FrameMaker includes 17 language dictionaries and user interfaces are available for international English, French, German, and Japanese.

Graphics work well in FrameMaker. It includes many color palettes such as Pantone as well as some drawing options for creating rectangles, polygons, etc.

Tables can be constructed that not only are to be used in a FrameMaker document but can be exported and used in other documents as well.

FrameMaker is a cross platform program for windows 95 and NT 4.0, Macintosh with a 68040 or greater processor, and UNIX. These files can be "seamlessly" shared across all the platforms mentioned above and, according to Adobe, these same files can be "linked to other applications with an open C-based API.

For this review a Pentium 100 was used. The windows requirements are: A 486 or greater, 16 megs of ram minimum with 32 recommended, 15-75 MB of hard-disk space with 60 recommended, Adobe PostScript or PCL printer with a postscript one recommended, and Adobe Type Manager and TrueType supported fonts. (I did not use a PostScript printer with the program since I do not own one.)

The program lists for $895 with a street price of about $795.

FrameMaker 5.5 came with 2 CD-ROMS. One had a copy of Acrobat reader 3.01. The main CD had FrameMaker 5.5, Adobe Acrobat 3.01, and Adobe Type Manager rasterizer. Also included were a Type On Call CD, and a user Guide.

The program installed easily, however, the instructions for installing Acrobat were confusing because I did not have a PostScript driver installed on my system and, until I did, some of the Acrobat components would not install.

Even though the FrameMaker manual and tutorials seemed adequate, I decided to purchase the Adobe Classroom in a Book series for FrameMaker 5.5. I found this book, for the most part, to be well written with clear instructions. However, there were some tutorials both in the Classroom in a Book and in the FrameMaker 5.5 manual that were both confusing and hard to follow. This FrameMaker 5.5 Classroom in a Book comes with its own CD which contain detailed lessons. I recommend the book since FrameMaker is a complicated program that warrants memorizing many commands as well as remembering the capabilities for both minute and global changes to the text of a document. The capabilities of the program are monumental. As with most complicated programs, the learning curve will be steep at the beginning.

When I went to the FrameMaker 5.5 seminar sponsored by Adobe in Tulsa, I was impressed with all of the tasks that this program could accomplish. After finishing all the tutorials and experimenting with the program, I was not disappointed. However, the program was much more complicated than I had anticipated if one wanted to make use of the functions that it could perform. As stated earlier in this review, the program is very powerful. It can accomplish feats that others cannot. But one must be prepared to spend a lot of time using it so that many of the tasks and commands can become routine.

For more information on the Tulsa Computer Society click here