Inserting inline graphics
I'm late to this discussion too. It's this sort of thing that caused me to create the Auto-Text plug-in. At the time, the template I was using had anchored frames for hints, warnings, database tasks, multicurrency tasks, as well as various in-line anchored frames for special characters like the "pretzel" key for the Macintosh. It drove all of the writers crazy having to manually add these each time. That's where Auto-Text comes in. You can define the content exactly as you want it to appear in your document. Then you copy it into the AutoText.fm document to define the AutoText entry. Give it a name, and a keyboard shortcut (optional). Then, when you want to use the item, just place the insertion point in your document, and choose the item from the AutoText menu (or use the keyboard shortcut). Auto-Text will copy the item from the AutoText.fm document, and paste it into your current document. You have a lot of flexibility when defining the AutoText items. You can use anchored frames with referenced graphics, using relative paths. When you insert the Auto-Text entry, the relative paths are preserved. If you need to change a graphic, you can just swap it out like you would any other reference Frame graphic. You can even create AutoText entries that reference content on a Reference page. A single-user license is only $10. You can download the plug-in at the Silicon Prairie web site (http://www.siliconprairiesoftware.com). It's fully-functional, but will periodically display registration reminders. You can try it out at no cost to see if it would help you with your issue. Steve
Frame 9: Paragraph tag that's automatically conditional?
You might want to try Auto-Text for that. One of the reasons why I wrote the plug was to handle the case where I have conditional paragraphs to store online help IDs. I also define a shortcut key for the Auto-Text item, so I can insert the conditional text item without having to use the mouse. You can get Auto-Text here: http://www.siliconprairiesoftware.com/ Go to the Downloads page, where you'll find the .zip archive and PDF instructions. Steve
ANN: Silicon Prairie Updated Plug-ins and Cyber Monday Promotion
Back in September, I updated Silicon Prairie's FrameMaker plug-ins for FrameMaker 11. I neglected to announce that the updated plug-ins were available at that time. What better day to make up for that than Cyber Monday! If you're doing some online shopping, why not do some work-related shopping too? Just go to the Silicon Prairie site: http://www.siliconprairiesoftware.com >From there, you can download the updated plug-ins for FrameMaker 11. Upgrades for registered users are free. You might also want to get the new plug-ins that were released in June. Finally, no Cyber Monday promotion is complete without a discount. Just use this promo code: Save10 You'll save 10% on your total purchase of $20 or more in the Silicon Prairie online store. I hate promo codes that last only a day, so this code is good until the end of November. Thanks for all of your past support! Steve
Wordcount at Book level rather than File level
You might want to look at Readability Tools. One of its functions is to count words, at the file level or the book level. You can read about it and download it here: http://www.siliconprairiesoftware.com Steve
master index of multiple book
You might want to look at Index Tools Professional. A "master index" is one of the requirements I had when I wrote the plug-in. You'll find a routine in there to build a master index book, which will add files in proper order, skip generated files, and allow defining the prefix for each book to identify it in the master index. Finally, the documentation for the plug-in contains instructions that explain how to get the PDF for the master index to work for your configuration of PDFs. Find it here: http://www.siliconprairiesoftware.com Click the Downloads button on the left side. Steve
Is FM 7.2 compatible with Windows 7?
You might want to try the compatibility patch I made for Frame 7.x so that it works better with Windows 7. You can find it here at the end of the Downloads page: http://www.siliconprairiesoftware.com/Downloads.html This application uses a compatibility shim to control settings for the FrameMaker 7.x executable file. A compatibility shim provides more control over settings that allow the older version of Frame to work with Windows 7. I've used it for a few years, going back to the Windows Vista days. It fixes the incompatibilities with the built-in compatibility modes, such as the slowdown you experienced with the XP compatibility mode. (I had found exactly the same behavior.) Steve
So how many of us are stuck with Frame 7.2?
