Re: Unstructured to Structured: Question about retaining, paragraph formats
I think the answer to your question is somewhere between No and It Depends, but closer to No. It gets back to the structure vs. display issue. FrameMaker tries to give you both the XML world and the WYSIWYG world in one package. A more typical XML editor (like the new XML view in Frame 11) is just a text-based markup language editor that doesn't know anything about display. The XML output from such an editor gets turned into a formatted document by other software that transforms it (XSL and that stuff) based on the elements and attributes. This is how XML can get used in lots of different ways (single-sourcing). Different transformations yield different formatting based on the target display platform. If FrameMaker, that display transformation takes place in real time in the interaction between the EDD and the para and char formats in your document based on the elements and attributes in your structure plus specific formatting overrides in the EDD. This means there is a temptation to build in a lot of attributes and formatting that is Frame specific. For example, some of my elements include whether or not I want the para or heading to be at the top of a page. This is entirely display related and something that would almost certainly be frowned upon if you were writing for multiple display environments. Therefore, if you are round tripping for distribution in other display environments, I would actually suspect that you would want to minimize the format related stuff in your structure, rather than maximize it because the framemaker-specific formatting would make less sense when transforming to other display environments. If you are round tripping just for editing purposes and it always comes back to FrameMaker for printing/PDF, then that is less of an issue and you can do what works best for you. Even in that case, you might not want to burden the authors with format related attributes to think about. Hope I've been at least somewhat coherent in my comments. I've probably simplified things a little. I don't do any round tripping, so I can't speak much to the pitfalls. Fred On 9/13/2012 6:29 PM, rebecca officer wrote: Hi guys If you're planning to roundtrip through XML, with different authors using different XML editors, you'd need to have all the formatting in the EDD, right? Or am I on completely the wrong track in my ignorance? Thanks Rebecca -- Fred Wersan VT MÄK, Principal Technical Writer 68 Moulton Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 T: +1.617.876.8085 x124 Email: fwer...@mak.com Get Realistic Background Traffic - up to 75% off! www.mak.com/YourPatternOfLife | Offer ends September 25, 2012 ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to framers@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.
Re: Automatic PDF Form
Would it work to make the checkbox from an autonumbered paragraph in a sidebar? You could use the Next Paragraph setting in the Para Designer to automatically insert them next to the paragraphs that need them. Cheers Rebecca David Artman da...@davidartman.com 14/09/12 06:23 Goal: Upon generating a PDF, checkboxes appear next to each paragraph of a particular type, aligned right against the page margin. Can not use autonumbering, because the paragraph tag already has numbers. Can not manually create them in the PDF post-distillation, because we're talking about hundred of steps needing checkboxes--WAY too time-consuming. I am currently considering this method, using only FM 8 and Acrobat 9 Pro: 1) Manually place a checkbox glyph into a text frame within an anchor frame that is set to Run Into Paragraph and aligned right. 2) Add some kind of label within the text frame (e.g., Y, OK or Done). 3) Copy-and-paste the anchor for that frame at then end of every a new para of that type. 4) Distill to PDF. 5) Open PDF in AcroPro. 6) Let the Form Wizard detect the labelled checkboxes and auto-create them. Works, but error-prone in many ways: a) Writers forget to add the manually-placed frame. b) TONS of other stuff can be detected as form fields; and their auto-created fields have to be deleted (could be more work than adding fields manually post-PDFing!). Ideas? I suspect there's a plug-in that will automatically do this, if setup right initially (or will do it wherever a special type of marker is placed--half automatic so to speak). Thanks in advance; David Artman david artman designs ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as rebecca.offi...@alliedtelesis.co.nz. Send list messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/rebecca.officer%40alliedtelesis.co.nz Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. NOTICE: This message contains privileged and confidential information intended only for the use of the addressee named above. If you are not the intended recipient of this message you are hereby notified that you must not disseminate, copy or take any action in reliance on it. If you have received this message in error please notify Allied Telesis Labs Ltd immediately. Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, except where the sender has the authority to issue and specifically states them to be the views of Allied Telesis Labs. ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to framers@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.
