Frame in Foreign Languages

[Larry Grinnell <Larry_Grinnell -at- PTS -dot- MOT -dot- COM>]

Greg Camacho asks:

>Can I use FrameMaker to include multiple languages in a single document?
>More specifically, I would like to mix English, German and French in a
>single manual.

>I am not sure how the different character sets are handled- do I need
>different font sets? Does FrameMaker provide language customization
>"stuff?"

>Thanks-
>Greg Camacho
>Rockwell Network Systems


There is most certainly a way to do it... Within the standard English version
of Frame.

Simply purchase the Frame Dictionary Packs. There are three volumes:

* Frame Dictionary Pack 1: The Americas
  Canadien Francais (dictionary, hyphenation, thesaurus)
  Espanol (dictionary, hyphenation, thesaurus)
  Francais (dictionary, hyphenation, thesaurus)
  Portuges do Brasil ((dictionary, hyphenation)
  UK English (dictionary, hyphenation, thesaurus)
  US English

* Frame Dictionary Pack 2: Central Europe
  Catala (dictionary, hyphenation)
  Dansk (dictionary, hyphenation, thesaurus)
  Deutsch (dictionary, hyphenation, thesaurus)
  Espanol (dictionary, hyphenation, thesaurus)
  Francais (dictionary, hyphenation, thesaurus)
  Italiano (dictionary, hyphenation, thesaurus)
  Nederlands (dictionary, hyphenation, thesaurus)
  Portuges (dictionary, hyphenation)
  Schweizerdeutsch (dictionary, hyphenation, thesaurus)

* Frame Dictionary Pack 3: Scandinavia
  Bokmal Norwegian (dictionary, hyphenation, thesaurus)
  Dansk (dictionary, hyphenation, thesaurus)
  Finnish (dictionary, hyphenation)
  Nynorsk (dictionary, hyphenation)
  Svenska (dictionary, hyphenation, thesaurus)
  UK English (dictionary, hyphenation, thesaurus)

NOTE: I did not attempt to put in accent marks!

These are available in Mac, PC, and Unix versions. To use them,
simply install in your directory that has all of your dictionaries. Frame
will recognize them. When you tag your text, make "German" and "French"
versions of the tags you need for those languages, then change the hyphen-
ation dictionary to the language of choice for that tag in the "Advanced"
portion of the Paragraph Designer dialog.

As I am not a German or French speaker, I was hesitant to use the spell
checker, for I don't know what other problems it could create. If you have
foreign language speaking editors, however, it might be good to have them
interact with the spell checker for those parts of the text they can
understand. I generally am forced to trust the reviewer for correct spelling.
I also ask them to check the hyphenation, as the Frame hyphenation
dictionaries are rules based and not dictionary based, so mistakes can be
made.

Each package was somewhere between 100 and 150 dollars. They solved a lot of
problems for us... I was also told that the version 4.x dictionaries should
work in version 5.x.

Also, for German and French at the very least, if you are using the Mac or
Windows version of Frame, you have access via standard system keyboard
mapping to all the standard western European language diacritical marks
(umlauts, accents, graves, etc.). I'm sure that's no problem for Unix
variants. As always, your mileage may vary. Consult your hardware manual
or Frame's own quick reference guide for your platform.

Larry Grinnell
(Not speaking for Frame Technology!)

=======================================================
 Larry Grinnell, Motorola, Inc., Paging Products Group
                 Boynton Beach, Florida
           Email: Larry_Grinnell -at- pts -dot- mot -dot- com
   "History Delights in Details"--John Quincy Adams
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