Re: "Real Life" Migration to Structured Doc
Rick Quatro wrote: I agree with Marcus's excellent post, but one thing to consider on the above point: even if you hire it out, try to learn as much about each process, especially if you can devote some time to it. In today's job climate, it pays to learn as much as you can about XML and related technologies. This is knowledge that will be valuable, not only in your current job, but perhaps in a future job search. Very true - just make sure that if you're paying the bills, you can justify that use of your time. As far as personal and professional gain is concerned there's no question that it's worth keeping your hand in everywhere you can - this structure stuff isn't going away. Also, in regards to steps (b) and (c), I have found that some unstructured to structured conversions can be adequately handled with FrameMaker's conversion tables. Again, if you have time, and a limited budget, this is one area that you might consider experimenting with. Yeah, grudgingly... ;-) I'm (perhaps unnecessarily) hard on FrameMaker as a migration tool because I've seen people get caught out after they've done a lot of work. I tend to advocate a solution that should always work, but I probably throw some babies with that bathwater. While we're clapping each other on the back, I really like Rick's comment that it's more important to focus on working post-migration than to spend too much energy on migration. Migration will never be fun, but if you do it properly, it'll only have to happen once. -- Regards, Marcus Carr email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Allette Systems (Australia) www:http://www.allette.com.au ___ "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." - Einstein ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
"Real Life" Migration to Structured Doc
> Items a) and c) will cost you money, but it's well spent. Do it properly > from the start and you'll only do it once - try to do it on the cheap and > you can spend the money next time around. I've seen it more times than I > could count in the 15 years that I've been involved with SGML and XML > conversions. Plenty of very bright people have tried to migrate to > structure on the cheap - so many smart faces, so much egg. I agree with Marcus's excellent post, but one thing to consider on the above point: even if you hire it out, try to learn as much about each process, especially if you can devote some time to it. In today's job climate, it pays to learn as much as you can about XML and related technologies. This is knowledge that will be valuable, not only in your current job, but perhaps in a future job search. Also, in regards to steps (b) and (c), I have found that some unstructured to structured conversions can be adequately handled with FrameMaker's conversion tables. Again, if you have time, and a limited budget, this is one area that you might consider experimenting with. Rick Quatro Carmen Publishing 585-659-8267 www.frameexpert.com
Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables]
Bernard, You wrote: >... Each file for each nation is based on the same template. In the >template I view the master pages and in the footer/header of each page >I place an xref to the BookName paragraph that I put into the cover. >Then all I ever need to do is update cover.fm and update xrefs. In >doing so I get a fully dynamic link that jumps to the cover (should I >need that) and I also get a complete and dynamic way to update the >title. But when converting the FM book to on-screen PDF, all cross-references are converted to links (unless placed in text insets). Thus the header/footer of each page will have "unintentional" links (which may even become bad links in some circumstances) -- see http://www.microtype.com/resources/PDFBP_links.html#UnintentionalLinks for real-life examples (Acrobat SDK documentation). Additional notes: * This is not an issue with HTML output (where master pages are ignored). * Cross-references may also introduce difficulties related to formatting (eg if you have italic/bold in the title text), as in the context of cross-references, <$paratext> ignores all character properties present in the extracted paragraph text (including case formatting), except font family properties, superscript and subscript. * Ideally, FrameMaker would have a "convert to link" setting in the cross-reference format, so that linking could be optionally suppressed for specific types of cross-references. With TimeSavers 4.0, this is an option for external cross-references (based on a user-defined string present in the file name or path of the target file). Shlomo Perets MicroType * http://www.microtype.com FrameMaker, Acrobat training & consulting * FM-to-Acrobat TimeSavers FM-to-PDF Assistants: Form, Navigation, Presentation, Defaults, Multimedia, 3D
Re: "Real Life" Migration to Structured Doc
Items a) and c) will cost you money, but it's well spent. Do it properly from the start and you'll only do it once - try to do it on the cheap and you can spend the money next time around. I've seen it more times than I could count in the 15 years that I've been involved with SGML and XML conversions. Plenty of very bright people have tried to migrate to structure on the cheap - so many smart faces, so much egg. I agree with Marcus's excellent post, but one thing to consider on the above point: even if you hire it out, try to learn as much about each process, especially if you can devote some time to it. In today's job climate, it pays to learn as much as you can about XML and related technologies. This is knowledge that will be valuable, not only in your current job, but perhaps in a future job search. Also, in regards to steps (b) and (c), I have found that some unstructured to structured conversions can be adequately handled with FrameMaker's conversion tables. Again, if you have time, and a limited budget, this is one area that you might consider experimenting with. Rick Quatro Carmen Publishing 585-659-8267 www.frameexpert.com ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Frame documnet saved as XML losing formatting
Mike Feimster wrote: > > I believe that FrameMaker drops that formatting when > > saving as xml. If you are using formats from the character catalog it should > > > save the formatting. I stupidly replied: > > Thanks Mike, I've just tried it and it works now using the > > character catalog. Excellent, that's rather stupid though, > > don't you think? Richard Combs set me straight: > Well, no. In fact, a recent poll of FrameUsers readers found > that 35 out of 37 thought it was rather stupid to apply ad > hoc formatting as you did instead of using defined character tags: I've just read the relevant thread and I now feel more enlightened. In my defence I didn't know any better as I've had no formal training in using FrameMaker. I'm the sole Technical Writer here and kind of got roped into the position. Richard asked: > If you have unstructured, randomly-formatted docs that don't > use paragraph and character tags consistently, then what's > the point in converting them to XML anyway? They do use paragraph and character tags, though rarely for bold and italic. The XML is for a help system, for which I'm having to provide all my documents in XML format. I am now paying the price in the conversion to XML, of both my formatting mistakes and those of my predecessors. Karen West Technical Writer Cyberscience Corp http://www.cyberscience.com
Holidays [was Carrying the Title of a Book forward]
Susan Modlin wrote: > One caveat: Convivio is based in Montreal, so don't plan on needing > support on a Canadian holiday -- and there appear to be lots of them. In total, Newfoundland and P.E.I. legislation provide for 5 statutory holidays; New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, 6; Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec, 8. All other jurisdictions, including the three territories, have 9 statutory holidays. It may appear to an American that there are more than that, probably because some holidays don't line up with their American counterparts. Canada Day is July 1 vs. Independence Day July 4, Thanksgiving is the second Monday in October vs. the last Thursday in November. -- Stuart Rogers Technical Communicator Phoenix Geophysics Limited Toronto, ON, Canada +1 (416) 491-7340 x 325 srogers at phoenix-geophysics dot com "Please reinstall the application you want to remove." --Microsoft Windows 'unInstall Specialist' Get Firefox! http://tinyurl.com/8q9c5
Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables]
Interesting. I'll have to check it out. Thanks Mike -Original Message- From: Susan Modlin [mailto:susan.mod...@edusoft.com] Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2006 3:13 PM To: Mike Feimster; framers at lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables] Mike, If your output is in PDF format, you might want to consider Buildfire from convivio.com. It allows you to define one or more PDF files from a FrameMaker book file. For each PDF definition, you can specify variable definitions and conditional text settings. I use it to produce three distinctly different PDFs from each of my Frame book files. At production time, Buildfire cranks through the Frame source, updating variables and conditions on the fly, and spits out nice, neat PDFs. One caveat: Convivio is based in Montreal, so don't plan on needing support on a Canadian holiday -- and there appear to be lots of them. HTH. ...Susan Susan Frahm Modlin Publications Manager, Edusoft Riverside Publishing, a Houghton Mifflin Company www.edusoft.com -Original Message- That kind of works as a work around. Until I quickly switch from one book to another and create the PDF, but forget to reimport the variables.
