Re: Chunking FM files into Topics for RH

[Robert Lauriston]

The big plus with using paragraph tags is that you are defining
general rules with exceptions, so can make global changes.

For example, if you have been breaking at Heading 1 and Heading 2, but
want to add breaks for Heading 3, it's one change in RoboHelp, plus
applying Heading 3 Nobreak in FrameMaker for the topics where you
don't want breaks.

With markers, you'd have to add a marker for every Heading 3 except
those where you don't want breaks. General rules are not enforced by
the application so there's no way to make global changes. In the long
run, I think that would be a lot of unnecessary extra maintenance work
and over time you'd be likely to accumulate errors as a document
passes through the hands of various authors and editors.

Using paragraph tags also makes it faster and easier to see how any
individual heading is set or change it.
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Chunking FM files into Topics for RH

[Robert Lauriston]

The big plus with using paragraph tags is that you are defining
general rules with exceptions, so can make global changes.

For example, if you have been breaking at Heading 1 and Heading 2, but
want to add breaks for Heading 3, it's one change in RoboHelp, plus
applying Heading 3 Nobreak in FrameMaker for the topics where you
don't want breaks.

With markers, you'd have to add a marker for every Heading 3 except
those where you don't want breaks. General rules are not enforced by
the application so there's no way to make global changes. In the long
run, I think that would be a lot of unnecessary extra maintenance work
and over time you'd be likely to accumulate errors as a document
passes through the hands of various authors and editors.

Using paragraph tags also makes it faster and easier to see how any
individual heading is set or change it.

Chunking FM files into Topics for RH

[Carol J. Elkins]

There is a discussion of how to use markers in Framemaker to control 
page breaks in RoboHelp at

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/robohelp/robohtml/WS9F91508B-AC18-4b72-8FFB-B639F73F4741.html

As with most things, there are many ways to achieve the desired 
outcome. Often combinations of ways work well. I haven't used the 
markers solution yet, but it seems to me to be a better and easier 
approach than trying to maintain many different paragraph styles in 
Framemaker. One marker, such as PageBreak, applied to the FM files 
everywhere you want RH to break a page would seem to me to be easier 
to apply than changing paragraph tags. I try to keep my paragraph 
catalog as slim as possible. Just my thoughts.


Carol

At 11:00 AM 3/2/2013, you wrote:

From: Nancy Allison ma...@verizon.net
Precedence: list
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: framers@lists.frameusers.com
Date: Fri, 01 Mar 2013 13:50:48 -0600 (CST)
Message-ID: 9033605.1504140.1362167448401.JavaMail.root@vznit170132
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
Subject: Re: RE: Chunking FM files into Topics for RH
Message: 8

 Carol, are you speaking of custom Markers that RH could then look 
for? I like the idea of just removing unwanted topics, sounds very painless!


--Nancy



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Chunking FM files into Topics for RH

[Carol J. Elkins]

There is a discussion of how to use markers in Framemaker to control 
page breaks in RoboHelp at
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/robohelp/robohtml/WS9F91508B-AC18-4b72-8FFB-B639F73F4741.html

As with most things, there are many ways to achieve the desired 
outcome. Often combinations of ways work well. I haven't used the 
markers solution yet, but it seems to me to be a better and easier 
approach than trying to maintain many different paragraph styles in 
Framemaker. One marker, such as PageBreak, applied to the FM files 
everywhere you want RH to break a page would seem to me to be easier 
to apply than changing paragraph tags. I try to keep my paragraph 
catalog as slim as possible. Just my thoughts.

Carol

At 11:00 AM 3/2/2013, you wrote:
>From: Nancy Allison 
>Precedence: list
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>To: framers at lists.frameusers.com
>Date: Fri, 01 Mar 2013 13:50:48 -0600 (CST)
>Message-ID: <9033605.1504140.1362167448401.JavaMail.root at vznit170132>
>Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
>Subject: Re: RE: Chunking FM files into Topics for RH
>Message: 8
>
>  Carol, are you speaking of custom Markers that RH could then look 
> for? I like the idea of just removing unwanted topics, sounds very painless!
>
>--Nancy
>

Chunking FM files into Topics for RH

[Nancy Allison]

Hi, all. I'm using FM 10 and RH 9 on a Windows 7 system.