RE: Automatic PDF Form
Do you have Adobe Pro? It comes with Live Cycle Designer. That's a forms making program. Use that. I use it all the time. It's excellent. -Gillian -Original Message- From: framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of David Artman Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2012 11:24 AM To: Framers Subject: Automatic PDF Form Goal: Upon generating a PDF, checkboxes appear next to each paragraph of a particular type, aligned right against the page margin. Can not use autonumbering, because the paragraph tag already has numbers. Can not manually create them in the PDF post-distillation, because we're talking about hundred of steps needing checkboxes--WAY too time-consuming. I am currently considering this method, using only FM 8 and Acrobat 9 Pro: 1) Manually place a checkbox glyph into a text frame within an anchor frame that is set to Run Into Paragraph and aligned right. 2) Add some kind of label within the text frame (e.g., Y, OK or Done). 3) Copy-and-paste the anchor for that frame at then end of every a new para of that type. 4) Distill to PDF. 5) Open PDF in AcroPro. 6) Let the Form Wizard detect the labelled checkboxes and auto-create them. Works, but error-prone in many ways: a) Writers forget to add the manually-placed frame. b) TONS of other stuff can be detected as form fields; and their auto-created fields have to be deleted (could be more work than adding fields manually post-PDFing!). Ideas? I suspect there's a plug-in that will automatically do this, if setup right initially (or will do it wherever a special type of marker is placed--half automatic so to speak). Thanks in advance; David Artman david artman designs ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as gillian.fl...@nexenta.com. Send list messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/gillian.flato%40nexenta.com 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 framers@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.
Book attribute in running header/footer variable of generated TOC
Hello, I'm new to this list. Sorry if you receive this message twice. But here's my question: I'm working on a structured book that includes a TOC generated by FM. The book structure looks like this: [book] product = asdfghj version = 1.5 --[contents] ... manualTOC.fm --[doc] ... chapter1.fm --[doc] ... chapter2.fm The running footer in all documents contains a variable with the following definition: $attribute[product:book] version $attribute[version:book] The resulting footer in chapter1.fm and chapter2.fm is asdfghj version 1.5. The resulting footer in contents is just version , which probably means that FM cannot retrieve the attributes on book level. What could be wrong? Is it possible at all to refer to book attributes from within a generated TOC? I'm using FM 8.0p276 on Windows XP. Thanks in advance for your replies. JoH ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to framers@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.
Re: Automatic PDF Form
On 13/09/2012 2:23 PM, David Artman wrote: Goal: Upon generating a PDF, checkboxes appear next to each paragraph of a particular type, aligned right against the page margin. Can not use autonumbering, because the paragraph tag already has numbers. Can not manually create them in the PDF post-distillation, because we're talking about hundred of steps needing checkboxes--WAY too time-consuming. I am currently considering this method, using only FM 8 and Acrobat 9 Pro: 1) Manually place a checkbox glyph into a text frame within an anchor frame that is set to Run Into Paragraph and aligned right. 2) Add some kind of label within the text frame (e.g., Y, OK or Done). 3) Copy-and-paste the anchor for that frame at then end of every a new para of that type. 4) Distill to PDF. 5) Open PDF in AcroPro. 6) Let the Form Wizard detect the labelled checkboxes and auto-create them. Works, but error-prone in many ways: a) Writers forget to add the manually-placed frame. b) TONS of other stuff can be detected as form fields; and their auto-created fields have to be deleted (could be more work than adding fields manually post-PDFing!). Ideas? I suspect there's a plug-in that will automatically do this, if setup right initially (or will do it wherever a special type of marker is placed--half automatic so to speak). Thanks in advance; David Artman david artman designs ___ I'm not familiar with the form wizard, so can't deal with that; but there are ways to put in a checkbox glyph without messing up your autonumbering. Turn on room for sideheads on the right side of your text frames. Create a pgf tag with Side Head-Alignment at First Baseline and an autonumber with your checkbox glyph. Set the Next Pgf Tag to your numbered step. You might be able to do something similar with a tag defined as a right-aligned Run-In Head. You could also use a 2-column borderless table with the right-hand column cells formatted with the pgf tag I described first and the left-hand column cells formatted with your numbered step tag; updating the table definition would preserve that formatting in tables inserted subsequently. And if you care to delve into pdfmarks, I think you could use postscript frames containing pdfmark code to create checkboxes. You can find info about this here: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat.html HTH, -- Stuart Rogers Technical Communicator Phoenix Geophysics Limited 3781 Victoria Park Avenue, Unit 3 Toronto, ON, Canada M1W 3K5 +1 (416) 491-7340 x 325 http://www.phoenix-geophysics.com ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to framers@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.
