View and use FrameMaker files in Notepad++

FrameMaker 10 has this great new feature called ‘View in Notepad’. I was recently reading some threads on framers list which asked for help with changing some regular patterns of text in their documents. The changes were many, hence a manual process is next to impossible. This is where the feature comes in handy. I know you wouldn’t view an XML in Notepad. For any real use, Microsoft’s Notepad utility is… well, the less we say the better 🙂

You can customize FrameMaker’s settings to launch the editor of your choice. Watch the demo to know more.

Note that this works for XML documents. I am using Notepad++ as my preferred editor. Notepad++ can handle regular expression and do XML validation, besides doing a gazillion other tasks. For unstructured FM file, we can always use the good old MIF format. I have rarely seen a software that allows users to customize it any which way they want. More on FM customizations later.

Tom Aldous, a power user of FrameMaker, has covered the very same feature here.

Further reading:
Working with XML files in FrameMaker.