Early in 2014 Adobe released the FrameMaker 12 XML Author application. Although it is included in the full version of FrameMaker 12 it is also available as a standalone application. The standalone version marks a departure for Adobe in that is provides the option to have a lower cost XML authoring application which is highly competitive in terms of functionality and price with other simpler editors.

We have tested the application and confirm that it will suit a number of users who do not want full page layout capability. In the S1000D environment there are numbers of users who only need to supply XML files to their clients and this standalone xml authoring package will be of interest to them.

The authoring environment can be in a pseudo page layout or an authoring mode which presents the information in a non-pages way. It is also capable of allowing the user to author in the raw XML view.

Like all Adobe Software, you can download a copy and try it out for a month. If you wish to try it out with our Eclipse S1000D for FrameMaker then please get in touch for a limited period licence.

As its name implies, FrameMaker 12 XML Author is an XML only application. This means that although the Eclipse S1000D for FrameMaker V9 provides all S1000D Issues from 1.6 through to 4.1, when using this latest FrameMaker offering from Adobe, only the XML versions of Issue 2.0 to 4.1 can be authored.