[Sorry for the long message. A download at the could make it worthwhile.] It's not an uncommon situation. I have several large documentation sets I maintain that are on FrameMaker 7.0, and it's likely that's where management says they will stay for now. I personally have seen some of the problems that have been reported with running older versions of Frame on Windows Vista and Windows 7. I had tried using the compatibility settings that Windows Vista and 7 provide. The settings helped in Windows Vista, but actually made things worse in Windows 7. I would get the graphic frame dragging crashes, and have very sluggish performance of the application even on very fast hardware. My solution was to create a compatiblity shim that installs on the system. A compatibility shim is a standard way to control operating system settings for a specific program, allowing it to be more compatible with the base operating system. A compatibility shim provides much more control over the settings than the basic compatibility settings provided by the base operating system. I have been using the first version of this shim for a few years. I just recently had to update it to work on a 64-bit Windows 7 machine. It makes Frame 7 function very much like it did on Windows XP. Since there has been some discussion about this, I decided to make the compatibility software available for download. You can get it from the Downloads page at the Silicon Prairie Software web site: http://www.siliconprairiesoftware.com It's way down at the bottom of the Downloads page. Like the other software on the site, it's available as Shareware. If you try the software and it helps you out, please consider paying the token shareware fee. This one is entirely on the honor system! :-) Hopefully you see the same benefits of the compatibility shim that I have. Steve
ANN: Silicon Prairie plug-ins Updated for Frame 10
All of the FrameMaker plug-ins from Silicon Prairie have been updated for FrameMaker 10. The updates are free for registered users. You can download the plug-ins here: http://www.siliconprairiesoftware.com Regards, Steve steve at siliconprairiesoftware.com
Framemaker 9 vs Microsoft Word
Regarding a couple of Frame's shortcomings Readability calculations I also wanted to do some better structural and readability analysis for documents, but couldn't. I made Readability Tools to do that analysis. Features of Readability Tools include determining document statistics, calculating standard readability formulas, generating readability reports, and producing lists and counts of all words used in a document or book. The Flesch Reading Ease, Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, ARI (Automated Readability Index), SMOG, and Gunning Fog Index readability tests are available. Creating outlines - When I'm writing technical docs, I like to create a traditional outline to get the content organized. I really liked the outlining in Word 5.1 on the Macintosh. (How old am I?!?!)I am not as happy with the outlining in the more recent versions of Word. I did like the outlining template that uses the auto-numbering in Frame, but found that it was difficult to push the blocks of information around as I was working in the outline. So, I created the Outline Tools plug-in for Frame that makes it easier to push blocks of content around in an outline document. You can read more about these tools at: http://www.siliconprairiesoftware.com Steve
OT: List of files w/i a directory
I think you want to use the "tree" command. Set the working directory to where you want to begin making the tree. At a command prompt, type: tree /F /A > filelist.txt The /F will cause the files to be listed. The /A will make it ASCII in the tree branches, which works better for text. I still find use for this command when I need to send a file structure description to somebody. :-) Steve
ANN: Silicon Prairie plug-ins updated for FrameMaker 9
The following plug-ins from Silicon Prairie Software have been updated to work with FrameMaker 9: - Alert Tool - Auto-Text - Character Tools - Index Tools - Index Tools Professional - LEP Tools - Master Page Tools - Outline Tools - Paragraph Tools - Readability Tools - Table Tools If you have any of these plug-ins and are moving to FrameMaker 9, you need to download the updated versions. The upgrade is free for registered owners. To get them, use the Download link on the Silicon Prairie web site: http://www.siliconprairiesoftware.com If you aren't moving to FrameMaker 9, you can still download the plug-ins. They're available for FrameMaker versions 6.x, 7.x, and 8.x as well.
Usage of WebWorks (ePublisher)
I can't resist either. I must bring closure to part of this thread, just in case somebody has a time machine accident or stumbles into a worm-hole and finds themself back in 1986. :-) There were several ways to eject a disk on a Mac. 1) Select the disk icon and choose Put Away. 2) Select the disk and choose Command-e or Eject. (Newer Finder versions) 3) Press Command-Shift-1. 4) Drag the icon to the trash. If the normal methods weren't working, you would just hold down the mouse button when you started up the computer. The paper clip was a last resort for cases like a dead power supply. If a disk got corrupted, the usual problem was a corrupted "desktop" file. That's the hidden file with the disk content database. To rebuild this file, you held down the Command (pretzel) and Option keys when you inserted the disk. You'd be asked if you wanted to rebuild the desktop file. Click OK, and most of the time you were back in business. It goes to Jeremy's point -- to get the best results from a tool, you need to learn as much about it as you can. E-mail lists like this help make that easier today than it was in 1986. Steve
Sort order of entries in an index
Lester is on the right track... He said this: Try adding a space before the opening square bracket of the sort order: studs:70 mm roller locations [studs:070 mm] studs:90 mm roller locations [studs:090 mm] The spaces don't affect the sorting. The importing thing to note is that the item included in the square brackets must be a complete index entry. Lester's example is a complete entry in the square brackets, so his example should sort correctly. Another common problem with re-sorting is that once Frame encounters the set of square brackets, it stops parsing the entry. That's why you can't have entries that look like this: studs: 70 mm[070 mm]: roller Instead, the re-sorting should appear at the end: studs: 70 mm: roller[studs: 070 mm: roller] Hope this helps. Steve
Frame's lame callouts
Callouts are one of the reasons I created Auto-Text. You can define a set of callout Auto-Text items that are easily pasted into an anchored frame that contains a picture. I have callouts defined for the left or right sides of an image, with various callout lines (straight, angled, brackets, etc). The callout text box has the appropriate style already applied, so you can just select the text and start typing your new callout. An example of callout Auto-Text items is included with the Auto-Text plug-in. You can download the plug-in from: http://www.siliconprairiesoftware.com Try it out. I think you'll find it speeds up callout-creation. Steve
ANN: Readability Tools 1.0 Released
Readability Tools 1.0 from Silicon Prairie Software has been released. Readability Tools is a shareware plug-in for FrameMaker that provides tools that help you analyze and improve the readability of FrameMaker documents and books. Features include: Determining document statistics Calculating standard readability formulas Generating readability reports Producing lists and counts of all words used in a document or book The following readability tests are included: Flesch Reading Ease Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level ARI (Automated Readability Index) SMOG Gunning Fog Index The plug-in is available for both FrameMaker 6.0 and 7.x, on the Windows and Macintosh platforms. A single-user license is $20. The software can be downloaded from http://www.siliconprairiesoftware.com
automatically get rid of character tag in text?
