I agree with Richard. Do you have a business requirement (DITA content, a contract to deliver XML, or working with an XML content management system?)to be in structured Frame? If not, you're taking on a bit much all at the same time.
-----Original Message----- From: framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Combs, Richard Sent: Friday, December 12, 2008 9:11 AM To: Adriana Harper; framers@lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: TOC in FM8 - different levels ; and a few other questions Adriana Harper wrote: > 1. I am working with Structured FM since I will be doing both print > and web based help (using RoboHelp). Let me stop you right there. The need to produce both print and help in _no_way_ implies the need for structured documents. You're introducing gobs of additional complexity and difficulty that you don't need, especially if you're going to use RH for the help output. Considering your FM-novice status and some of the questions you've asked, I _strongly_ suggest that you switch to the unstructured FrameMaker interface (File > Preferences > General > Product Interface), focus on learning about how the default master pages work, paragraph and character formats, etc., and develop a nice, simple unstructured template. The Classroom in a Book will be quite helpful. But you might also want to look at some training or tutorials. There's a pretty good tutorial here: http://www.io.com/~tcm/etwr2472/planners/frame/frame_basics.html And MicroType (a site you should bookmark and explore) has links to others here: http://www.microtype.com/FrameMakerTutorials.html For learning the basic concepts and skills, don't worry about which FM version a tutorial or book applies to. Details may have changed (and the switch to Unicode in FM8 was a big deal for people dealing with multiple languages), but all the fundamentals -- document structure and organization, templates, pgf and char formats, page layouts, cross-references, variables, autonumbering, generated lists, etc. -- are basically the same in FM 6, 7, and 8 (earlier versions, too, mostly). If you have standalone versions of FM8 and RH, at some point you might want to look into upgrading to the Adobe Technical Publishing Suite. The versions in the suite are tightly integrated; you don't _import_ FM docs into RH, but _link_ them instead. This enables a true single-sourcing workflow -- changes you make in either program are made to the same FM source files. For a relatively simple help system (and a novice user), it's probably not a big deal to re-export your FM files to RH when they change, so there's no rush on this. But keep it in mind for the future, like when the next versions of FM, RH, and the TPS come out. :-) HTH! Richard Richard G. Combs Senior Technical Writer Polycom, Inc. richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom 303-223-5111 ------ rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom 303-777-0436 ------ _______________________________________________ You are currently subscribed to Framers as m...@grafixtraining.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/matt%40grafixtraining.co m Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. _______________________________________________ You are currently subscribed to Framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.