I see that there are at least two ways to chunk .fm content into separate .html 
topics when you import a FrameMaker project into RoboHelp:

1. When setting up the import of .fm files, set the pagination value to a 
heading level; topics begin at each new instance of that heading level.

2. Create custom markers to identify the beginning of a topic. Question: How do 
you indicate the end of the topic?



I've found that with technique #1, because subheading levels do not follow a 
rigid scheme in our unstructured documents, I have to use a lot of conditional 
text and some additional paragraph tags to fool RoboHelp into combining several 
subsections that it wants to separate.

I haven't tried technique #2. Does anyone use it? There has to be a way to 
indicate the end of each topic you mark -- can you tell me what it is? Given 
that you can scope out topics in the .FM file, I assume there's a lot less need 
for conditional text. Do you find this to be so? Are there any pitfalls to this 
method?

Is there any other approach to chunking text that I'm missing?

Thanks for all advice. 

--Nancy
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RE: Chunking FM files into Topics for RH

[Combs, Richard]

Nancy Allison wrote:
 
 2. Create custom markers to identify the beginning of a topic. Question: How
 do you indicate the end of the topic?

The end of a topic is the beginning of the next topic. 

Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
--
rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-903-6372
--






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Re: RE: Chunking FM files into Topics for RH

[Nancy Allison]

Dang, I think.Let's say I have a longish chapter:Chapter TitleInternal TOCHeading 1 IntroHeading 2Heading 2Heading 2Heading 1Heading 2Heading 2Heading 2Let's say that, of all of that content, the only content I want to transform into .html topic files are the sectionswith asterisks:Chapter TitleInternal TOC**Heading 1 Intro**Heading 2Heading 2Heading 2Heading 1Heading 2*Heading 2Heading 2Let's further say that I want to combine the two sections preceded by ** into one .html topic file, and I also want to do the same with the two sections preceded by .In other words, I want to carve information out of the larger chapter and only convert that carved-out info into online help.I was hoping I could insert a marker called, say, Customer Help Marker Start at the beginning of each chunk and a marker called Custom Help Marker End at the end, thus identifying each new .html topic that way, but that is not to be, eh?Instead, I need to use a combination of conditional text and custom markers to get the effects I want. Does that sum it up?Thanks.--Nancy
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RE: RE: Chunking FM files into Topics for RH

[Jeff Coatsworth]

What I would do is build a new .book file with all the required bits you want 
to see over in RH  then bring that in.


From: framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com 
[mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Nancy Allison
Sent: Friday, March 01, 2013 11:19 AM
To: framers@lists.frameusers.com
Subject: Re: RE: Chunking FM files into Topics for RH

Dang, I think.

Let's say I have a longish chapter:

Chapter Title
Internal TOC
Heading 1 Intro
Heading 2
Heading 2
Heading 2
Heading 1
Heading 2
Heading 2
Heading 2
Let's say that, of all of that content, the only content I want to transform 
into .html topic files are the sections with asterisks:

Chapter Title
Internal TOC
**Heading 1 Intro
**Heading 2
Heading 2
Heading 2
Heading 1
Heading 2
*Heading 2
Heading 2
 Let's further say that I want to combine the two sections preceded by ** into 
one .html topic file, and I also want to do the same with the two sections 
preceded by .

In other words, I want to carve information out of the larger chapter and only 
convert that carved-out info into online help.

I was hoping I could insert a marker called, say, Customer Help Marker Start at 
the beginning of each chunk and a marker called Custom Help  Marker End at the 
end, thus identifying each new .html topic that way, but that is not to be, eh?

Instead, I need to use a combination of conditional text and custom markers to 
get the effects I want.

Does that sum it up?

Thanks.

--Nancy
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Re: RE: RE: Chunking FM files into Topics for RH

[Nancy Allison]