Frame documnet saved as XML losing formatting
I wrote: > I'm using Frame 7.0p492 to do a Save as xml on some Frame > documents. I have already converted about 10 books and not > had any major problems but suddenly I am seeing a loss of > formatting. For example, in the Frame document there is the > following text: (Note that formatting comments have been > inserted in square brackets [ ]) > > The following steps illustrate how to create a new category > called [I]Female[/I] in the TITLE column by combining the > values for [I]MISS[/I] and [I]MRS[/I]: Mike Feimster asked: > Are you converting unstructured Frame to xml? I am indeed. > How are you formatting the italic text? Are you clicking the I button or > pressing ctrl-I? Yes again. > If so, I believe that FrameMaker drops that > formatting when saving as xml. If you are using formats from > the character catalog it should save the formatting. Thanks Mike, I've just tried it and it works now using the character catalog. Excellent, that's rather stupid though, don't you think? Hopefully someone can help me solve problem number 2. > I also have a 3 page Frame document, where the resulting xml > contains only: > > > charset="UTF-8"?> > > Does anyone have any idea what's going on here. Is this > problem fixed in a later release perhaps? Karen West (off to flagellate myself for spelling document incorrectly in the subject) Technical Writer Cyberscience Corp http://www.cyberscience.com
Frame documnet saved as XML losing formatting
I'm using Frame 7.0p492 to do a Save as xml on some Frame documents. I have already converted about 10 books and not had any major problems but suddenly I am seeing a loss of formatting. For example, in the Frame document there is the following text: (Note that formatting comments have been inserted in square brackets [ ]) The following steps illustrate how to create a new category called [I]Female[/I] in the TITLE column by combining the values for [I]MISS[/I] and [I]MRS[/I]: Whereas the XML for this does not contain any formatting: The following steps illustrate how to create a new category called Female in the TITLE column by combining the values for MISS and MRS: I also have a 3 page Frame document, where the resulting xml contains only: Does anyone have any idea what's going on here. Is this problem fixed in a later release perhaps? Thanks Karen West Technical Writer Cyberscience Corp http://www.cyberscience.com
RE: "Real Life" Migration to Structured Doc
Dominick A. DeFlorio wrote: We must move to structure to meet our future XML goal, but are unfamiliar with both the transition and method to do so. We are also unfamiliar with the possibilities and cost involved. We are merely looking at all of the possibilities and the long term value for our dollar. Here's how I'd do it: a) Design the structure - if you aren't experienced, don't do it yourself and don't buy the line that you can do it with DITA or DocBook. Get a professional to do proper analysis and design, including documentation about how to use the DTD or schema. This is a critical step - don't scrimp here. b) Save all of your data out of FrameMaker as XML - don't use FrameMaker as a migration tool because if your structure evolves based on infrequent cases, you'll end up spending too much time trying to re-baseline your dataset. c) Use XSLT to convert from XML to your target structure - if you find that you need to make changes, make them and re-run the whole dataset, so you can be certain that all documents are consistently handled. Get help with this if you're not experienced, otherwise you'll get in a mess. Be prepared to also make changes to the data manually - the alternative is to loosen the structure in the DTD or schema, but that's a last resort. Make the data consistent, and be ruthless about it. While you're at it, learn not to be scared to work with native XML - angle brackets don't bite. d) Build the FrameMaker application - concentrate your own efforts on the part of the process that you're most familiar with and learn the parts that will give you the most benefit. e) Train your users - give them as little information about XML as you can get away with. All they need to know is that there's a mechanism in the background that ensures that the documents are structured consistently with the rest of the dataset. Items a) and c) will cost you money, but it's well spent. Do it properly from the start and you'll only do it once - try to do it on the cheap and you can spend the money next time around. I've seen it more times than I could count in the 15 years that I've been involved with SGML and XML conversions. Plenty of very bright people have tried to migrate to structure on the cheap - so many smart faces, so much egg. -- Regards, Marcus Carr email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Allette Systems (Australia) www:http://www.allette.com.au ___ "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." - Einstein ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables]
That kind of works as a work around. Until I quickly switch from one book to another and create the PDF, but forget to reimport the variables. It seems to me that the Book file could hold all kinds of stuff like variables, paragraph formats, master pages, etc. There would have to be a way to determine precedence when both the book file and the fm file have conflicting definitions. Simply put, I would love to be able to open an Frame file in different books, and have it look like the book without having to reimport formats (or click any buttons, etc.). (I guess this mostly applies to unstructured Frame, since there is way to do this with structured Frame.) Mike -Original Message- From: Laura Lemay [mailto:lle...@gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2006 2:09 PM To: John Posada Cc: Mike Feimster; bernard at publishingsmarter.com; framers at lists.frameusers.com Subject: Re: Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables] I've always implemented that solution with a single extra file for the book (bookvariables.fm) that contains nothing except variable definitions. When variables change or get added I import all the variables from that file at the book level. Laura On 1/31/06, John Posada wrote: > I could live with that. I'd even buy a pluggin that gave me that > feature. > > --- Mike Feimster wrote: > > > It seems to me that the "real" solution is to be able to define > > variables at the book level. Then, variables in a chapter files take > > the value of whatever is defined for the book. > > > John Posada > Senior Technical Writer > > "So long and thanks for all the fish." > ___ > > > You are currently subscribed to Framers as llemay at gmail.com. > > To unsubscribe send a blank email to > framers-unsubscribe at lists.frameusers.com > or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/llemay%40gmail.com > > Send administrative questions to lisa at frameusers.com. Visit > http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. > -- *^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^ Laura Lemay Killer of Trees lemay % lne.comlemay % gmail.com http://www.lauralemay.com http://blog.lauralemay.com *^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^
Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables]
It seems to me that the "real" solution is to be able to define variables at the book level. Then, variables in a chapter files take the value of whatever is defined for the book. Mike -Original Message- From: framers-bounces+mike.feimster=acstechnologies@lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-bounces+mike.feimster=acstechnologies.com at lists.frameusers.c om] On Behalf Of Bernard Aschwanden Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2006 12:17 PM To: 'John Posada'; framers at lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables] The cross book issue can become a problem. What you may want to try is to have all your files in a folder and create books 'above' that folder. Once done you can pick and choose what files go into a book. Then you still need to have a cover.fm file and you need to change (or conditionalize) the title on an 'as needed' basis. However, you could potentially have something like this: \main_folder\ Europe.book Asia.book Africa.book America.book Oceania.book OPEC.book EU.book APEC.book AxisOfEvil.book AxisOfJustAsEvil.book* Cover.fm \fm_files\ Abkhazia.fm Afghanistan.fm Akrotiri.fm ?land.fm Albania.fm Algeria.fm ... ... ... Yemen.fm Zambia.fm Zimbabwe.fm Now you can reference any mix/match of the files into a book and build all you need. They all reference the same cover.fm file and then you can mix/match as you see fit as often as you want. The drawback is the need to update cover.fm once per book you build. You could even use a plain text file named covername.txt and inset it into the footer so that non frame users could update the name of a book for automated processes (webworks etc). It's work to manage the cover.fm file, but may be considered useful to some on the list. You could even have subfolders using this system, but it becomes a bit bulky. I also usually add a master.book that has ALL the files so that I can do major level modifications (such as importing). Sometimes you can even create 'disposable' books using this method if you need a quick one of a kind publication. Of course, none of this is legally binding information or even useful and any links to this topic may be freely created as long as no one ever considers this to be 'correct' and agrees to pay me richly if this gets you a huge (or even a small) raise. Heck, if you even get a smile out of this or a good idea feel free to send cash or buy me food/drink at the conferences you may find me at :) Bernard PS. http://www.satirewire.com/news/jan02/axis.shtml for the axis of just as evil... (link used without permission but with apologies to google, yahoo, satirewire and any other entity that may ever have been involved in the creation of this site, links to the site, similar sites and even in the use of binary values 1 and 0) -Original Message- From: John Posada [mailto:jposad...@yahoo.com] Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2006 10:58 AM To: bernard at publishingsmarter.com; framers at lists.frameusers.com Subject: Re: Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables] > What I often do is build the title in a file, such as "cover.fm" and > then build a folder structure along the lines of the following > example: > page I place an xref to the BookName paragraph that I put into the > cover. Then all I ever need to do is update Bernard...I think I did almost exactly what you describe and it worked until I started combining files in different books. For instance...every book I create has, after the frontmatter files, a chapter called Overview. This chapter givea a highlevel description of the module I'm describing and may be anywhere from one page to five or six pages. I also have a book that combines all the overview sections into one book, which is an overview of the application (a portal) that I'm documenting. The book also has its own frontmatter. I want all of the overview sections, when they appear in the Overview book, to have overview in the header, and when they appear in the module books, to have the module title in the header. It did not seem to work out that way. Maybe it was a particular way I implemented the functionality. Would your method accomodate it? John Posada Senior Technical Writer "So long and thanks for all the fish." ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as mike.feimster at acstechnologies.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscribe at lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/mike.feimster%40acstechn ologies.com Send administrative questions to lisa at frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Re: Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables]
--- Scott Prentice <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > You might want to check out BookVars .. it may > provide what you're looking for .. > http://www.leximation.com/tools/info/bookvars.php Hi, guys...I donwloaded the 30 day trial of this pluggin and have been applying it against four books before I let it loose on my 14 books. The thing with these four books is that each book has one or more files that also appear in other books and every file has at least a book name variable in the header. Gotta admit...it works. The only setup I perform is the first time I open a book, I need to create an INI file (menu driven) that applies to that book, open the INI in a text editor and define the BookTitle (and any other) variable. Then, each subsequent time I open the book, I run Pub-Tools->BookVars->ImportVariables. All variables are updated. Takes about 10 seconds. Scott...wanna make it 5 seconds? Assign a user-definable Hot-key sequence to the ImportVariables menu option. Open the book, press keys, updated. I like itOh, and by the way...he includes active URLs in his emails. :-) John Posada Senior Technical Writer "So long and thanks for all the fish." ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables]
--- Scott Prentice wrote: > You might want to check out BookVars .. it may > provide what you're looking for .. > http://www.leximation.com/tools/info/bookvars.php Hi, guys...I donwloaded the 30 day trial of this pluggin and have been applying it against four books before I let it loose on my 14 books. The thing with these four books is that each book has one or more files that also appear in other books and every file has at least a book name variable in the header. Gotta admit...it works. The only setup I perform is the first time I open a book, I need to create an INI file (menu driven) that applies to that book, open the INI in a text editor and define the BookTitle (and any other) variable. Then, each subsequent time I open the book, I run Pub-Tools->BookVars->ImportVariables. All variables are updated. Takes about 10 seconds. Scott...wanna make it 5 seconds? Assign a user-definable Hot-key sequence to the ImportVariables menu option. Open the book, press keys, updated. I like itOh, and by the way...he includes active URLs in his emails. :-) John Posada Senior Technical Writer "So long and thanks for all the fish."
