{"slug": "framemaker", "name": "FrameMaker", "category": "other", "category_name": "Other software", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 6, "warners": 0, "score": 3.334, "rising": -0.98, "first": "2026-02-05", "latest": "2026-08-22", "why": "Today's Microsoft Word can't hold a candle to Framemaker of the late 1980s!", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 2, "compare": 1, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "Today's Microsoft Word can't hold a candle to Framemaker of the late 1980s!", "kind": "", "icon": false, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://www.adobe.com/products/framemaker.html", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["FrameMaker"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 776903600, "item_id": 48556475, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48556475", "by": "Finnucane", "date": "2026-06-16", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "My dream is raising the funds to buy FrameMaker away from Adobe.", "excerpt": "Quark as an alternative to Adobe? From the frying pan into a smaller frying pan? My dream is raising the funds to buy FrameMaker away from Adobe.", "context": "", "use_case": "document publishing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Adobe Alternatives: list of alternatives for Adobe software"}, {"id": 758058848, "item_id": 47378678, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47378678", "by": "bluebxrry", "date": "2026-03-14", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "FrameMaker is the standard", "excerpt": "Look, my fellow smug lisp weenies, I love Emacs too, but FrameMaker is the standard. If I pay $100 for Times New Roman Pro from Monotype, my DSL is automatically more expensive. I select Times New Roman Pro in Adobe's tools, and it prints it. Emacs, LuaTeX et al, GhostScript, and PDF take the liberty of upgrading my $100 Times New Roman Pro to Libre New Roman (from the LibreOffice typesetting subsystem) without my co", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "XML Is a Cheap DSL"}, {"id": 750390625, "item_id": 46899414, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46899414", "by": "lateforwork", "date": "2026-02-05", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Today's Microsoft Word can't hold a candle to Framemaker of the late 1980s!", "excerpt": "Take a look at what was possible in the late 1980s with 8 MB of RAM: https://infinitemac.org/1989/NeXTStep%201.0 You can run NeXTStep in your browser by clicking above link. A couple of weeks ago you could run Framemaker as well. I was blown away by what Framemaker of the late 1980s could do. Today's Microsoft Word can't hold a candle to Framemaker of the late 1980s! Edit: screenshot of Framemaker can be seen here: h", "context": "", "use_case": "document publishing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Wirth's Revenge"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["document publishing", "authoring the book"], "compared": [{"slug": "microsoft-word", "name": "Microsoft Word", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46895381", "title": "Wirth's Revenge", "mentions": 3}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49404282", "title": "A New Kind of Science by Stephen Wolfram: Monster Raving Egomania", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48555730", "title": "Adobe Alternatives: list of alternatives for Adobe software", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47375764", "title": "XML Is a Cheap DSL", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46899591", "title": "The New Collabora Office for Desktop", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {"recommend": 1, "compare": 1, "neutral": 1}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "versions": [], "version_unnamed": 0, "family_ref": null, "runs_on": null, "lines": [], "quotes": [{"id": 790474129, "item_id": 49404633, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49404633", "by": "DonHopkins", "date": "2026-08-22", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "FrameMaker", "excerpt": "Why blame the book for giving the author credit, instead of the author for giving himself credit? Admittedly the book did take on a life of its own, and he wrote it in Mathematica and built it with his own hand rolled CI/CD pipeline (FrameMaker + Wolfram Language diagrams + MIF export/import + automated build script + alpha/beta readers + DQA/SQA). The Making of A New Kind of Science: https://writings.stephenwolfram.", "context": "", "use_case": "authoring the book", "switched_from": "", "story": "A New Kind of Science by Stephen Wolfram: Monster Raving Egomania"}, {"id": 776903600, "item_id": 48556475, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48556475", "by": "Finnucane", "date": "2026-06-16", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "My dream is raising the funds to buy FrameMaker away from Adobe.", "excerpt": "Quark as an alternative to Adobe? From the frying pan into a smaller frying pan? My dream is raising the funds to buy FrameMaker away from Adobe.", "context": "", "use_case": "document publishing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Adobe Alternatives: list of alternatives for Adobe software"}, {"id": 758058848, "item_id": 47378678, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47378678", "by": "bluebxrry", "date": "2026-03-14", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "FrameMaker is the standard", "excerpt": "Look, my fellow smug lisp weenies, I love Emacs too, but FrameMaker is the standard. If I pay $100 for Times New Roman Pro from Monotype, my DSL is automatically more expensive. I select Times New Roman Pro in Adobe's tools, and it prints it. Emacs, LuaTeX et al, GhostScript, and PDF take the liberty of upgrading my $100 Times New Roman Pro to Libre New Roman (from the LibreOffice typesetting subsystem) without my co", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "XML Is a Cheap DSL"}, {"id": 750569296, "item_id": 46910581, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46910581", "by": "canucker2016", "date": "2026-02-06", "version": null, "stance": "compare", "quote": "The article talks mentions Interleaf as their main competitor.", "excerpt": "For more history on FrameMaker, here's a writeup by one of the founders - https://walden-family.com/david-murray/frame-posted.pdf The article talks mentions Interleaf as their main competitor.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Wirth's Revenge"}, {"id": 750566946, "item_id": 46910434, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46910434", "by": "pjmlp", "date": "2026-02-06", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "a mix of Word, and FrameMaker", "excerpt": "LaTeX is no longer the king of universities, Word has been for quite some time part of the official templates. https://www.acm.org/publications/authors/submissions And I can tell that while at CERN, those using LaTeX on paper submissions were the minority, on ATLAS TDAQ/HLT group it was a mix of Word, and FrameMaker.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "The New Collabora Office for Desktop"}, {"id": 750526272, "item_id": 46907892, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46907892", "by": "canucker2016", "date": "2026-02-05", "version": null, "stance": "compare", "quote": "MS Word and FrameMaker were never considered competitors in the same market.", "excerpt": "MS Word and FrameMaker were never considered competitors in the same market. Aldus Pagemaker was a closer competitor to Framemaker, but Pagemaker's bread and butter was at the lower end of the market. see this review for MS Word for Windows 1.0. The competitors listed for their benchmarks include Ami Pro, and the DOS versions of WordPerfect and MS Word. Review: https://computerhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/I", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Wirth's Revenge"}, {"id": 750390625, "item_id": 46899414, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46899414", "by": "lateforwork", "date": "2026-02-05", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Today's Microsoft Word can't hold a candle to Framemaker of the late 1980s!", "excerpt": "Take a look at what was possible in the late 1980s with 8 MB of RAM: https://infinitemac.org/1989/NeXTStep%201.0 You can run NeXTStep in your browser by clicking above link. A couple of weeks ago you could run Framemaker as well. I was blown away by what Framemaker of the late 1980s could do. Today's Microsoft Word can't hold a candle to Framemaker of the late 1980s! Edit: screenshot of Framemaker can be seen here: h", "context": "", "use_case": "document publishing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Wirth's Revenge"}]}