The Content Era's review of the Adobe FrameMaker 2017 release
Adobe repeatedly produces some of the best tools on the market. The Content Era, 2017

Adobe FrameMaker 2017 Review

Here at The Content Era, we are proud to be a strategic partner with the Adobe Tech Comm team. Year after year they repeatedly produce some of the best tech comm tools that are available on the market. At TCE, we not only promote the Tech Comm Suite flagship product, FrameMaker, but use it on a daily basis to help our customers get the most return on their content, as well. We value the versatility and capabilities that FrameMaker has to offer when creating unique solutions to some of the most challenging, confusing and downright silly content quandaries we face on a regular basis. So, let’s jump right in.

Right off the bat, you are greeted with a newly designed, customizable, full screen startup menu that offers up more options than previous FM versions. You get a friendlier layout that displays large, aesthetically pleasing application icons for XML and FrameMaker docs. A more inclusive “Recent Items” section. And, of course, the traditional “resources” panel that has been beefed up to support assets like “Partner Portal” and “TechComm Central”. In addition, FM 2017 now comes set to “Structured” authoring mode, right out of the box - something you’d have to change in preferences in the past, and can still do so in the 2017 release.

Moving on, you notice a sleeker UI that contributes to an overall improved User Experience. In today’s market of easy to use cloud based platforms, having a comparable UI baked into an on premise solution that can compete with the ease of use and accessibility of tools in the cloud, is a must. Adobe nails it here with simple updates to the design of most of the pods and dialogue boxes for a comfortable look and feel. Paired with the new Project Manager, Command Search, and Insert Images workflows they’ve created, content teams can now create and publish faster, which in some cases can have a direct positive impact on the company’s bottom line.

Building on the improved UI, you will also notice that the placement of items throughout the various drop down menus have been moved. We like to say they’ve been optimized as the reason for the placement change was to create a more intuitive environment that decreases clicks to completion and increases productivity through common menial processes alone. For instance, when inserting images, you used to have to use the File, Import, File command process. Now they’ve reduced the click rate and created an Insert, Image command. We particularly enjoy this new addition as we regularly import files and images in most of our customer projects. So, in summary, what once took you 3, 4 or even 5 clicks, may only take 1 or 2 in the FM 2017 release.

In addition to workflow process improvements, they’ve made leaps towards the way FM is displayed and laid out. The majority of our team works on 4K displays, so we’ve seen a major boost in practicality when it comes to arrangement, capacity and visibility of the dialog boxes as well as the designer and catalog pods. Another common feature we use often when working with EDD’s is the Conditional Text pod. They’ve retooled this pod to appear simpler yet still retain all of it’s functionality. Just like XML, this seemingly minute improvement to the supported resolution makes the 2017 FM release a more future ready version as the continued growth of display technology forges ahead.

Overall, we are extremely impressed by the way the Adobe Tech Comm team has taken an ultra-observant stance when rejuvenating their flagship editor. As we continue to use FM 2017 throughout our customer projects, we expect to find more subtle changes that are sure to please.

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