Re: framers Digest, Vol 83, Issue 13
Rebecca asks: Hi guys If you're planning to roundtrip through XML, with different authors using different XML editors, you'd need to have all the formatting in the EDD, right? Or am I on completely the wrong track in my ignorance? Thanks Rebecca = I think the question is a little bit off, and probably because the whole thread has not been clear or consistent on what is meant by structure or formatting. I would say that there should be no formatting in the XML. In fact, the structural elements should be declared for their *structure* and not for the formatting you might think they imply. Any formatting should be applied to the content at the last possible moment, and it should be applied according to rules about how to interpret the structure. So I was a major culprit in confusing the issue when I said you could create an EDD with attributes that named the formats you want. That would break the rules because it expresses *formatting* within the *structure*. In my defense, I only mentioned that as an absurd example. But honestly, such a scheme would produce lousy XML -- either storing these formatting-only attributes in the XML, or losing the formatting instructions. The bottom line is that XML is structured content. No formatting. FrameMaker adds formatting to structured content. (It also maintains structure internally, and you can use it to edit structure and content.) The way FrameMaker adds formatting to XML is to map formatting rules to the structure... In the EDD. You can apply formatting outside of that (use format catalogs, etc), but you get flaky results -- that's the issue that started this thread. But if you exclude such bad user behavior, then in fact, the ONLY way for FrameMaker to apply formatting to structure is through the EDD. So the answer to your question is a resounding YES. ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to framers@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.
Re: FrameMaker 11 in XML
Robert... Correction! It turns out that you *can* format XML documents in Frame using CSS. There are two options .. - If the XML file includes an xml-stylesheet processing instruction that points to a CSS file, you can set up a structure application definition to make use of that CSS styling when formatting the file in Frame. OR - You can import a CSS into an EDD. If the selectors in the CSS match the element names in the EDD, those element definitions will be updated with corresponding formatting data. Chapter 5 in the Structure Application Developer's Reference lists the CSS properties that are honored and how they map to FM properties. I'm still trying to wrap my head around how this all works, but will probably write up a blog post on it with more details. If you want more info, feel free to contact me. Cheers, ...scott Scott Prentice Leximation, Inc. www.leximation.com +1.415.485.1892 On 9/4/12 8:51 AM, Scott Prentice wrote: Hi Robert... 1) You can specify a Schema (XSD) or a DTD file in the structure application definition. This has been available since FM8 (possibly FM7.2). I've not done this in Frame, but in theory the answer to your question is yes. Perhaps someone with more experience with this feature can comment. 2) No. Formatting in FM is done through an EDD .. which maps elements and element contexts to named styles defined in the associated template or by applying properties and formatting directly to the element structures. Neither of these features has changed with FM11. Cheers, ...scott Scott Prentice Leximation, Inc. www.leximation.com +1.415.485.1892 On 9/3/12 12:14 PM, Robert Leif wrote: After reading the two interesting reviews of FrameMaker11, I still have two questions. 1)Can I directly import elements from XML schemas, particularly, those created in XSD (XML Schema Definition) language? 2)Can I format my XML with CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)? Thank you. Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. Vice President RD Newport Instruments 3345 Hopi Place San Diego, CA 92117 Email: rl...@rleif.com Tel. (619) 582-0437 http://www.newportinstruments.com/ http://www.cytometryml.org/ ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to framers@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.
