It's so easy to order a software upgrade, install it, and then just keep working, as if you never upgraded. FrameMaker 9, thankfully, makes this fairly easy. However, this article (and those that follow over the next few weeks) are designed to get you to stop working for a few minutes and actually look at the new FrameMaker 9 interface. Hopefully, I'll be able to increase your productivity by helping you get to know the ins and outs of the new interface.
This week, let's take a look at the redesigned toolbars. The visible toolbars are displayed under the Menu bar and above any open documents. Before you start, choose the Authoring workspace from the Workspace Switcher in the Application Bar (top right of your screen).
Quick Access Bar
The Quick Access Bar appears first, just like it always has. It has been redesigned to pick up more standard buttons that were scattered across various toolbars in earlier versions.
Paragraph Formatting Bar
Formerly known as just the Formatting Bar, this bar gives you one-click access to commands found in the Basic properties of the Paragraph Designer, plus it harbors the Paragraph Format list, which lists all the Paragraph tags in your document.
Text Formatting Bar
These buttons used to live on the right of the Quick Access Bar. While it is helpful to see the Font and Size of selected text, and to have easy access to case changes, you still want to rely on Character Tags for your character level formatting, and avoid all the other buttons.
If you want more toolbars, you'll need to choose View > Toolbars. In FrameMaker 9, we can now access the Toolbox by choosing View > Toolbars > Graphic Toolbar. The other three options in the old Quick Access Bar are available here as well: Table Formatting, Object Alignment and Object Properties, plus the Track Text Edits toolbar.
The new interface allows you to have all the toolbars open at once, if you have the screen real estate to support it: just choose View > Toolbars > Show all.
Too many toolbars? No worries. You can turn them all off, or turn them off individually by choosing View > Toolbars. Would you just like to put them back the way they were when we started? Remember how we began by choosing the Authoring workspace from the Workspace Switcher in the Application Bar? Head back to the Workspace Switcher and just choose Reset Workspace. Confirm with a Yes and you are back to a nice clean look.
Next week: Pods and panels… what's the difference?
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About the author: Barbara Binder is the president and founder of Rocky Mountain Training. Barbara has been a trainer for nearly two decades and has been recognized by Adobe as one of the top trainers in the world.