Background
Disclaimer: I am not an experienced FrameMaker user, and this is the first time I’ve tried to use SDL’s uthorAssistant. I have been a technical writer for 11 years and primarily used Adobe RoboHelp and have some
experience with Madcap Flare. I have no experience with SDL Trados, but some experience with translation memory files (.tmx). I’m learning DITA XML. I’ve never used a content management system –
only a document management system (SharePoint).
The Problem
While testing FrameMaker 10′s DITA XML structured authoring feature, this question came into my mind:
After we spend all this time and effort to convert our RoboHelp and Flare user documentation to FrameMaker, then into DITA XML, how will we find and retrieve the content in order to reuse it? We are not yet using a content management system. (FrameMaker 10 integrates with two CMSs: Documentum and SharePoint.) We would like to use our existing tools and free or open source tools, if possible.
What We’re Trying to Accomplish
We have several technical writers using different help authoring tools (FrameMaker, RoboHelp, and Flare). We would prefer to continue using our own tools, but then it makes sense to be cross-trained on them. So we agreed to test converting our documents to FrameMaker. We also agree that we need structured authoring so that our documentation is standardized and consistent. We know we can save on localization (translation) costs if we can standardize our documentation (consistent terminology, etc.). We want to be able to create the content in FrameMaker and use an authoring memory tool integrated with our authoring tool that automatically suggests phrases that we’ve already used. (An authoring memory tool can be connected to our translation memory. I’m not sure about connecting it with a content management system.) It wouldn’t
be efficient to have to search for phrases as we type – so the automatic suggest-as-you-type would be ideal.
Then we’d like to keep all of our content in a repository as source control and to be able to find and reuse it. We need to generate WebHelp and PDFs from the DITA content, which we can do with RoboHelp 9 integrated with FrameMaker 10. Since FrameMaker integrates with SharePoint, it would be great to use it as our CMS.
But I haven’t tested that yet and I don’t how easy it would be to find and reuse the content with the SharePoint integration.
I’m not covering the localization aspect of the authoring
assistant in this review – just the content reuse.
Downloading SDL AuthorAssistant 2010 for FrameMaker 9 and 10
First of all, the AuthorAssistant is free. You can download it from
SDL’s and
Adobe’s Web site. It’s a large zip file: 640 MB.
Note: Even though
SDL describes the AuthorAssistant as the client software component of SDL Global Authoring Management System, I hoped I could use our translation memory (.tmx) files from other vendors. (We briefly used SDL’s “Click2Translate” Web site for translations in 2009. However, the translation memory we received from them are .txt files).
The download .zip folder contains:
The AuthorAssistant 2010 SP1 application
- Installation guides in several languages
- Release notes
- Sample files
- a FrameMaker .fm document
- Two “profiles” (.pfl) to use when
configuring the application (these are used when checking a document with the
application).
(A Flash tutorial is also added to the SDL folder from the Start menu in Windows once you finish installing.)
Installing AuthoringAssistant
- Read the installation guide from the downloaded folder: SDL AuthorAssistant Installation Guide for Adobe_en.pdf
Note: The installation guide (page 2-2) includes a list of “Companion Software” (FrameMaker, IE7 or above, SDL MultiTerm 2007 Desktop (if you want to use termbases). It does not mention anything about types of translation memory files.
- Click the following file from the downloaded folder: SDLAuthorAssistant2010_4.1.395.0_Adobe.exe
- Follow the instructions in the installation wizard.
Configuring the AuthoringAssistant
Tutorial (Flash)
When the installation is complete, there’s an option to
watch the tutorial (Flash with video screen captures). It’s a comprehensive tutorial that covers
concepts, configuration, and using the application.
You can access the AuthoringAssistant from the SDL folder from
the Start button in Windows, or by right clicking the AuthoringAssistant icon
on your system tray. You can also access it from the SDL AuthorAssistant menu
in FrameMaker. Select Configure from the
menu and follow the tutorial.
I was able to configure the application by following the
instructions in the tutorial except for my lack of the correct TM file types. From the tutorial menu, see Setting up Your
Checks > Translation Memory tab.
The tutorial also tells you to select a Profile, but it
doesn’t tell you that there are profiles in the Samples folder in the
downloaded zip folder. If found the
information about the profiles in SDL’s Customer Portal in the topic: Quick Start for SDL AuthorAssistant.
You don’t have to set up the Structure tab (for XML
documents) using the AuthoringAssistant with FrameMaker. (It seems to me SDL would have hidden this
tab for FM integrations.)
Using the AuthoringAssistant with FrameMaker
Note: The
AuthoringAssistant cannot be used standalone.
It is a plug-in for FrameMaker.
The only feature of the application that I could use is the
Style and Linguistic Checks feature. To
use this feature, open a FrameMaker document (.fm), the select Check Text –
Active Document from the SDL AuthorAssistant menu in FrameMaker. You can also check multiple files at once
from the Check Text – Multiple Documents option (.fm, dita, .xml, or .mif). I only tested this feature with the default
values, but you can customize (such as sentence length, abbreviations, etc.).
Conclusion
I am unable to use the authoring memory feature (AutoSuggest)
since it requires a specific type of translation memory file (and not .tmx): you
will need .sdltm or.tmw files (SDL Trados, SDLX and SDL WorldServer TMs). (There’s also an option to use SDLX –
Microsoft Access, SDLX SQL Server, or SDLX Server translation memory files.) I also don’t have an SDL termbase
(terminology database), so I can’t check that our documents are using
standardized terminology with this feature.
I will check with a colleague who has a Trados license to
see if I can get one of our .tmx files converted to one of the SDL file formats
that would work so I can at least test the AutoSuggest feature.
I’ll post the results over the next few weeks.