RE: Unstructured to Structured: Question about retaining, paragraph formats
You can change the paragraph formats by importing templates with different formats without using structure (which is how I assume Robert is getting the differences he cites in his outputs). However, structure allows you to create context that gives different paragraph formatting to the same structural element (like a Heading) depending on whether it is inside another Heading or inside multiple levels of Heading. That way your structure shows the Heading as single element choice, but the formatting is brought in depending on what that element is contained within. In that way your EDD can reference the paragraph tags like Heading1, Heading2, Heading3, etc. depending on the level of the Heading element. For my money, it makes sense for the EDD to reference paragraph and character tags defined in the Structure Application's template rather that creating ad hoc formatting within the EDD. That becomes a lot harder to reengineer in a different context since it is hidden away in the EDD rather than in the document template specified by the Structured Application specified in FrameMaker. Craig -Original Message- From: framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Robert Lauriston Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2012 1:14 PM To: framers@lists.frameusers.com Subject: Re: Unstructured to Structured: Question about retaining, paragraph formats You don't need to use structured FM for that. My paragraph tags map to different formats / tags depending on whether the output is PDF, Web help, Confluence XHTML, or 7-bit ASCII with layout. ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to framers@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.
Diverse templates and Structure
Hi all - At my company, we are preparing to go from unstructured FM10 to structured FM10. Because of all of the messages on this board and generally accepted best practices, we are doing some clean-up and preparation now before trying to implement a structure. However, we have at least one writer (we all report to different managers) who wants certain conditions and paragraph tags that will then *not* be in all of the documents. In the past, we have not done this. We all have the same character and paragraph tags, and conditions, loaded. My question is - will there be problems moving to structure and XML output if we start having this kind of style drift? Thanks - D -- Doris E. Pavlichek Sr. Technical Writer Remote Office/MD dpavlic...@opnet.com Work/Home: 301-624-4054 ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to framers@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.
Unstructured to Structured: Question about retaining, paragraph formats
rebecca.officer%40alliedtelesis.co.nz Send administrative questions to listadmin at frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. NOTICE: This message contains privileged and confidential information intended only for the use of the addressee named above. If you are not the intended recipient of this message you are hereby notified that you must not disseminate, copy or take any action in reliance on it. If you have received this message in error please notify Allied Telesis Labs Ltd immediately. Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, except where the sender has the authority to issue and specifically states them to be the views of Allied Telesis Labs. -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.frameusers.com/pipermail/framers/attachments/20120914/15e41764/attachment.html>
Unstructured to Structured: Question about retaining, paragraph formats
I think the answer to your question is somewhere between No and It Depends, but closer to No. It gets back to the structure vs. display issue. FrameMaker tries to give you both the XML world and the WYSIWYG world in one package. A more typical XML editor (like the new XML view in Frame 11) is just a text-based markup language editor that doesn't know anything about display. The XML output from such an editor gets turned into a formatted document by other software that transforms it (XSL and that stuff) based on the elements and attributes. This is how XML can get used in lots of different ways (single-sourcing). Different transformations yield different formatting based on the target display platform. If FrameMaker, that display transformation takes place in real time in the interaction between the EDD and the para and char formats in your document based on the elements and attributes in your structure plus specific formatting overrides in the EDD. This means there is a temptation to build in a lot of attributes and formatting that is Frame specific. For example, some of my elements include whether or not I want the para or heading to be at the top of a page. This is entirely display related and something that would almost certainly be frowned upon if you were writing for multiple display environments. Therefore, if you are round tripping for distribution in other display environments, I would actually suspect that you would want to minimize the format related stuff in your structure, rather than maximize it because the framemaker-specific formatting would make less sense when transforming to other display environments. If you are round tripping just for editing purposes and it always comes back to FrameMaker for printing/PDF, then