FrameMaker Users Rejoice: MIF Filter Finally Released
If you’re a FrameMaker user, or you have to work with FrameMaker documents, you can now do a little happy dance: DTPtools, after a year long public beta process, has finally released their MIF Filter for InDesign. This plug-in lets InDesign users open MIF (“maker interchange format”) files in InDesign.
According to their press release (sorry, I’m not a FrameMaker user, so I haven’t tried it), the plug-in will open FrameMaker’s MIF documents in InDesign, maintaining colors, paragraph and character styles, anchored frames, tables, graphic objects, sideheads, autonumbering, variables, and cross-references (though you will also want the Cross References plug-in to fully work with cross-references in InDesign). If you have a .FM document, you’ll have to open it in FrameMaker and save it as an MIF file.
The public beta process allowed the folks at DTP Tools to see how the plug-in worked with over a half million FrameMaker pages. They kept tweaking the plug-in until it now works incredibly well.
Now here’s the wacky part: They charge you per page saved. You can open and view your MIF files all day long without charge, but when you save a document, you’re charged by the page.
That way, if you’re not happy with the conversion, you’re not charged.
When you buy the plug-in, you’re buying page credits. For example, the least expensive option is 35 euros (DTP Tools switched their pricing from dollars to Euros about a month ago). With that amount, you can save up to 100 pages (.35 euro per page). If you buy more prepaid pages, you get a bigger discount (for example, it’s only .25 euro per page at 1,000 pages or .18 euro per page for 10,000 pages).
Given the target audience for this plug-in, their pricing option doesn’t seem unreasonable. Though it does bring up the typical worries, such as: What happens 10 years from now when you might not be able to buy more credits but you still need the plug-in.
David, thanks for the nice words. As to the page credit concerns: There are many small studios which can only afford the plug-in when it returns the investment instantly (e.g. they buy 100 pages each time new job arrives) and even the largest of our customers would only need one license to migrate hundreds of thousands of documents. This way we can set the licensing to reflect the usage better than actual number of installations.
->>What happens 10 years from now when you might not be able to buy more credits but you still need the plug-in.
- We plan to be around a bit longer than that! And this kind of licensing will help us to keep the plug-in up to date for as long as users need it.
He! We’ve been censored…
I have tested the plug-in and it really does NOT function properly and the quality of the converted documents is really poor. I am not sure if this is kind of a limitation on the trial version. I doubt it though.
Mohamed, can you give us more details on what did and didn’t work? My guess is that there is something specific to your files that is causing it trouble. I’ve heard from other people that it works extremely well.
The great thing about this plug-in is that it’s free for people to use. You only pay if you like the results and want to save it.
This MIF filter sounds like it would help facilitate a migration from FrameMaker to InDesign and perhaps even occasionaly filtering to import content with formatting. Every time I’ve done a migration, there’s a lot left to be cleaned up and there is some experimentation to be done up front.
I’m curious how well the filter handles linking of images. If you have imported images by reference into your FrameMaker document, does the filter embed those or link them once it’s in InDesign?
I’m also curious what other advantages there are over, say, an XML export from FrameMaker to import into InDesign.
Thanks,
–Jared
Pasadena, California
Can anyone advise how this plug in treats Index markers originating in the FM files. Are they retained in the Indesign files using this plug in and can an Index be generated subsequently in Indesign using these markers?
Those who’ve been bothered by Adobe’s indifference toward FrameMaker, which seems to be lessening slightly lately, might want to check out a new Frame competitor, Blaze, from MadCap.
During October 2008, they’re offering a $200 competitive upgrade for FrameMaker users. For details, you can contact them at:
sales@madcapsoftware.com?
Make your subject line “Blaze Competitive Upgrade” to route it properly.
Since it’s Windows only, I’ve not demoed it, but from the specs it did strike me as being much more “modern” than FrameMaker. FrameMaker was a marvelous product when Frame owned it. But it hasn’t been kept up properly since then. And of course Adobe dropped the Mac version and never developed the Linux version beyond a beta.
This is just rediculous. We will not upgrade our Framemaker anymore. Alternatives exist. The vendor lock-in is starting to hurt. Pay-per-page to be able to convert between two Adobe products? Really? Framemaker file import should be incuded for free with Illustrator, Acrobat and InDesign, at least.
I had been using Frame for years when Adobe bought it.
I really like InDesign, but I had to wait through several versions to finally get all the features that had been available in Frame. I really felt forced by Adobe to. They should include the plug-in in InDesign so we can migrate the file.
I’ve tried the plug-in and it worked well. I understand why they are doing the pay as you go, but I don’t like it that I have to keep purchasing. I would like to install the plug in and forget it’s there and just use it.
I’ve tried the trial plug-in today. Our documents use lots FrameMaker’s anchored frames with conditional text. My trial result had misplaced anchored frames, incomplete or missing conditional text. I am also needing to skip including the base template along with the document. So far what I’ve got is not usable and I haven’t bought any credits to save the pages yet.
I’d like to hear a little more about anyone’s success story.