Frame documnet saved as XML losing formatting
Hi Karen, Are you using the default "save as" and then selecting XML? If so you have very little control. If you don't mind spending a bit of time working on it I can send you a document (and anyone else on the list who I haven't given this to) that walks you through a simple EDD, some formatting, a set of read/write rules and the basics of converting to and from Frame and XML. Let me know if you want a copy of the PDF. Bernard -Original Message- From: framers-bounces+bernard=publishingsmarter.com at lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-bounces+bernard=publishingsmarter@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Karen West Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2006 11:40 AM To: framers at lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: Frame documnet saved as XML losing formatting Mike Feimster wrote: > > I believe that FrameMaker drops that formatting when saving as xml. > > If you are using formats from the character catalog it should > > > save the formatting. I stupidly replied: > > Thanks Mike, I've just tried it and it works now using the character > > catalog. Excellent, that's rather stupid though, don't you think? Richard Combs set me straight: > Well, no. In fact, a recent poll of FrameUsers readers found that 35 > out of 37 thought it was rather stupid to apply ad hoc formatting as > you did instead of using defined character tags: I've just read the relevant thread and I now feel more enlightened. In my defence I didn't know any better as I've had no formal training in using FrameMaker. I'm the sole Technical Writer here and kind of got roped into the position. Richard asked: > If you have unstructured, randomly-formatted docs that don't use > paragraph and character tags consistently, then what's the point in > converting them to XML anyway? They do use paragraph and character tags, though rarely for bold and italic. The XML is for a help system, for which I'm having to provide all my documents in XML format. I am now paying the price in the conversion to XML, of both my formatting mistakes and those of my predecessors. Karen West Technical Writer Cyberscience Corp http://www.cyberscience.com ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as bernard at publishingsmarter.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscribe at lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/bernard%40publishingsmarter.com Send administrative questions to lisa at frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Re: Holidays [was Carrying the Title of a Book forward]
Susan Modlin wrote: One caveat: Convivio is based in Montreal, so don't plan on needing support on a Canadian holiday -- and there appear to be lots of them. In total, Newfoundland and P.E.I. legislation provide for 5 statutory holidays; New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, 6; Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec, 8. All other jurisdictions, including the three territories, have 9 statutory holidays. It may appear to an American that there are more than that, probably because some holidays don't line up with their American counterparts. Canada Day is July 1 vs. Independence Day July 4, Thanksgiving is the second Monday in October vs. the last Thursday in November. -- Stuart Rogers Technical Communicator Phoenix Geophysics Limited Toronto, ON, Canada +1 (416) 491-7340 x 325 srogers at phoenix-geophysics dot com "Please reinstall the application you want to remove." --Microsoft Windows 'unInstall Specialist' Get Firefox! http://tinyurl.com/8q9c5 ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
RE: Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables]
Interesting. I'll have to check it out. Thanks Mike -Original Message- From: Susan Modlin [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2006 3:13 PM To: Mike Feimster; framers@lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables] Mike, If your output is in PDF format, you might want to consider Buildfire from convivio.com. It allows you to define one or more PDF files from a FrameMaker book file. For each PDF definition, you can specify variable definitions and conditional text settings. I use it to produce three distinctly different PDFs from each of my Frame book files. At production time, Buildfire cranks through the Frame source, updating variables and conditions on the fly, and spits out nice, neat PDFs. One caveat: Convivio is based in Montreal, so don't plan on needing support on a Canadian holiday -- and there appear to be lots of them. HTH. ...Susan Susan Frahm Modlin Publications Manager, Edusoft Riverside Publishing, a Houghton Mifflin Company www.edusoft.com -Original Message- That kind of works as a work around. Until I quickly switch from one book to another and create the PDF, but forget to reimport the variables. ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Re: Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables]
it looks encouraging. I get paid tomorrow...I'll pull it down then and check it out. Thanks, Scott --- Scott Prentice <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > You might want to check out BookVars .. it may provide > what you're looking for .. > > http://www.leximation.com/tools/info/bookvars.php > > >I could live with that. I'd even buy a pluggin that gave me that > >feature. > > > >--- Mike Feimster wrote: > > > John Posada Senior Technical Writer "So long and thanks for all the fish." ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
RE: Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables]
Mike, If your output is in PDF format, you might want to consider Buildfire from convivio.com. It allows you to define one or more PDF files from a FrameMaker book file. For each PDF definition, you can specify variable definitions and conditional text settings. I use it to produce three distinctly different PDFs from each of my Frame book files. At production time, Buildfire cranks through the Frame source, updating variables and conditions on the fly, and spits out nice, neat PDFs. One caveat: Convivio is based in Montreal, so don't plan on needing support on a Canadian holiday -- and there appear to be lots of them. HTH. ...Susan Susan Frahm Modlin Publications Manager, Edusoft Riverside Publishing, a Houghton Mifflin Company www.edusoft.com -Original Message- That kind of works as a work around. Until I quickly switch from one book to another and create the PDF, but forget to reimport the variables. ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables]
The cross book issue can become a problem. What you may want to try is to have all your files in a folder and create books 'above' that folder. Once done you can pick and choose what files go into a book. Then you still need to have a cover.fm file and you need to change (or conditionalize) the title on an 'as needed' basis. However, you could potentially have something like this: \main_folder\ Europe.book Asia.book Africa.book America.book Oceania.book OPEC.book EU.book APEC.book AxisOfEvil.book AxisOfJustAsEvil.book* Cover.fm \fm_files\ Abkhazia.fm Afghanistan.fm Akrotiri.fm ?land.fm Albania.fm Algeria.fm ... ... ... Yemen.fm Zambia.fm Zimbabwe.fm Now you can reference any mix/match of the files into a book and build all you need. They all reference the same cover.fm file and then you can mix/match as you see fit as often as you want. The drawback is the need to update cover.fm once per book you build. You could even use a plain text file named covername.txt and inset it into the footer so that non frame users could update the name of a book for automated processes (webworks etc). It's work to manage the cover.fm file, but may be considered useful to some on the list. You could even have subfolders using this system, but it becomes a bit bulky. I also usually add a master.book that has ALL the files so that I can do major level modifications (such as importing). Sometimes you can even create 'disposable' books using this method if you need a quick one of a kind publication. Of course, none of this is legally binding information or even useful and any links to this topic may be freely created as long as no one ever considers this to be 'correct' and agrees to pay me richly if this gets you a huge (or even a small) raise. Heck, if you even get a smile out of this or a good idea feel free to send cash or buy me food/drink at the conferences you may find me at :) Bernard PS. http://www.satirewire.com/news/jan02/axis.shtml for the axis of just as evil... (link used without permission but with apologies to google, yahoo, satirewire and any other entity that may ever have been involved in the creation of this site, links to the site, similar sites and even in the use of binary values 1 and 0) -Original Message- From: John Posada [mailto:jposad...@yahoo.com] Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2006 10:58 AM To: bernard at publishingsmarter.com; framers at lists.frameusers.com Subject: Re: Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables] > What I often do is build the title in a file, such as "cover.fm" and > then build a folder structure along the lines of the following > example: > page I place an xref to the BookName paragraph that I put into the > cover. Then all I ever need to do is update Bernard...I think I did almost exactly what you describe and it worked until I started combining files in different books. For instance...every book I create has, after the frontmatter files, a chapter called Overview. This chapter givea a highlevel description of the module I'm describing and may be anywhere from one page to five or six pages. I also have a book that combines all the overview sections into one book, which is an overview of the application (a portal) that I'm documenting. The book also has its own frontmatter. I want all of the overview sections, when they appear in the Overview book, to have overview in the header, and when they appear in the module books, to have the module title in the header. It did not seem to work out that way. Maybe it was a particular way I implemented the functionality. Would your method accomodate it? John Posada Senior Technical Writer "So long and thanks for all the fish."
Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables]
Mike, If your output is in PDF format, you might want to consider Buildfire from convivio.com. It allows you to define one or more PDF files from a FrameMaker book file. For each PDF definition, you can specify variable definitions and conditional text settings. I use it to produce three distinctly different PDFs from each of my Frame book files. At production time, Buildfire cranks through the Frame source, updating variables and conditions on the fly, and spits out nice, neat PDFs. One caveat: Convivio is based in Montreal, so don't plan on needing support on a Canadian holiday -- and there appear to be lots of them. HTH. ...Susan Susan Frahm Modlin Publications Manager, Edusoft Riverside Publishing, a Houghton Mifflin Company www.edusoft.com -Original Message- That kind of works as a work around. Until I quickly switch from one book to another and create the PDF, but forget to reimport the variables.
RE: "Real Life" Migration to Structured Doc
In my limited experience, Epic provides only an XML editor, and you're limited to working in native XML. FrameMaker can not only open XML files, but saves as XML as well, and in between is able to handle graphics better than Epic. If you're used to using variables and conditional text, then FrameMaker is a better tool. You should also investigate training and other services provided by Lynne Price, she's one of the best when it comes to structured FrameMaker. (http://www.txstruct.com/) Anita Legsdin Sr. Technical Writer Vallent Corp. 425-564-8135 -Original Message- Message: 9 Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 10:31:43 -0500 From: "DeFlorio, Dominick" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: RE: "Real Life" Migration to Structured Doc To: "Combs, Richard" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" We must move to structure to meet our future XML goal, but are unfamiliar with both the transition and method to do so. We are also unfamiliar with the possibilities and cost involved. We are merely looking at all of the possibilities and the long term value for our dollar. Dominick A. DeFlorio Senior Technical Writer Plug Power, Inc. 968 Albany-Shaker Road Latham, NY 12110 (518) 738-0389 ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
"Real Life" Migration to Structured Doc
In my limited experience, Epic provides only an XML editor, and you're limited to working in native XML. FrameMaker can not only open XML files, but saves as XML as well, and in between is able to handle graphics better than Epic. If you're used to using variables and conditional text, then FrameMaker is a better tool. You should also investigate training and other services provided by Lynne Price, she's one of the best when it comes to structured FrameMaker. (http://www.txstruct.com/) Anita Legsdin Sr. Technical Writer Vallent Corp. 425-564-8135 -Original Message- Message: 9 Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 10:31:43 -0500 From: "DeFlorio, Dominick" Subject: RE: "Real Life" Migration to Structured Doc To: "Combs, Richard" , Message-ID: <1D00652A8556DD43BAC6BB855F67225707290BAB at ppmail.plugpower.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" We must move to structure to meet our future XML goal, but are unfamiliar with both the transition and method to do so. We are also unfamiliar with the possibilities and cost involved. We are merely looking at all of the possibilities and the long term value for our dollar. Dominick A. DeFlorio Senior Technical Writer Plug Power, Inc. 968 Albany-Shaker Road Latham, NY 12110 (518) 738-0389
Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables]
it looks encouraging. I get paid tomorrow...I'll pull it down then and check it out. Thanks, Scott --- Scott Prentice wrote: > You might want to check out BookVars .. it may provide > what you're looking for .. > > http://www.leximation.com/tools/info/bookvars.php > > >I could live with that. I'd even buy a pluggin that gave me that > >feature. > > > >--- Mike Feimster wrote: > > > John Posada Senior Technical Writer "So long and thanks for all the fish."
Frame documnet saved as XML losing formatting
Karen wrote: "They do use paragraph and character tags, though rarely for bold and italic. The XML is for a help system, for which I'm having to provide all my documents in XML format. I am now paying the price in the conversion to XML, of both my formatting mistakes and those of my predecessors." Do they want an arbitrary xml format, or do they want a specific syntax such as DocBook, DITA, or home made? If they want a specific syntax, you might be better off converting your unstructured documents to structured and then saving as XML. I've never understood why someone would want the generic xml that comes from Frame (or Word for that matter) unless they planned to convert it to something else. Feel free to enlighten me. Mike -Original Message- From: framers-bounces+mike.feimster=acstechnologies@lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-bounces+mike.feimster=acstechnologies.com at lists.frameusers.c om] On Behalf Of Karen West Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2006 11:40 AM To: framers at lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: Frame documnet saved as XML losing formatting Mike Feimster wrote: > > I believe that FrameMaker drops that formatting when saving as xml. > > If you are using formats from the character catalog it should > > > save the formatting. I stupidly replied: > > Thanks Mike, I've just tried it and it works now using the character > > catalog. Excellent, that's rather stupid though, don't you think? Richard Combs set me straight: > Well, no. In fact, a recent poll of FrameUsers readers found that 35 > out of 37 thought it was rather stupid to apply ad hoc formatting as > you did instead of using defined character tags: I've just read the relevant thread and I now feel more enlightened. In my defence I didn't know any better as I've had no formal training in using FrameMaker. I'm the sole Technical Writer here and kind of got roped into the position. Richard asked: > If you have unstructured, randomly-formatted docs that don't use > paragraph and character tags consistently, then what's the point in > converting them to XML anyway? They do use paragraph and character tags, though rarely for bold and italic. The XML is for a help system, for which I'm having to provide all my documents in XML format. I am now paying the price in the conversion to XML, of both my formatting mistakes and those of my predecessors. Karen West Technical Writer Cyberscience Corp http://www.cyberscience.com ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as mike.feimster at acstechnologies.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscribe at lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/mike.feimster%40acstechn ologies.com Send administrative questions to lisa at frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
RE: Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables]
That kind of works as a work around. Until I quickly switch from one book to another and create the PDF, but forget to reimport the variables. It seems to me that the Book file could hold all kinds of stuff like variables, paragraph formats, master pages, etc. There would have to be a way to determine precedence when both the book file and the fm file have conflicting definitions. Simply put, I would love to be able to open an Frame file in different books, and have it look like the book without having to reimport formats (or click any buttons, etc.). (I guess this mostly applies to unstructured Frame, since there is way to do this with structured Frame.) Mike -Original Message- From: Laura Lemay [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2006 2:09 PM To: John Posada Cc: Mike Feimster; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; framers@lists.frameusers.com Subject: Re: Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables] I've always implemented that solution with a single extra file for the book (bookvariables.fm) that contains nothing except variable definitions. When variables change or get added I import all the variables from that file at the book level. Laura On 1/31/06, John Posada <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I could live with that. I'd even buy a pluggin that gave me that > feature. > > --- Mike Feimster <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > It seems to me that the "real" solution is to be able to define > > variables at the book level. Then, variables in a chapter files take > > the value of whatever is defined for the book. > > > John Posada > Senior Technical Writer > > "So long and thanks for all the fish." > ___ > > > You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > To unsubscribe send a blank email to > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/llemay%40gmail.com > > Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit > http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. > -- *^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^ Laura Lemay Killer of Trees lemay % lne.comlemay % gmail.com http://www.lauralemay.com http://blog.lauralemay.com *^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^ ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Re: Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables]
I've always implemented that solution with a single extra file for the book (bookvariables.fm) that contains nothing except variable definitions. When variables change or get added I import all the variables from that file at the book level. Laura On 1/31/06, John Posada <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I could live with that. I'd even buy a pluggin that gave me that > feature. > > --- Mike Feimster <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > It seems to me that the "real" solution is to be able > > to define variables at the book level. Then, variables > > in a chapter files take the value of > > whatever is defined for the book. > > > John Posada > Senior Technical Writer > > "So long and thanks for all the fish." > ___ > > > You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > To unsubscribe send a blank email to > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > or visit > http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/llemay%40gmail.com > > Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit > http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. > -- *^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^ Laura Lemay Killer of Trees lemay % lne.comlemay % gmail.com http://www.lauralemay.com http://blog.lauralemay.com *^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^ ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables]
