using graphics by reference in Word

In FrameMaker, you don't have to insert the actual graphics file into the FrameMaker file. Instead, you can "Import by Reference". This has a couple of advantages.

For one thing, if a figure ever changes, you just change the figure file itself, and the change happens automatically in the FrameMaker file. This is especially helpful for technical writing. Very often, you include screen shots of what the software interface looks like. As the product changes, so does the software interface. By using "Import by Reference", all you have to do is take the new screen shot, name it the same thing as the old screen shot, and save it in the same directory as the old screen shot. FrameMaker looks for the image by name, so it uses the new image with the old name automatically.

The other advantage is with file size. If you insert the images themselves into a FrameMaker file, it quickly gets ginormous (10s to 100s of MB), and is very unwieldy to save, open, move, and so forth. But, if you import the graphics by reference, there aren't any images in the FrameMaker file, only the links to the graphics files. So the FrameMaker file stays small (100s of KB) and easy to handle.

Now, I always thought that you couldn't do graphics by reference in Word documents. I thought that you had to embed the actual graphics into the Word file. Happily, I was wrong! As explained very thoroughly here:
http://www.labnol.org/software/insert-images-in-word-documents/8144/
it is very simple to insert graphics by reference into Word documents also.

This means that any Word documents grown ginormous because of embedded graphics can be slimmed down by turning each embedded graphic into a link. Plus, as above, the linked images change automatically in the document when you change the linked-to files.

It's not often that you find something built-in that makes technical writing easier. This is a pleasant surprise!