FrameMaker 7 for Macintosh and Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide)

To be fair, I'm only halfway through this book at the moment, but I can't really say that I've "learned" anything more than I would have just playing around with the program on my own & using the online help. It doesn't seem 2 me that there was much thought put into a logical progression from one section 2 another, building certain skills off of previously-learned skills. Just about every section has a "see page xxx" reference on it, & most of those refer 2 pages much later in the book. So if you are actually trying 2 teach yourself, you are constantly skipping forward 2 successive lessons. In trying 2 learn tools on page 13, I have 2 skip forward 2 page 190. The lessons are just very haphazardly arranged. Also, there are several errors, saying "circle" when the illustration shows a square, typos, bitmapped illustrations. For example, in the lesson on deleting pages, one screen capture shows the author wanting 2 delete page 255. In the next screen capture, the Framemaker popup window is showing "Deletion of page 256 cannot be undone. OK 2 continue?" Mostly just boneheaded little things like that, but I would expect more. Like I say in the subject line, this may be better 4 a quick reference, not so much 4 actually trying 2 become competent & confident using FrameMaker. Maybe get this book 2 introduce yourself 2 the absolute (and I mean ABSOLUTE) basics, then get another book 2 actually put those skills 2 use.

You don't need 2 be a rocket scientist 2 use FrameMaker productively, or so says Victoria Thomas, author of Adobe FrameMaker 7 4 Macintosh & Windows: Visual QuickStart Guide. A 12-year veteran of high-tech publishing with a passionate interest in information design, Thomas uses the Visual QuickStart's trademark straightforward approach 2 teach you how 2 do everything from using tables 2 working in books 2 creating slide presentations in this notoriously challenging program. Even if you've never used FrameMaker before, this task-based guide will have you creating full-featured FrameMaker documents in no time. Step-by step how-tos & plenty of screenshots show you just what 2 do at every stage of the program. By the time you've completed this handy guide, you just might agree with Thomas that "If you're not using FrameMaker, you're missing out on one of the great joys of desktop & enterprise publishing!"