that is less of an issue and you can do what works best for you. Even in that case, you might not want to burden the authors with format related attributes to think about. Hope I've been at least somewhat coherent in my comments. I've probably simplified things a little. I don't do any round tripping, so I can't speak much to the pitfalls. Fred On 9/13/2012 6:29 PM, rebecca officer wrote: > Hi guys > If you're planning to roundtrip through XML, with different authors > using different XML editors, you'd need to have all the formatting in > the EDD, right? > Or am I on completely the wrong track in my ignorance? > Thanks > Rebecca > > -- Fred Wersan VT M?K, Principal Technical Writer 68 Moulton Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 T: +1.617.876.8085 x124 Email: fwersan at mak.com Get Realistic Background Traffic - up to 75% off! www.mak.com/YourPatternOfLife | Offer ends September 25, 2012 -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.frameusers.com/pipermail/framers/attachments/20120914/ba4d2a5d/attachment.html>
Automatic PDF Form
Would it work to make the checkbox from an autonumbered paragraph in a sidebar? You could use the Next Paragraph setting in the Para Designer to automatically insert them next to the paragraphs that need them. Cheers Rebecca >>> "David Artman" 14/09/12 06:23 >>> Goal: Upon generating a PDF, checkboxes appear next to each paragraph of a particular type, aligned right against the page margin. Can not use autonumbering, because the paragraph tag already has numbers. Can not manually create them in the PDF post-distillation, because we're talking about hundred of steps needing checkboxes--WAY too time-consuming. I am currently considering this method, using only FM 8 and Acrobat 9 Pro: 1) Manually place a checkbox glyph into a text frame within an anchor frame that is set to "Run Into Paragraph" and aligned right. 2) Add some kind of label within the text frame (e.g., "Y", "OK" or "Done"). 3) Copy-and-paste the anchor for that frame at then end of every a new para of that type. 4) Distill to PDF. 5) Open PDF in AcroPro. 6) Let the Form Wizard detect the labelled checkboxes and auto-create them. Works, but error-prone in many ways: a) Writers forget to add the manually-placed frame. b) TONS of other stuff can be detected as "form fields"; and their auto-created fields have to be deleted (could be more work than adding fields manually post-PDFing!). Ideas? I suspect there's a plug-in that will automatically do this, if setup right initially (or will do it wherever a special type of marker is placed--"half automatic" so to speak). Thanks in advance; David Artman david artman designs ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as rebecca.officer at alliedtelesis.co.nz. Send list messages to framers at lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscribe at lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/rebecca.officer%40alliedtelesis.co.nz Send administrative questions to listadmin at frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. NOTICE: This message contains privileged and confidential information intended only for the use of the addressee named above. If you are not the intended recipient of this message you are hereby notified that you must not disseminate, copy or take any action in reliance on it. If you have received this message in error please notify Allied Telesis Labs Ltd immediately. Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, except where the sender has the authority to issue and specifically states them to be the views of Allied Telesis Labs. -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.frameusers.com/pipermail/framers/attachments/20120914/282bdefe/attachment.html>
Automatic PDF Form
Do you have Adobe Pro? It comes with Live Cycle Designer. That's a forms making program. Use that. I use it all the time. It's excellent. -Gillian -Original Message- From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of David Artman Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2012 11:24 AM To: Framers Subject: Automatic PDF Form Goal: Upon generating a PDF, checkboxes appear next to each paragraph of a particular type, aligned right against the page margin. Can not use autonumbering, because the paragraph tag already has numbers. Can not manually create them in the PDF post-distillation, because we're talking about hundred of steps needing checkboxes--WAY too time-consuming. I am currently considering this method, using only FM 8 and Acrobat 9 Pro: 1) Manually place a checkbox glyph into a text frame within an anchor frame that is set to "Run Into Paragraph" and aligned right. 2) Add some kind of label within the text frame (e.g., "Y", "OK" or "Done"). 3) Copy-and-paste the anchor for that frame at then end of every a new para of that type. 4) Distill to PDF. 5) Open PDF in AcroPro. 6) Let the Form Wizard detect the labelled checkboxes and auto-create them. Works, but error-prone in many ways: a) Writers forget to add the manually-placed frame. b) TONS of other stuff can be detected as "form fields"; and their auto-created fields have to be deleted (could be more work than adding fields manually post-PDFing!). Ideas? I suspect there's a plug-in that will automatically do this, if setup right initially (or will do it wherever a special type of marker is placed--"half automatic" so to speak). Thanks in advance; David Artman david artman designs ___ You are currently subscribed to framers as gillian.flato at nexenta.com. Send list messages to framers at lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscribe at lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/gillian.flato%40nexenta.com Send administrative questions to listadmin at frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Book attribute in running header/footer variable of generated TOC