Two additional solutions that avoid the potential cross-reference link problems that Shlomo points out: * Use "old-style" paragraph-based autonumbering for chapter numbers, in combination with Volume Number and Chapter Number variables formatted as text or numbers. * Create the title text in a dedicated tagged text flow in the main information source document for the book file set, and import the flow as a text inset. The issue also suggests there's a valid case for increasing the number of book-wide variables. At 6:39 PM +0200 1/31/06, Shlomo Perets wrote: >Bernard, > >You wrote: > >>... Each file for each nation is based on the same template. In the >>template I view the master pages and in the footer/header of each page >>I place an xref to the BookName paragraph that I put into the cover. >>Then all I ever need to do is update cover.fm and update xrefs. In >>doing so I get a fully dynamic link that jumps to the cover (should I >>need that) and I also get a complete and dynamic way to update the >>title. > >But when converting the FM book to on-screen PDF, all >cross-references are converted to links (unless placed in text >insets). >Thus the header/footer of each page will have "unintentional" links >(which may even become bad links in some circumstances) -- see >http://www.microtype.com/resources/PDFBP_links.html#UnintentionalLinks >for real-life examples (Acrobat SDK documentation). -- Regards, Peter Gold KnowHow ProServices peter at knowhowpro.com
Re: Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables]
You might want to check out BookVars .. it may provide what you're looking for .. http://www.leximation.com/tools/info/bookvars.php ...scott Scott Prentice Leximation, Inc. www.leximation.com +1.415.485.1892 John Posada wrote: I could live with that. I'd even buy a pluggin that gave me that feature. --- Mike Feimster wrote: It seems to me that the "real" solution is to be able to define variables at the book level. Then, variables in a chapter files take the value of whatever is defined for the book. John Posada Senior Technical Writer "So long and thanks for all the fish." ___ ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables]
You might want to check out BookVars .. it may provide what you're looking for .. http://www.leximation.com/tools/info/bookvars.php ...scott Scott Prentice Leximation, Inc. www.leximation.com +1.415.485.1892 John Posada wrote: >I could live with that. I'd even buy a pluggin that gave me that >feature. > >--- Mike Feimster wrote: > > > >>It seems to me that the "real" solution is to be able >>to define variables at the book level. Then, variables >>in a chapter files take the value of >>whatever is defined for the book. >> >> > > >John Posada >Senior Technical Writer > >"So long and thanks for all the fish." >___ > > > >
Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables]
I've always implemented that solution with a single extra file for the book (bookvariables.fm) that contains nothing except variable definitions. When variables change or get added I import all the variables from that file at the book level. Laura On 1/31/06, John Posada wrote: > I could live with that. I'd even buy a pluggin that gave me that > feature. > > --- Mike Feimster wrote: > > > It seems to me that the "real" solution is to be able > > to define variables at the book level. Then, variables > > in a chapter files take the value of > > whatever is defined for the book. > > > John Posada > Senior Technical Writer > > "So long and thanks for all the fish." > ___ > > > You are currently subscribed to Framers as llemay at gmail.com. > > To unsubscribe send a blank email to > framers-unsubscribe at lists.frameusers.com > or visit > http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/llemay%40gmail.com > > Send administrative questions to lisa at frameusers.com. Visit > http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. > -- *^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^ Laura Lemay Killer of Trees lemay % lne.comlemay % gmail.com http://www.lauralemay.com http://blog.lauralemay.com *^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^
RE: Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables]
I could live with that. I'd even buy a pluggin that gave me that feature. --- Mike Feimster <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > It seems to me that the "real" solution is to be able > to define variables at the book level. Then, variables > in a chapter files take the value of > whatever is defined for the book. John Posada Senior Technical Writer "So long and thanks for all the fish." ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables]
I could live with that. I'd even buy a pluggin that gave me that feature. --- Mike Feimster wrote: > It seems to me that the "real" solution is to be able > to define variables at the book level. Then, variables > in a chapter files take the value of > whatever is defined for the book. John Posada Senior Technical Writer "So long and thanks for all the fish."
RE: Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables]
It seems to me that the "real" solution is to be able to define variables at the book level. Then, variables in a chapter files take the value of whatever is defined for the book. Mike -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] om] On Behalf Of Bernard Aschwanden Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2006 12:17 PM To: 'John Posada'; framers@lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables] The cross book issue can become a problem. What you may want to try is to have all your files in a folder and create books 'above' that folder. Once done you can pick and choose what files go into a book. Then you still need to have a cover.fm file and you need to change (or conditionalize) the title on an 'as needed' basis. However, you could potentially have something like this: \main_folder\ Europe.book Asia.book Africa.book America.book Oceania.book OPEC.book EU.book APEC.book AxisOfEvil.book AxisOfJustAsEvil.book* Cover.fm \fm_files\ Abkhazia.fm Afghanistan.fm Akrotiri.fm Åland.fm Albania.fm Algeria.fm ... ... ... Yemen.fm Zambia.fm Zimbabwe.fm Now you can reference any mix/match of the files into a book and build all you need. They all reference the same cover.fm file and then you can mix/match as you see fit as often as you want. The drawback is the need to update cover.fm once per book you build. You could even use a plain text file named covername.txt and inset it into the footer so that non frame users could update the name of a book for automated processes (webworks etc). It's work to manage the cover.fm file, but may be considered useful to some on the list. You could even have subfolders using this system, but it becomes a bit bulky. I also usually add a master.book that has ALL the files so that I can do major level modifications (such as importing). Sometimes you can even create 'disposable' books using this method if you need a quick one of a kind publication. Of course, none of this is legally binding information or even useful and any links to this topic may be freely created as long as no one ever considers this to be 'correct' and agrees to pay me richly if this gets you a huge (or even a small) raise. Heck, if you even get a smile out of this or a good idea feel free to send cash or buy me food/drink at the conferences you may find me at :) Bernard PS. http://www.satirewire.com/news/jan02/axis.shtml for the axis of just as evil... (link used without permission but with apologies to google, yahoo, satirewire and any other entity that may ever have been involved in the creation of this site, links to the site, similar sites and even in the use of binary values 1 and 0) -Original Message- From: John Posada [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2006 10:58 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; framers@lists.frameusers.com Subject: Re: Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables] > What I often do is build the title in a file, such as "cover.fm" and > then build a folder structure along the lines of the following > example: > page I place an xref to the BookName paragraph that I put into the > cover. Then all I ever need to do is update Bernard...I think I did almost exactly what you describe and it worked until I started combining files in different books. For instance...every book I create has, after the frontmatter files, a chapter called Overview. This chapter givea a highlevel description of the module I'm describing and may be anywhere from one page to five or six pages. I also have a book that combines all the overview sections into one book, which is an overview of the application (a portal) that I'm documenting. The book also has its own frontmatter. I want all of the overview sections, when they appear in the Overview book, to have overview in the header, and when they appear in the module books, to have the module title in the header. It did not seem to work out that way. Maybe it was a particular way I implemented the functionality. Would your method accomodate it? John Posada Senior Technical Writer "So long and thanks for all the fish." ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/mike.feimster%40acstechn ologies.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables]