Hi, Jeff.Do you mean cut delete the content that is not wanted in online help and create a second set of parallel, cut-down .fm files? That would mean blowing up the single-sourcing model, which I would not want to do . . If you mean something else, I'm all ears.Thanks.--NancyOn 03/01/13, Jeff Coatsworthjeff.coatswo...@jonassoftware.com wrote:What I would do is build a new .book file with all the required bits you want to see over in RH  then bring that in.From: framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Nancy AllisonSent: Friday, March 01, 2013 11:19 AMTo: framers@lists.frameusers.comSubject: Re: RE: Chunking FM files into Topics for RHDang, I think.Let's say I have a longish chapter:Chapter Title Internal TOCHeading 1 IntroHeading 2Heading 2Heading 2Heading 1Heading 2Heading 2Heading 2Let's say that, of all of that content, the only content I want to transform into .html topic files are the sectionswith asterisks:Chapter TitleInternal TOC**Heading 1 Intro**Heading 2Heading 2Heading 2Heading 1Heading 2*Heading 2Heading 2Let's further say that I want to combine the two sections preceded by ** into one .html topic file, and I also want to do the same with the two sections preceded by .In other words, I want to carve information out of the larger chapter and only convert that carved-out info into online help.I was hoping I could insert a marker called, say, Customer Help Marker Start at the beginning of each chunk and a marker called Custom Help Marker End at the end, thus identifying each new .html topic that way, but that is not to be, eh?Instead, I need to use a combination of conditional text and custom markers to get the effects I want. Does that sum it up?Thanks.--Nancy___You are currently subscribed to framers as ma...@verizon.net.Send list messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com.To unsubscribe send a blank email toframers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.comor visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/maker%40verizon.netSend administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visithttp://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
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Re: Chunking FM files into Topics for RH

[Stuart Rogers]

On 01/03/2013 11:18 AM, Nancy Allison wrote:

Dang, I think.
Let's say I have a longish chapter:
Chapter Title
Internal TOC
Heading 1 Intro
Heading 2
Heading 2
Heading 2
Heading 1
Heading 2
Heading 2
Heading 2
Let's say that, of all of that content, the only content I want to
transform into .html topic files are the sections with asterisks:
Chapter Title
Internal TOC
**Heading 1 Intro
**Heading 2
Heading 2
Heading 2
Heading 1
Heading 2
*Heading 2
Heading 2
  Let's further say that I want to combine the two sections preceded by
** into one .html topic file, and I also want to do the same with the
two sections preceded by .
In other words, I want to carve information out of the larger chapter
and only convert that carved-out info into online help.



You could accomplish this by putting your starred heading sections into 
separate files imported as text insets.  For the RH source, create a new 
book containing new files containing only the insets.


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
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Re: Chunking FM files into Topics for RH

[Jeremy H. Griffith]

On Fri, 01 Mar 2013 09:54:04 -0600 (CST), Nancy Allison 
ma...@verizon.net wrote:

Is there any other approach to chunking text that I'm missing?

Yes, use a product that really works with Frame as it is,
like Mif2Go...  and avoid all the pain you describe, and
that would be required for all the responses so far, in 
one fell swoop.  ;-)

-- Jeremy H. Griffith, at Omni Systems Inc.
  jer...@omsys.comhttp://mif2go.com/
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Re: Re: Chunking FM files into Topics for RH

[Nancy Allison]

Very interesting, thank you! Let's further say that I want to combine the two sections preceded by ** into one .html topic file, and I also want to do the same with the two sections preceded by . In other words, I want to carve information out of the larger chapter and only convert that carved-out info into online help.You could accomplish this by putting your starred heading sections into separate files imported as text insets. For the RH source, create a new book containing new files containing only the insets.HTH,-- Stuart RogersTechnical CommunicatorPhoenix Geophysics Limited3781 Victoria Park Avenue, Unit 3Toronto, ON, Canada M1W 3K5+1 (416) 491-7340 x 325http://www.phoenix-geophysics.com___
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Re: Chunking FM files into Topics for RH

[Nancy Allison]

Ah, I see what you're saying, Jeff.The entire list of headings, beginning with Chapter Title, is one .fm file. The Heading 1 and Heading 2s are relatively short sections within the .fm file and would create a lengthy book file if they were saved as individual .fm files and entered separately in the .bk file.--NancyOn 03/01/13, Jeff Coatsworthjeff.coatswo...@jonassoftware.com wrote:Maybe I misunderstood - are these chunks all within 1 .fm file or 1 .book? I was assuming that they were separate .fm files and could be recombined in a new .book structure for the purposes of conversion.
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Re: Re: Chunking FM files into Topics for RH

[Nancy Allison]