Hello, I'm new to this list. Sorry if you receive this message twice. But here's my question: I'm working on a structured book that includes a TOC generated by FM. The book structure looks like this: [book] product = "asdfghj" version = "1.5" --[contents] ... manualTOC.fm --[doc] ... chapter1.fm --[doc] ... chapter2.fm The running footer in all documents contains a variable with the following definition: <$attribute[product:book]> version <$attribute[version:book]> The resulting footer in chapter1.fm and chapter2.fm is "asdfghj version 1.5". The resulting footer in is just " version ", which probably means that FM cannot retrieve the attributes on book level. What could be wrong? Is it possible at all to refer to book attributes from within a generated TOC? I'm using FM 8.0p276 on Windows XP. Thanks in advance for your replies. JoH
Automatic PDF Form
On 13/09/2012 2:23 PM, David Artman wrote: > Goal: Upon generating a PDF, checkboxes appear next to each paragraph of > a particular type, aligned right against the page margin. Can not use > autonumbering, because the paragraph tag already has numbers. Can not > manually create them in the PDF post-distillation, because we're talking > about hundred of steps needing checkboxes--WAY too time-consuming. > > I am currently considering this method, using only FM 8 and Acrobat 9 > Pro: > >1) Manually place a checkbox glyph into a text frame within an anchor > frame that is set to "Run Into Paragraph" and aligned right. >2) Add some kind of label within the text frame (e.g., "Y", "OK" or > "Done"). >3) Copy-and-paste the anchor for that frame at then end of every a new > para of that type. >4) Distill to PDF. >5) Open PDF in AcroPro. >6) Let the Form Wizard detect the labelled checkboxes and auto-create > them. > > Works, but error-prone in many ways: > >a) Writers forget to add the manually-placed frame. >b) TONS of other stuff can be detected as "form fields"; and their > auto-created fields have to be deleted (could be more work than adding > fields manually post-PDFing!). > > Ideas? I suspect there's a plug-in that will automatically do this, if > setup right initially (or will do it wherever a special type of marker > is placed--"half automatic" so to speak). > > Thanks in advance; > David Artman > david artman designs > ___ I'm not familiar with the form wizard, so can't deal with that; but there are ways to put in a checkbox glyph without messing up your autonumbering. Turn on room for sideheads on the right side of your text frames. Create a pgf tag with Side Head-Alignment at First Baseline and an autonumber with your checkbox glyph. Set the Next Pgf Tag to your numbered step. You might be able to do something similar with a tag defined as a right-aligned Run-In Head. You could also use a 2-column borderless table with the right-hand column cells formatted with the pgf tag I described first and the left-hand column cells formatted with your numbered step tag; updating the table definition would preserve that formatting in tables inserted subsequently. And if you care to delve into pdfmarks, I think you could use postscript frames containing pdfmark code to create checkboxes. You can find info about this here: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat.html HTH, -- Stuart Rogers Technical Communicator Phoenix Geophysics Limited 3781 Victoria Park Avenue, Unit 3 Toronto, ON, Canada M1W 3K5 +1 (416) 491-7340 x 325 http://www.phoenix-geophysics.com
framers Digest, Vol 83, Issue 13
Rebecca asks: Hi guys If you're planning to roundtrip through XML, with different authors using different XML editors, you'd need to have all the formatting in the EDD, right? Or am I on completely the wrong track in my ignorance? Thanks Rebecca = I think the question is a little bit off, and probably because the whole thread has not been clear or consistent on what is meant by "structure" or "formatting".? I would say that there should be no formatting in the XML.? In fact, the structural elements should be declared for their *structure* and not for the formatting you might think they imply.? Any formatting should be applied to the content at the last possible moment, and it should be applied according to rules about how to interpret the structure.? So I was a major culprit in confusing the issue when I said you could create an EDD with attributes that named the formats you want.? That would break the rules because it expresses *formatting* within the *structure*.? In my defense, I only mentioned that as an absurd example.? But honestly, such a scheme would produce lousy XML -- either storing these formatting-only attributes in the XML, or losing the formatting instructions. The bottom line is that XML is structured content.? No formatting.? FrameMaker adds formatting to structured content.? (It also maintains structure internally, and you can use it to edit structure and content.)? The way FrameMaker adds formatting to XML is to map formatting rules to the structure...? In the EDD.? You can apply formatting outside of that (use format catalogs, etc), but you get flaky results -- that's the issue that started this thread.? But if you exclude such bad user behavior, then in fact, the ONLY way for FrameMaker to apply formatting to structure is through the EDD.? So the answer to your question is a resounding YES.? -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.frameusers.com/pipermail/framers/attachments/20120914/27162742/attachment.html>