Hi all: Many people have discussed the idea of using variables or <$volnum> to drive the title of a book into multiple files. There are benefits and drawbacks to each and I'll leave that method alone for now. (as an aside, if you do a lot of importing of variables--or any formats--check into http://www.frameexpert.com/plugins/importformatsspecial/index.htm for a great utility) What I often do is build the title in a file, such as "cover.fm" and then build a folder structure along the lines of the following example: \book_folder\ cover.fm germany.fm england.fm finland.fm mexico.fm russia.fm Each file for each nation is based on the same template. In the template I view the master pages and in the footer/header of each page I place an xref to the BookName paragraph that I put into the cover. Then all I ever need to do is update cover.fm and update xrefs. In doing so I get a fully dynamic link that jumps to the cover (should I need that) and I also get a complete and dynamic way to update the title. Hope that helps as well. I'll demonstrate that in the presentation I do at the DITA conference to anyone who wants to see it. Additionally, I'm doing a whole set of online training sessions include some on template development in which I will show this. For details, see: http://www.publishingsmarter.com/pages/teach/conference_event.html You can follow links from there. Bernard Bernard Aschwanden Publishing Technologies Expert Publishing Smarter bernard at publishingsmarter.com www.publishingsmarter.com
RE: Frame documnet saved as XML losing formatting
Hi Karen, Are you using the default "save as" and then selecting XML? If so you have very little control. If you don't mind spending a bit of time working on it I can send you a document (and anyone else on the list who I haven't given this to) that walks you through a simple EDD, some formatting, a set of read/write rules and the basics of converting to and from Frame and XML. Let me know if you want a copy of the PDF. Bernard -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Karen West Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2006 11:40 AM To: framers@lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: Frame documnet saved as XML losing formatting Mike Feimster wrote: > > I believe that FrameMaker drops that formatting when saving as xml. > > If you are using formats from the character catalog it should > > > save the formatting. I stupidly replied: > > Thanks Mike, I've just tried it and it works now using the character > > catalog. Excellent, that's rather stupid though, don't you think? Richard Combs set me straight: > Well, no. In fact, a recent poll of FrameUsers readers found that 35 > out of 37 thought it was rather stupid to apply ad hoc formatting as > you did instead of using defined character tags: I've just read the relevant thread and I now feel more enlightened. In my defence I didn't know any better as I've had no formal training in using FrameMaker. I'm the sole Technical Writer here and kind of got roped into the position. Richard asked: > If you have unstructured, randomly-formatted docs that don't use > paragraph and character tags consistently, then what's the point in > converting them to XML anyway? They do use paragraph and character tags, though rarely for bold and italic. The XML is for a help system, for which I'm having to provide all my documents in XML format. I am now paying the price in the conversion to XML, of both my formatting mistakes and those of my predecessors. Karen West Technical Writer Cyberscience Corp http://www.cyberscience.com ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/bernard%40publishingsmarter.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Frame documnet saved as XML losing formatting
Karen West wrote: > The XML is for a help system, for which I'm having to provide > all my documents in XML format. I am now paying the price in > the conversion to XML, of both my formatting mistakes and > those of my predecessors. My sympathies and best wishes. On the positive side, it seems that the lessons that are somewhat painful are the ones we learn best. ;-) Richard -- Richard G. Combs Senior Technical Writer Polycom, Inc. richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom 303-223-5111 -- rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom 303-777-0436 --
Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables]
John Posada wrote: > > page I place an xref to the BookName paragraph that I put into the > > cover. Then all I ever need to do is update > > Bernard...I think I did almost exactly what you describe and > it worked until I started combining files in different books. > I want all of the overview sections, when they appear in the > Overview book, to have overview in the header, and when they > appear in the module books, to have the module title in the > header. It did not seem to work out that way. > > Maybe it was a particular way I implemented the > functionality. Would your method accomodate it? No, it won't. A variable is an abstraction; it can have a different meaning in different contexts. But an xref is concrete; it always points to a specific marker in a specific file. You can't create an xref that says, "go get the contents of the first Title pgf in whatever file is first in whatever book you're in." Theoretically, I suppose the functionality could be made to work -- although it would be ugly/messy. At any given moment, the xref would point to the location identified by whichever book file you last updated from. If you open the file from outside of any book, the xref couldn't be validated/updated. In any case, the functionality doesn't exist and, IMHO, it wouldn't offer any advantages over using a variable if it did. Of course, if you quote me, you may hear from my lawyer. ;-) Richard -- Richard G. Combs Senior Technical Writer Polycom, Inc. richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom 303-223-5111 -- rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom 303-777-0436 --
Re: Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables]
Two additional solutions that avoid the potential cross-reference link problems that Shlomo points out: * Use "old-style" paragraph-based autonumbering for chapter numbers, in combination with Volume Number and Chapter Number variables formatted as text or numbers. * Create the title text in a dedicated tagged text flow in the main information source document for the book file set, and import the flow as a text inset. The issue also suggests there's a valid case for increasing the number of book-wide variables. At 6:39 PM +0200 1/31/06, Shlomo Perets wrote: Bernard, You wrote: ... Each file for each nation is based on the same template. In the template I view the master pages and in the footer/header of each page I place an xref to the BookName paragraph that I put into the cover. Then all I ever need to do is update cover.fm and update xrefs. In doing so I get a fully dynamic link that jumps to the cover (should I need that) and I also get a complete and dynamic way to update the title. But when converting the FM book to on-screen PDF, all cross-references are converted to links (unless placed in text insets). Thus the header/footer of each page will have "unintentional" links (which may even become bad links in some circumstances) -- see http://www.microtype.com/resources/PDFBP_links.html#UnintentionalLinks for real-life examples (Acrobat SDK documentation). -- Regards, Peter Gold KnowHow ProServices [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
RE: Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables]
The cross book issue can become a problem. What you may want to try is to have all your files in a folder and create books 'above' that folder. Once done you can pick and choose what files go into a book. Then you still need to have a cover.fm file and you need to change (or conditionalize) the title on an 'as needed' basis. However, you could potentially have something like this: \main_folder\ Europe.book Asia.book Africa.book America.book Oceania.book OPEC.book EU.book APEC.book AxisOfEvil.book AxisOfJustAsEvil.book* Cover.fm \fm_files\ Abkhazia.fm Afghanistan.fm Akrotiri.fm Åland.fm Albania.fm Algeria.fm ... ... ... Yemen.fm Zambia.fm Zimbabwe.fm Now you can reference any mix/match of the files into a book and build all you need. They all reference the same cover.fm file and then you can mix/match as you see fit as often as you want. The drawback is the need to update cover.fm once per book you build. You could even use a plain text file named covername.txt and inset it into the footer so that non frame users could update the name of a book for automated processes (webworks etc). It's work to manage the cover.fm file, but may be considered useful to some on the list. You could even have subfolders using this system, but it becomes a bit bulky. I also usually add a master.book that has ALL the files so that I can do major level modifications (such as importing). Sometimes you can even create 'disposable' books using this method if you need a quick one of a kind publication. Of course, none of this is legally binding information or even useful and any links to this topic may be freely created as long as no one ever considers this to be 'correct' and agrees to pay me richly if this gets you a huge (or even a small) raise. Heck, if you even get a smile out of this or a good idea feel free to send cash or buy me food/drink at the conferences you may find me at :) Bernard PS. http://www.satirewire.com/news/jan02/axis.shtml for the axis of just as evil... (link used without permission but with apologies to google, yahoo, satirewire and any other entity that may ever have been involved in the creation of this site, links to the site, similar sites and even in the use of binary values 1 and 0) -Original Message- From: John Posada [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2006 10:58 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; framers@lists.frameusers.com Subject: Re: Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables] > What I often do is build the title in a file, such as "cover.fm" and > then build a folder structure along the lines of the following > example: > page I place an xref to the BookName paragraph that I put into the > cover. Then all I ever need to do is update Bernard...I think I did almost exactly what you describe and it worked until I started combining files in different books. For instance...every book I create has, after the frontmatter files, a chapter called Overview. This chapter givea a highlevel description of the module I'm describing and may be anywhere from one page to five or six pages. I also have a book that combines all the overview sections into one book, which is an overview of the application (a portal) that I'm documenting. The book also has its own frontmatter. I want all of the overview sections, when they appear in the Overview book, to have overview in the header, and when they appear in the module books, to have the module title in the header. It did not seem to work out that way. Maybe it was a particular way I implemented the functionality. Would your method accomodate it? John Posada Senior Technical Writer "So long and thanks for all the fish." ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Frame documnet saved as XML losing formatting