Hi, Jeremy.With regard to selecting only some text from a lengthy .fm file to turn into .html files, how does mif2go offer better control? I assume I would still need to indicate heading level at which to split the .fm files, and conditional text to mask unwanted text.Does mif2go make either of those actions unnecessary?Thanks.On 03/01/13, Jeremy H. Griffithjer...@omsys.com wrote:On Fri, 01 Mar 2013 09:54:04 -0600 (CST), Nancy Allison ma...@verizon.net wrote:Is there any other approach to chunking text that I'm missing?Yes, use a product that really works with Frame as it is,like Mif2Go... and avoid all the pain you describe, andthat would be required for all the responses so far, in one fell swoop. ;-)-- Jeremy H. Griffith, at Omni Systems Inc.jer...@omsys.com http://mif2go.com/___
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RE: Chunking FM files into Topics for RH

[Carol J. Elkins]

Nancy, consider creating markers for all headings, regardless of 
whether you plan to use them or not. Let RoboHelp break them into 
topics. Then in your RoboHelp TOC and browse sequences, just include 
the topics that you want. Yes, the unwanted ones will go along for 
the ride when the file is generated, but users won't know they are 
there because neither the TOC nor the browse sequence uses them.


Carol

At 11:00 AM 3/1/2013, you wrote:

From: Nancy Allison ma...@verizon.net
Precedence: list
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: framers@lists.frameusers.com
Date: Fri, 01 Mar 2013 10:18:45 -0600 (CST)
Message-ID: 1566519.1789592.1362154725119.JavaMail.root@vznit170134
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
Subject: Re: RE: Chunking FM files into Topics for RH
Message: 25

Dang, I think.

Let's say I have a longish chapter:

Chapter Title
Internal TOC
Heading 1 Intro
Heading 2
Heading 2
Heading 2
Heading 1
Heading 2
Heading 2
Heading 2
Let's say that, of all of that content, the only content I want to 
transform into .html topic files are the sections with asterisks:


Chapter Title
Internal TOC
**Heading 1 Intro
**Heading 2
Heading 2
Heading 2
Heading 1
Heading 2
*Heading 2
Heading 2
 Let's further say that I want to combine the two sections preceded 
by ** into one .html topic file, and I also want to do the same 
with the two sections preceded by .


In other words, I want to carve information out of the larger 
chapter and only convert that carved-out info into online help.


I was hoping I could insert a marker called, say, Customer Help 
Marker Start at the beginning of each chunk and a marker called 
Custom Help  Marker End at the end, thus identifying each new .html 
topic that way, but that is not to be, eh?


Instead, I need to use a combination of conditional text and custom 
markers to get the effects I want.


Does that sum it up?

Thanks.

--Nancy


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Re: RE: Chunking FM files into Topics for RH

[Nancy Allison]

Carol, are you speaking of custom Markers that RH could then look for?I like the idea of just removing unwanted topics, sounds very painless!--NancyOn 03/01/13, Carol J. Elkinscelk...@awrittenword.com wrote:Nancy, consider creating markers for all headings, regardless of whether you plan to use them or not. Let RoboHelp break them into topics. Then in your RoboHelp TOC and browse sequences, just include the topics that you want. Yes, the unwanted ones will go along for the ride when the file is generated, but users won't know they are there because neither the TOC nor the browse sequence uses them.Carol
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RE: Chunking FM files into Topics for RH

[Alexandra Duffy]

Hi Nancy,
Here's how we do this - we have two heading styles for all our major headings. 
Level 1 starts a new page in RH, and Level1nopage looks exactly the same but 
does not have the Pagination option selected in the RH mapping. Similarly, we 
have Level2 and Level2nopage, and so on. Our Level 4 doesn't need to start a 
new page in RH, so we don't have dual styles for it.
This sounds complicated, but it's really easy. You just go through your FM 
files and apply the nopage equivalent to the sections that shouldn't start a 
new page.
I hope this helps!

Alexandra Duffy
Lead Technical Writer
Nemetschek Vectorworks, Inc.
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Re: RE: Chunking FM files into Topics for RH

[Nancy Allison]

Hi, Alexandra. I think this is what Robert Lauriston has been saying, also.Both the formats you use are picked up in your FrameMaker TOC for your PDF output, (assuming you are single-sourcing to PDF also), correct?This sounds like a great solution. Very elegant.--NancyOn 03/01/13, Alexandra Duffyadu...@vectorworks.net wrote:Hi Nancy,Here’s how we do this – we have two heading styles for all our major headings. Level 1 starts a new page in RH, and Level1nopage looks exactly the same but does not have the Pagination option selected in the RH mapping. Similarly, we have Level2 and Level2nopage, and so on. Our Level 4 doesn’t need to start a new page in RH, so we don’t have dual styles for it.This sounds complicated, but it’s really easy. You just go through your FM files and apply the “nopage” equivalent to the sections that shouldn’t start a new page.I hope this helps!Alexandra DuffyLead Technical WriterNemetschek Vectorworks, Inc.
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Chunking FM files into Topics for RH

[Nancy Allison]

Hi, all. I'm using FM 10 and RH 9 on a Windows 7 system.

