converting files from Frame to Word

["Amy M. Lattof" <amyl -at- ILINC -dot- COM>]

Hi everyone,

I'm getting a little frustrated in my efforts to export files from
FrameMaker to a word processing format, and I'm hoping someone out there can
answer a few questions for me...

I can save the Frame files as .doc or .rtf, or .txt for that matter, with no
problem. However, when I bring them into Word, they are less than perfect,
to say the least. I'm willing to do some clean-up, but it feels like I'm
putting in a lot of effort on something that should be painless, so I think
maybe I'm missing something obvious. Here are my questions:

1. I've tried using the paragraph styles they are imported to Word, and also
deleting those styles and attaching my own template -- but both ways still
mean I have to hand tweak each and every file to make it look right. Is
there a way to get styles to convert more cleanly?

2. When I open a file in Word, the index markers from Frame are visible ({XE
"puppy; dog"}). I figure they must be there for a reason, but I'm not sure
what that reason is. Can I somehow use these tags to regenerate my index in
Word? (Wow, wouldn't that be great!)

3. Which format is better -- .doc or .rtf? These files will be distributed
to various people using various languages and versions of Word. Some of my
cohorts insist that .doc will be fine, but I thought the whole purpose of
.rtf was to ensure portability with very little or no formatting loss.

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer. I'm on digest, so please
respond directly to amyl -at- ilinc -dot- com, and I'll post to the list if there's any
interest.

Amy