Karen West wrote: > > How are you formatting the italic text? Are you clicking > the I button > > or pressing ctrl-I? > > Yes again. > > > If so, I believe that FrameMaker drops that formatting when > saving as > > xml. If you are using formats from the character catalog it should > > save the formatting. > > Thanks Mike, I've just tried it and it works now using the > character catalog. Excellent, that's rather stupid though, > don't you think? Well, no. In fact, a recent poll of FrameUsers readers found that 35 out of 37 thought it was rather stupid to apply ad hoc formatting as you did instead of using defined character tags: > Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2006 1:08 PM > To: framers at lists.FrameUsers.com > Subject: POLL RESULTS: Which method do you use to apply bold > and italics? > > > -Original Message- > > From: John Wilcox > > Sent: Monday, January 16, 2006 3:30 PM > > > This came up as a possible style standards issue here. > ... > > A. Click the B and I buttons, or press Ctrl+B and Ctrl+I. > > B. Select Bold and Emphasis from the Character Catalog. > > Of the 37 responses I got, 35 chose B or a variation thereof. > > Most of those 35 were so adamant that I doubt they will be > surprised at the results, but I for one had no idea the vote > would be so lop-sided. > > All of the variations mentioned involved creating and using > use-specific char tags, such as BookTitle, VariableElement, NewTerm. If you have unstructured, randomly-formatted docs that don't use paragraph and character tags consistently, then what's the point in converting them to XML anyway? Richard -- Richard G. Combs Senior Technical Writer Polycom, Inc. richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom 303-223-5111 -- rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom 303-777-0436 --
RE: Frame documnet saved as XML losing formatting
Karen West wrote: > The XML is for a help system, for which I'm having to provide > all my documents in XML format. I am now paying the price in > the conversion to XML, of both my formatting mistakes and > those of my predecessors. My sympathies and best wishes. On the positive side, it seems that the lessons that are somewhat painful are the ones we learn best. ;-) 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
RE: Frame documnet saved as XML losing formatting
Karen wrote: "They do use paragraph and character tags, though rarely for bold and italic. The XML is for a help system, for which I'm having to provide all my documents in XML format. I am now paying the price in the conversion to XML, of both my formatting mistakes and those of my predecessors." Do they want an arbitrary xml format, or do they want a specific syntax such as DocBook, DITA, or home made? If they want a specific syntax, you might be better off converting your unstructured documents to structured and then saving as XML. I've never understood why someone would want the generic xml that comes from Frame (or Word for that matter) unless they planned to convert it to something else. Feel free to enlighten me. Mike -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] om] On Behalf Of Karen West Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2006 11:40 AM To: framers@lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: Frame documnet saved as XML losing formatting Mike Feimster wrote: > > I believe that FrameMaker drops that formatting when saving as xml. > > If you are using formats from the character catalog it should > > > save the formatting. I stupidly replied: > > Thanks Mike, I've just tried it and it works now using the character > > catalog. Excellent, that's rather stupid though, don't you think? Richard Combs set me straight: > Well, no. In fact, a recent poll of FrameUsers readers found that 35 > out of 37 thought it was rather stupid to apply ad hoc formatting as > you did instead of using defined character tags: I've just read the relevant thread and I now feel more enlightened. In my defence I didn't know any better as I've had no formal training in using FrameMaker. I'm the sole Technical Writer here and kind of got roped into the position. Richard asked: > If you have unstructured, randomly-formatted docs that don't use > paragraph and character tags consistently, then what's the point in > converting them to XML anyway? They do use paragraph and character tags, though rarely for bold and italic. The XML is for a help system, for which I'm having to provide all my documents in XML format. I am now paying the price in the conversion to XML, of both my formatting mistakes and those of my predecessors. Karen West Technical Writer Cyberscience Corp http://www.cyberscience.com ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/mike.feimster%40acstechn ologies.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
RE: Frame documnet saved as XML losing formatting
Mike Feimster wrote: > > I believe that FrameMaker drops that formatting when > > saving as xml. If you are using formats from the character catalog it should > > > save the formatting. I stupidly replied: > > Thanks Mike, I've just tried it and it works now using the > > character catalog. Excellent, that's rather stupid though, > > don't you think? Richard Combs set me straight: > Well, no. In fact, a recent poll of FrameUsers readers found > that 35 out of 37 thought it was rather stupid to apply ad > hoc formatting as you did instead of using defined character tags: I've just read the relevant thread and I now feel more enlightened. In my defence I didn't know any better as I've had no formal training in using FrameMaker. I'm the sole Technical Writer here and kind of got roped into the position. Richard asked: > If you have unstructured, randomly-formatted docs that don't > use paragraph and character tags consistently, then what's > the point in converting them to XML anyway? They do use paragraph and character tags, though rarely for bold and italic. The XML is for a help system, for which I'm having to provide all my documents in XML format. I am now paying the price in the conversion to XML, of both my formatting mistakes and those of my predecessors. Karen West Technical Writer Cyberscience Corp http://www.cyberscience.com ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Re: Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables]
Bernard, You wrote: ... Each file for each nation is based on the same template. In the template I view the master pages and in the footer/header of each page I place an xref to the BookName paragraph that I put into the cover. Then all I ever need to do is update cover.fm and update xrefs. In doing so I get a fully dynamic link that jumps to the cover (should I need that) and I also get a complete and dynamic way to update the title. But when converting the FM book to on-screen PDF, all cross-references are converted to links (unless placed in text insets). Thus the header/footer of each page will have "unintentional" links (which may even become bad links in some circumstances) -- see http://www.microtype.com/resources/PDFBP_links.html#UnintentionalLinks for real-life examples (Acrobat SDK documentation). Additional notes: * This is not an issue with HTML output (where master pages are ignored). * Cross-references may also introduce difficulties related to formatting (eg if you have italic/bold in the title text), as in the context of cross-references, <$paratext> ignores all character properties present in the extracted paragraph text (including case formatting), except font family properties, superscript and subscript. * Ideally, FrameMaker would have a "convert to link" setting in the cross-reference format, so that linking could be optionally suppressed for specific types of cross-references. With TimeSavers 4.0, this is an option for external cross-references (based on a user-defined string present in the file name or path of the target file). Shlomo Perets MicroType * http://www.microtype.com FrameMaker, Acrobat training & consulting * FM-to-Acrobat TimeSavers FM-to-PDF Assistants: Form, Navigation, Presentation, Defaults, Multimedia, 3D ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
RE: Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables]
John Posada wrote: > > page I place an xref to the BookName paragraph that I put into the > > cover. Then all I ever need to do is update > > Bernard...I think I did almost exactly what you describe and > it worked until I started combining files in different books. > I want all of the overview sections, when they appear in the > Overview book, to have overview in the header, and when they > appear in the module books, to have the module title in the > header. It did not seem to work out that way. > > Maybe it was a particular way I implemented the > functionality. Would your method accomodate it? No, it won't. A variable is an abstraction; it can have a different meaning in different contexts. But an xref is concrete; it always points to a specific marker in a specific file. You can't create an xref that says, "go get the contents of the first Title pgf in whatever file is first in whatever book you're in." Theoretically, I suppose the functionality could be made to work -- although it would be ugly/messy. At any given moment, the xref would point to the location identified by whichever book file you last updated from. If you open the file from outside of any book, the xref couldn't be validated/updated. In any case, the functionality doesn't exist and, IMHO, it wouldn't offer any advantages over using a variable if it did. Of course, if you quote me, you may hear from my lawyer. ;-) 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Re: Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables]