I see that there are at least two ways to chunk .fm content into separate .html 
topics when you import a FrameMaker project into RoboHelp:

1. When setting up the import of .fm files, set the pagination value to a 
heading level; topics begin at each new instance of that heading level.

2. Create custom markers to identify the beginning of a topic. Question: How do 
you indicate the end of the topic?



I've found that with technique #1, because subheading levels do not follow a 
rigid scheme in our unstructured documents, I have to use a lot of conditional 
text and some additional paragraph tags to fool RoboHelp into combining several 
subsections that it wants to separate.

I haven't tried technique #2. Does anyone use it? There has to be a way to 
indicate the end of each topic you mark -- can you tell me what it is? Given 
that you can scope out topics in the .FM file, I assume there's a lot less need 
for conditional text. Do you find this to be so? Are there any pitfalls to this 
method?

Is there any other approach to chunking text that I'm missing?

Thanks for all advice. 

--Nancy

Chunking FM files into Topics for RH

[Combs, Richard]

Nancy Allison wrote:

> 2. Create custom markers to identify the beginning of a topic. Question: How
> do you indicate the end of the topic?

The end of a topic is the beginning of the next topic. 

Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
--
rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-903-6372
--

Chunking FM files into Topics for RH

[Nancy Allison]

An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: 

Chunking FM files into Topics for RH

[Jeff Coatsworth]

What I would do is build a new .book file with all the required bits you want 
to see over in RH & then bring that in.


From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com 
[mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Nancy Allison
Sent: Friday, March 01, 2013 11:19 AM
To: framers at lists.frameusers.com
Subject: Re: RE: Chunking FM files into Topics for RH

Dang, I think.

Let's say I have a longish chapter:

Chapter Title
Internal TOC
Heading 1 Intro
Heading 2
Heading 2
Heading 2
Heading 1
Heading 2
Heading 2
Heading 2
Let's say that, of all of that content, the only content I want to transform 
into .html topic files are the sections with asterisks:

Chapter Title
Internal TOC
**Heading 1 Intro
**Heading 2
Heading 2
Heading 2
Heading 1
Heading 2
*Heading 2
Heading 2
 Let's further say that I want to combine the two sections preceded by ** into 
one .html topic file, and I also want to do the same with the two sections 
preceded by .

In other words, I want to carve information out of the larger chapter and only 
convert that carved-out info into online help.

I was hoping I could insert a marker called, say, Customer Help Marker Start at 
the beginning of each chunk and a marker called Custom Help  Marker End at the 
end, thus identifying each new .html topic that way, but that is not to be, eh?

Instead, I need to use a combination of conditional text and custom markers to 
get the effects I want.

Does that sum it up?

Thanks.

--Nancy
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Chunking FM files into Topics for RH

[Nancy Allison]

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Chunking FM files into Topics for RH

[Jeff Coatsworth]

Maybe I misunderstood - are these chunks all within 1 .fm file or 1 .book? I 
was assuming that they were separate .fm files and could be recombined in a new 
.book structure for the purposes of conversion.


From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com 
[mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Nancy Allison
Sent: Friday, March 01, 2013 12:06 PM
To: framers at lists.frameusers.com
Subject: Re: RE: RE: Chunking FM files into Topics for RH

Hi, Jeff.

Do you mean cut delete the content that is not wanted in online help and create 
a second set of parallel, cut-down .fm files? That would mean blowing up the 
single-sourcing model, which I would not want to do . .  If you mean something 
else, I'm all ears.

Thanks.

--Nancy


On 03/01/13, Jeff Coatsworth wrote:

What I would do is build a new .book file with all the required bits you want 
to see over in RH & then bring that in.


