and Word. Is there some
product or system I could use? And if so, how can I obtain such
product or system?

Thanks!

- Dan

 

[markso]

Hi Dan,

I suspect you are always going to have problems doing your translation this way. I'm actually surprised that your translators don't use Framemaker anyway, I've never come across one that didn't offer Frame as a tool.

I guess one thing you could do is re-import your styles, index markers etc from the original Frame file into the freshly converted Word to Frame file. Best keep a backup copy though

Mark

If sunflower oil comes from sunflowers, and vegetable oil comes from vegetables, where does baby oil come from?

 

[alp8]

Dan,

I haven't heard of any worthy converters, only companies that provide the service. Converting from word to FM and GM to Word is tricky.

I would suggest googling. This is what I did and found many useful pdf docs on how to go about properly converting your documents. Of course though you will always run into that one strange problem.

Good luck!


-alp8

 

[volgadev]

We solved the problem by saving Framemaker files to MIF, converting the MIF code to RTF through our own Java program (using XML as an intermediate format) and back. Converting from MIF to RTF is relatively easy because both are ASCII formats.

 

[CGresley]

Hi DanCeleb

I use Mifsave

http://elmscript.de/brucefoster.html

to take all the .fm files in a book to .mif.

For the translation I use Dejavu from atril.com. (They have a 30 day trial.) In Dejavu i've set up a project with all the mif, word and excel files making up the manual. I then import all the files and do the translations. All the markers etc. stay intact.

When completed the files get exported. Any later update import the files again and export.

Each manual have it's own project in Dejavu.

Dejavu have the option for .mif files to export the source and target translations as conditional text, meaning you can have more than one language in your .mif/ .fm file.

Hope it helps.