> What I often do is build the title in a file, such > as "cover.fm" and then build a folder structure along > the lines of the following example: > page I place an xref to the BookName paragraph that I > put into the cover. Then all I ever need to do is update Bernard...I think I did almost exactly what you describe and it worked until I started combining files in different books. For instance...every book I create has, after the frontmatter files, a chapter called Overview. This chapter givea a highlevel description of the module I'm describing and may be anywhere from one page to five or six pages. I also have a book that combines all the overview sections into one book, which is an overview of the application (a portal) that I'm documenting. The book also has its own frontmatter. I want all of the overview sections, when they appear in the Overview book, to have overview in the header, and when they appear in the module books, to have the module title in the header. It did not seem to work out that way. Maybe it was a particular way I implemented the functionality. Would your method accomodate it? John Posada Senior Technical Writer "So long and thanks for all the fish." ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
RE: Frame documnet saved as XML losing formatting
Karen West wrote: > > How are you formatting the italic text? Are you clicking > the I button > > or pressing ctrl-I? > > Yes again. > > > If so, I believe that FrameMaker drops that formatting when > saving as > > xml. If you are using formats from the character catalog it should > > save the formatting. > > Thanks Mike, I've just tried it and it works now using the > character catalog. Excellent, that's rather stupid though, > don't you think? Well, no. In fact, a recent poll of FrameUsers readers found that 35 out of 37 thought it was rather stupid to apply ad hoc formatting as you did instead of using defined character tags: > Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2006 1:08 PM > To: framers@lists.FrameUsers.com > Subject: POLL RESULTS: Which method do you use to apply bold > and italics? > > > -Original Message- > > From: John Wilcox > > Sent: Monday, January 16, 2006 3:30 PM > > > This came up as a possible style standards issue here. > ... > > A. Click the B and I buttons, or press Ctrl+B and Ctrl+I. > > B. Select Bold and Emphasis from the Character Catalog. > > Of the 37 responses I got, 35 chose B or a variation thereof. > > Most of those 35 were so adamant that I doubt they will be > surprised at the results, but I for one had no idea the vote > would be so lop-sided. > > All of the variations mentioned involved creating and using > use-specific char tags, such as BookTitle, VariableElement, NewTerm. If you have unstructured, randomly-formatted docs that don't use paragraph and character tags consistently, then what's the point in converting them to XML anyway? 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables]
> What I often do is build the title in a file, such > as "cover.fm" and then build a folder structure along > the lines of the following example: > page I place an xref to the BookName paragraph that I > put into the cover. Then all I ever need to do is update Bernard...I think I did almost exactly what you describe and it worked until I started combining files in different books. For instance...every book I create has, after the frontmatter files, a chapter called Overview. This chapter givea a highlevel description of the module I'm describing and may be anywhere from one page to five or six pages. I also have a book that combines all the overview sections into one book, which is an overview of the application (a portal) that I'm documenting. The book also has its own frontmatter. I want all of the overview sections, when they appear in the Overview book, to have overview in the header, and when they appear in the module books, to have the module title in the header. It did not seem to work out that way. Maybe it was a particular way I implemented the functionality. Would your method accomodate it? John Posada Senior Technical Writer "So long and thanks for all the fish."
RE: Frame documnet saved as XML losing formatting
I wrote: > I'm using Frame 7.0p492 to do a Save as xml on some Frame > documents. I have already converted about 10 books and not > had any major problems but suddenly I am seeing a loss of > formatting. For example, in the Frame document there is the > following text: (Note that formatting comments have been > inserted in square brackets [ ]) > > The following steps illustrate how to create a new category > called [I]Female[/I] in the TITLE column by combining the > values for [I]MISS[/I] and [I]MRS[/I]: Mike Feimster asked: > Are you converting unstructured Frame to xml? I am indeed. > How are you formatting the italic text? Are you clicking the I button or > pressing ctrl-I? Yes again. > If so, I believe that FrameMaker drops that > formatting when saving as xml. If you are using formats from > the character catalog it should save the formatting. Thanks Mike, I've just tried it and it works now using the character catalog. Excellent, that's rather stupid though, don't you think? Hopefully someone can help me solve problem number 2. > I also have a 3 page Frame document, where the resulting xml > contains only: > > > charset="UTF-8"?> > > Does anyone have any idea what's going on here. Is this > problem fixed in a later release perhaps? Karen West (off to flagellate myself for spelling document incorrectly in the subject) Technical Writer Cyberscience Corp http://www.cyberscience.com ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Frame documnet saved as XML losing formatting
I'm using Frame 7.0p492 to do a Save as xml on some Frame documents. I have already converted about 10 books and not had any major problems but suddenly I am seeing a loss of formatting. For example, in the Frame document there is the following text: (Note that formatting comments have been inserted in square brackets [ ]) The following steps illustrate how to create a new category called [I]Female[/I] in the TITLE column by combining the values for [I]MISS[/I] and [I]MRS[/I]: Whereas the XML for this does not contain any formatting: The following steps illustrate how to create a new category called Female in the TITLE column by combining the values for MISS and MRS: I also have a 3 page Frame document, where the resulting xml contains only: Does anyone have any idea what's going on here. Is this problem fixed in a later release perhaps? Thanks Karen West Technical Writer Cyberscience Corp http://www.cyberscience.com ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Carrying the Title of a Book forward [was Variables]
Hi all: Many people have discussed the idea of using variables or <$volnum> to drive the title of a book into multiple files. There are benefits and drawbacks to each and I'll leave that method alone for now. (as an aside, if you do a lot of importing of variables--or any formats--check into http://www.frameexpert.com/plugins/importformatsspecial/index.htm for a great utility) What I often do is build the title in a file, such as "cover.fm" and then build a folder structure along the lines of the following example: \book_folder\ cover.fm germany.fm england.fm finland.fm mexico.fm russia.fm Each file for each nation is based on the same template. In the template I view the master pages and in the footer/header of each page I place an xref to the BookName paragraph that I put into the cover. Then all I ever need to do is update cover.fm and update xrefs. In doing so I get a fully dynamic link that jumps to the cover (should I need that) and I also get a complete and dynamic way to update the title. Hope that helps as well. I'll demonstrate that in the presentation I do at the DITA conference to anyone who wants to see it. Additionally, I'm doing a whole set of online training sessions include some on template development in which I will show this. For details, see: http://www.publishingsmarter.com/pages/teach/conference_event.html You can follow links from there. Bernard Bernard Aschwanden Publishing Technologies Expert Publishing Smarter [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.publishingsmarter.com ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
"Real Life" Migration to Structured Doc
Thank you to all who responded to my structure question. You have provided plenty of material for thought and research. dominick Dominick A. DeFlorio Senior Technical Writer Plug Power, Inc. 968 Albany-Shaker Road Latham, NY 12110 (518) 738-0389 -Original Message- From: framers-bounces+dominick_deflorio=plugpower.com at lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-bounces+dominick_deflorio=plugpower.com at lists.frameusers .com] On Behalf Of Paul Nagai Sent: Monday, January 30, 2006 11:51 PM To: framers at lists.frameusers.com Subject: Re: "Real Life" Migration to Structured Doc If you search google groups for the following: Comparison of XML tools for writing documents You will find a techwr-l conversation from about a year ago that might be helpful. ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as dominick_deflorio at plugpower.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscribe at lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/dominick_deflorio%40 plugpower.com Send administrative questions to lisa at frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
RE: "Real Life" Migration to Structured Doc
Thank you to all who responded to my structure question. You have provided plenty of material for thought and research. dominick Dominick A. DeFlorio Senior Technical Writer Plug Power, Inc. 968 Albany-Shaker Road Latham, NY 12110 (518) 738-0389 -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] .com] On Behalf Of Paul Nagai Sent: Monday, January 30, 2006 11:51 PM To: framers@lists.frameusers.com Subject: Re: "Real Life" Migration to Structured Doc If you search google groups for the following: Comparison of XML tools for writing documents You will find a techwr-l conversation from about a year ago that might be helpful. ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/dominick_deflorio%40 plugpower.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