From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com<mailto:framers-bounces at 
lists.frameusers.com> [mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf 
Of Nancy Allison
Sent: Friday, March 01, 2013 11:19 AM
To: framers at lists.frameusers.com<mailto:framers at lists.frameusers.com>
Subject: Re: RE: Chunking FM files into Topics for RH

Dang, I think.

Let's say I have a longish chapter:

Chapter Title
Internal TOC
Heading 1 Intro
Heading 2
Heading 2
Heading 2
Heading 1
Heading 2
Heading 2
Heading 2
Let's say that, of all of that content, the only content I want to transform 
into .html topic files are the sections with asterisks:

Chapter Title
Internal TOC
**Heading 1 Intro
**Heading 2
Heading 2
Heading 2
Heading 1
Heading 2
*Heading 2
Heading 2
 Let's further say that I want to combine the two sections preceded by ** into 
one .html topic file, and I also want to do the same with the two sections 
preceded by .

In other words, I want to carve information out of the larger chapter and only 
convert that carved-out info into online help.

I was hoping I could insert a marker called, say, Customer Help Marker Start at 
the beginning of each chunk and a marker called Custom Help  Marker End at the 
end, thus identifying each new .html topic that way, but that is not to be, eh?

Instead, I need to use a combination of conditional text and custom markers to 
get the effects I want.

Does that sum it up?

Thanks.

--Nancy



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Chunking FM files into Topics for RH

[Stuart Rogers]

On 01/03/2013 11:18 AM, Nancy Allison wrote:
> Dang, I think.
> Let's say I have a longish chapter:
> Chapter Title
> Internal TOC
> Heading 1 Intro
> Heading 2
> Heading 2
> Heading 2
> Heading 1
> Heading 2
> Heading 2
> Heading 2
> Let's say that, of all of that content, the only content I want to
> transform into .html topic files are the sections with asterisks:
> Chapter Title
> Internal TOC
> **Heading 1 Intro
> **Heading 2
> Heading 2
> Heading 2
> Heading 1
> Heading 2
> *Heading 2
> Heading 2
>   Let's further say that I want to combine the two sections preceded by
> ** into one .html topic file, and I also want to do the same with the
> two sections preceded by .
> In other words, I want to carve information out of the larger chapter
> and only convert that carved-out info into online help.


You could accomplish this by putting your starred heading sections into 
separate files imported as text insets.  For the RH source, create a new 
book containing new files containing only the insets.

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

Chunking FM files into Topics for RH

[Jeremy H. Griffith]

On Fri, 01 Mar 2013 09:54:04 -0600 (CST), Nancy Allison 
> wrote:

>Is there any other approach to chunking text that I'm missing?

Yes, use a product that really works with Frame as it is,
like Mif2Go...  and avoid all the pain you describe, and
that would be required for all the responses so far, in 
one fell swoop.  ;-)

-- Jeremy H. Griffith, at Omni Systems Inc.
  http://mif2go.com/

Chunking FM files into Topics for RH

[Nancy Allison]

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[Nancy Allison]

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[Nancy Allison]

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Chunking FM files into Topics for RH

[Carol J. Elkins]

Nancy, consider creating markers for all headings, regardless of 
whether you plan to use them or not. Let RoboHelp break them into 
topics. Then in your RoboHelp TOC and browse sequences, just include 
the topics that you want. Yes, the unwanted ones will go along for 
the ride when the file is generated, but users won't know they are 
there because neither the TOC nor the browse sequence uses them.

Carol

At 11:00 AM 3/1/2013, you wrote:
>From: Nancy Allison 
>Precedence: list
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>To: framers at lists.frameusers.com
>Date: Fri, 01 Mar 2013 10:18:45 -0600 (CST)
>Message-ID: <1566519.1789592.1362154725119.JavaMail.root at vznit170134>
>Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
>Subject: Re: RE: Chunking FM files into Topics for RH
>Message: 25
>
>Dang, I think.
>
>Let's say I have a longish chapter:
>
>Chapter Title
>Internal TOC
>Heading 1 Intro
>Heading 2
>Heading 2
>Heading 2
>Heading 1
>Heading 2
>Heading 2
>Heading 2
>Let's say that, of all of that content, the only content I want to 
>transform into .html topic files are the sections with asterisks:
>
>Chapter Title
>Internal TOC
>**Heading 1 Intro
>**Heading 2
>Heading 2
>Heading 2
>Heading 1
>Heading 2
>*Heading 2
>Heading 2
>  Let's further say that I want to combine the two sections preceded 
> by ** into one .html topic file, and I also want to do the same 
> with the two sections preceded by .
>
>In other words, I want to carve information out of the larger 
>chapter and only convert that carved-out info into online help.
>
>I was hoping I could insert a marker called, say, Customer Help 
>Marker Start at the beginning of each chunk and a marker called 
>Custom Help  Marker End at the end, thus identifying each new .html 
>topic that way, but that is not to be, eh?
>
>Instead, I need to use a combination of conditional text and custom 
>markers to get the effects I want.
>
>Does that sum it up?
>
>Thanks.
>
>--Nancy