FrameMaker 11 in XML
Robert... Correction! It turns out that you *can* format XML documents in Frame using CSS. There are two options .. - If the XML file includes an "xml-stylesheet" processing instruction that points to a CSS file, you can set up a structure application definition to make use of that CSS styling when formatting the file in Frame. OR - You can import a CSS into an EDD. If the selectors in the CSS match the element names in the EDD, those element definitions will be updated with corresponding formatting data. Chapter 5 in the Structure Application Developer's Reference lists the CSS properties that are honored and how they map to FM properties. I'm still trying to wrap my head around how this all works, but will probably write up a blog post on it with more details. If you want more info, feel free to contact me. Cheers, ...scott Scott Prentice Leximation, Inc. www.leximation.com +1.415.485.1892 On 9/4/12 8:51 AM, Scott Prentice wrote: > Hi Robert... > > 1) You can specify a Schema (XSD) or a DTD file in the structure > application definition. This has been available since FM8 (possibly > FM7.2). I've not done this in Frame, but in theory the answer to your > question is yes. Perhaps someone with more experience with this > feature can comment. > > 2) No. Formatting in FM is done through an EDD .. which maps elements > and element contexts to named styles defined in the associated > template or by applying properties and formatting directly to the > element structures. > > Neither of these features has changed with FM11. > > Cheers, > > ...scott > > Scott Prentice > Leximation, Inc. > www.leximation.com > +1.415.485.1892 > > On 9/3/12 12:14 PM, Robert Leif wrote: >> >> After reading the two interesting reviews of FrameMaker11, I still >> have two questions. >> >> 1)Can I directly import elements from XML schemas, particularly, >> those created in XSD (XML Schema Definition) language? >> >> 2)Can I format my XML with CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)? >> >> Thank you. >> >> Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. >> >> Vice President R >> >> Newport Instruments >> >> 3345 Hopi Place >> >> San Diego, CA 92117 >> >> Email: rleif at rleif.com >> >> Tel. (619) 582-0437 >> >> http://www.newportinstruments.com/ >> >> http://www.cytometryml.org/ >> >> >> > -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.frameusers.com/pipermail/framers/attachments/20120914/720c263c/attachment.html>
Unstructured to Structured: Question about retaining, paragraph formats
You can change the paragraph formats by importing templates with different formats without using structure (which is how I assume Robert is getting the differences he cites in his outputs). However, structure allows you to create context that gives different paragraph formatting to the same structural element (like a Heading) depending on whether it is inside another Heading or inside multiple levels of Heading. That way your structure shows the Heading as single element choice, but the formatting is brought in depending on what that element is contained within. In that way your EDD can reference the paragraph tags like Heading1, Heading2, Heading3, etc. depending on the level of the Heading element. For my money, it makes sense for the EDD to reference paragraph and character tags defined in the Structure Application's template rather that creating ad hoc formatting within the EDD. That becomes a lot harder to reengineer in a different context since it is hidden away in the EDD rather than in the document template specified by the Structured Application specified in FrameMaker. Craig -Original Message- From: framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Robert Lauriston Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2012 1:14 PM To: framers at lists.frameusers.com Subject: Re: Unstructured to Structured: Question about retaining, paragraph formats You don't need to use structured FM for that. My paragraph tags map to different formats / tags depending on whether the output is PDF, Web help, Confluence XHTML, or 7-bit ASCII with layout.
Diverse templates and Structure
Hi all - At my company, we are preparing to go from unstructured FM10 to structured FM10. Because of all of the messages on this board and generally accepted "best practices", we are doing some clean-up and preparation now before trying to implement a structure. However, we have at least one writer (we all report to different managers) who wants certain conditions and paragraph tags that will then *not* be in all of the documents. In the past, we have not done this. We all have the same character and paragraph tags, and conditions, loaded. My question is - will there be problems moving to structure and XML output if we start having this kind of style drift? Thanks - D -- Doris E. Pavlichek Sr. Technical Writer Remote Office/MD dpavlichek at opnet.com Work/Home: 301-624-4054