You might want to try Character Tools. It would let you re-map the tag in question to the Default Paragraph Format. You can download it from: http://www.siliconprairiesoftware.com Steve
Changing Defaults on Tools Palette
Dropping in graphic items that have specific characteristics is one of the things I like best about Auto-Text. Just create the item item with the characteristics you want, and copy it to the AutoText.fm document. For speed, assign a shortcut key. Then, every time you want to use the item, just select the graphic frame and type the shortcut key (or use the menu, whichever you prefer). Presto! The item will be dropped in, all formatted and ready for use. It's the only way I would ever do callouts. Since it's shareware, you can try Auto-Text to see how it works for you. There's a callout item included in the example AutoText.fm file. It's $10 for a single-user license. You can download it from: http://www.siliconprairiesoftware.com Steve
Indexing questions
Rather than post two responses, I'll just toss a couple of thoughts in regarding the two index-related questions asked on the list. First, for the phantom index entries... I've seen this sort of thing happen when Index marker content is malformed. One example occurs when additional sorting (the [ ] blocks) in Index markers aren't placed at the end of the entries. Additional content after the [ ] block creates a spurious entry that appears at the beginning of the index. Check for this if you're using customized sorting. Second, for the master index... Check the documentation for Index Tools Professional. There's a full description of the process to create and generate a master index. The issues regarding numbering, pagination, and PDF generation are all covered. Index Tools Pro also has a utility to help with the index creation. It's important that this be done carefully, or everything in your source files will renumber, which you don't want. You can also get into situations where you're hounded with "inconsistent numbering" messages for many files in each of your Frame books. You want to avoid those problems if possible. You can get this documentation from: http://www.siliconprairiesoftware.com Steve
ANN: Table Tools 1.0 Released
Table Tools 1.0 from Silicon Prairie Software has been released. Table Tools is a shareware plug-in for FrameMaker that helps you manange table tags in your FrameMaker documents. Table Tools also provides the following routines: - Remove Overrides - Find Next Override - List Table Usage - Delete Unused Table Tags - Create Table Tag List - Remove Non-list Table Tags - Fix Table Headings - Generate Table Tag Report Table Tools is available for both FrameMaker 6.x and 7.x, on the Windows and Macintosh and platforms. A single-user license is $10. The software can be downloaded from http://www.siliconprairiesoftware.com While you're at the Silicon Prairie site, be sure you have the latest versions of all of our FrameMaker plug-ins: Alert Tool 1.0 Auto-Text 4.0 -- Build 100 Character Tools 1.3 -- Build 102 Index Tools 1.3 -- Build 100 Index Tools Pro 2.1 -- Build 109 LEP Tools 1.1 -- Build 100 Master Page Tools 2.0 -- Build 108 Outline Tools 1.0 -- Build 104 Paragraph Tools 2.1 -- Build 101 Table Tools 1.0 -- Build 100
Remove a paragraph format from a book
A correction Paragraph Tools has always happily handled paragraph tag management for both individual files and for books. In fact, the last update added an additional routines to better list how paragraph tags are used for an entire book. You can get the latest version here: http://www.siliconprairiesoftware.com Steve steve at siliconprairiesoftware.com >Paragraph Tools from Silicon Prairie handles various paragraph tag >management tools for a single document, but not for a whole book. > >FrameScript could probably do this. > >Joe
Question about Frame to PDF start pages
This problem happens frequently enought that we've included it in our in-house documentation. Here's what we say: PDF doesn?t open to the first page This problem commonly happens to books converted to FrameMaker 7 from earlier versions. To fix this problem, perform the following steps: 1. Open the FrameMaker book file, and select the first line (the book), as shown in the following illustration. << Picture would go here >> 2. Choose Format >> Document >> PDF Setup. The PDF Setup for Selected Files window opens. 3. On the Settings tab, enter 1 in the Open PDF Document On Page field, then click Set. It seems the problem occurs because the book hasn't been told on which page to open. That's why the last file "wins". Hope this helps. Steve