Chunking FM files into Topics for RH

[Nancy Allison]

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Chunking FM files into Topics for RH

[Alexandra Duffy]

Hi Nancy,
Here's how we do this - we have two heading styles for all our major headings. 
Level 1 starts a new page in RH, and Level1nopage looks exactly the same but 
does not have the Pagination option selected in the RH mapping. Similarly, we 
have Level2 and Level2nopage, and so on. Our Level 4 doesn't need to start a 
new page in RH, so we don't have dual styles for it.
This sounds complicated, but it's really easy. You just go through your FM 
files and apply the "nopage" equivalent to the sections that shouldn't start a 
new page.
I hope this helps!

Alexandra Duffy
Lead Technical Writer
Nemetschek Vectorworks, Inc.
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Chunking FM files into Topics for RH

[Nancy Allison]

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Chunking FM files into Topics for RH

[Jeremy H. Griffith]

On Fri, 01 Mar 2013 12:08:25 -0600 (CST), Nancy 
Allison  wrote:

> Hi, Jeremy. With regard to selecting only some 
>text from a lengthy .fm file to turn into .html 
>files, how does mif2go offer better control? 

By making that selection very simple, and
providing a way to apply it automatically to
many files without repeating it for them.

>I assume I would still need to indicate heading 
>level at which to split the .fm files, 

Yes; the telepathic interface isn't ready yet.  ;-)
But there are many ways to specify where to
split, and the simplest is by format, as in:

[HTMLStyles]
HeadTitle=Split Title Contents
Heading1=Split Title Contents
Heading2=Split Title Contents
Heading3=Split Title Contents

The User's Guide, par. 18.2.1, "Designating 
split points", lays out all the methods.  You
can do some in the ini file with a simple text 
editor, and the rest in Frame.  No other UI.

>and conditional text to mask unwanted text. 

That's the usual method whn single-sourcing.
You can choose which conditional text to show
either by automatically importing a template
that affects *only* the conversion, not your
source files, or with Mif2Go settings, as in
par. 5.4.1, "Applying condition Show/Hide 
settings".  Way simpler than the RH GUI.

>Does mif2go make either of those actions unnecessary?

No, of course not; it just makes them a lot
easier to do, automatically, very quickly, 
while producing extremely clean HTML.

-- Jeremy H. Griffith, at Omni Systems Inc.
  http://mif2go.com/

Chunking FM files into Topics for RH

[Alexandra Duffy]

>  Hi, Alexandra. I think this is what Robert Lauriston has been saying, also.
Aha, I am on the digest version, so I haven?t seen that yet. That?s why I?m 
usually a ?lurker? because someone answers first anyway!

> Both the formats you use are picked up in your FrameMaker TOC for your PDF 
> output, (assuming you are single-sourcing to PDF also), correct?
Yes, we set up our TOC to pick up the dual formats.

Have a nice weekend!
Alexandra
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Chunking FM files into Topics for RH

[Robert Lauriston]

I create two identical styles, e.g. Heading 2 and Heading 2 Break (or
Nobreak, depending on which is the most common), and define them
differently in RoboHelp.

Using markers is extra work and could cause problems if you have to
switch to another tool.

Chunking FM files into Topics for RH

[Robert Lauriston]

I can say from experience that my method is quick, easy, and gives you full
control.
On Mar 1, 2013 8:26 AM, "Robert Lauriston"  wrote:

> I create two identical styles, e.g. Heading 2 and Heading 2 Break (or
> Nobreak, depending on which is the most common), and define them
> differently in RoboHelp.
>
> Using markers is extra work and could cause problems if you have to
> switch to another tool.
>
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