Hello All...
I have been absent for some time -- I have made fixes to known problems in
TemplateMapper and would like to distribute them to the user base. If you're
an existing user and are interested in an upgrade, please go to my site and
register. Go to http://www.cudspan.net and
I did something similar, where I implemented a tiny language that specified the
order in which to try and modify the formatting to get content to fit on a
specific page (the last page). I implemented font changes, text frame changes,
line space changes, and I forget what else. The language
You could always look at TemplateMapper, but I think it's not geared entirely
to your problem. Still, if you come up with a normalized template, then you
*could* make a map that incorporates everything your legacy has accumulated and
then map it to your template. And it handles all those
I'll take a crack at this...
You should try to find developer docs that you can emulate. To start, you need
to figure out some particulars of the dev platform -- what language (C/C++,
Java, Flash, etc.), what is the dev environment (is there a specific IDE
(integrated development environment)
This looks like part of a bigger problem with character ranges. It's
understandable that you would get this behavior where arrowing from one
direction makes the transition point show one property, and from the other
direction the transition point shows another. The fact that the Enter key (new
I don't think you need scripts or FDK clients. Can't you just find/change on
the book? Of course, I forget the find char sequence for a Shift-Return, but
I'm fairly sure it exists... (I always like to advocate the low-tech solution
if at all possible.)
cud
Lynne Price says...
Gordon,
ShamelessPlug
You can use TemplateMapper... It sets up a project to manage import from a new
template into a legacy book. You create map files that manage how to import
individual formats (turn LegacyBody into NewBody), and load legacy, template,
and map files into a project. The project can
Concerning missing fonts messages even though you have tried all the tricks to
clear that font out of your document...
There's a known issue with FrameMaker -- Maker stores font information with
table formats. I think this is how it goes... If you copy/paste a table into
your document, and
Has *anybody* tried Open All Files in Book? Don't you get all the document
file windows nested within each other such that the 10th document file is a
slit of a page? (Or am I suffering hallucinations?) Doesn't anybody find that
a problem? Basically, it seems the new windowing paradigm
RE the problem of nested windows when you OPEN ALL in a book... The answer I
got is, Always expand docs to full screen -- use the tabbed interface.
This is reasonable if you want your doc windows to always be fully expanded. I
use Maker documents as generated logs. I personally don't want
I'm glad (in an ironic sense) to see that I'm not the only person who is asking
for the API to expose the GUI elements. In a more literal sense, I'm sorry to
see it. Please, please, please... Expose the new GUI to the API so we can
make plug-ins that interact reasonably with the user's
I know you can automatically assign master pages to specific elements. So if
you have a backmatter element, then you can assign the backmatter master page
to that element. I forget whether that auto-master page feature is sensitive
enough to respond to attributes. (I don't have Maker running
I have the same problem, only with Acrobat. So far I've just been using
everything but Acrobat, and not generating PDFs. Thank goodness for Reader and
older versions of Maker. I haven't had the courage to try un-installing all
the products and installing again. Somehow I doubt I'll ever
version of the list.
I'll give it a try...
cud
From: Art Campbell art.campb...@gmail.com
To: Chris Despopoulos despopoulos_chr...@yahoo.com
Cc: framers@lists.frameusers.com
Sent: Thu, December 17, 2009 8:12:59 AM
Subject: Re: TCS2 Distiller license problem
First
as the cost to purchase it?
Sigh... I have to start actually gaining a living with my time now...
cud
From: Art Campbell art.campb...@gmail.com
To: Chris Despopoulos despopoulos_chr...@yahoo.com
Cc: framers@lists.frameusers.com
Sent: Thu, December 17, 2009 8:12:59
licensing is as squirrely as a Chuck
Jones cartoon.
cud
From: Mike Wickham i...@mikewickham.com
To: Chris Despopoulos despopoulos_chr...@yahoo.com; Frame Users
framers@lists.FrameUsers.com
Sent: Thu, December 17, 2009 10:49:59 AM
Subject: Re: TCS2 Distiller
You give me too much credit. As a closet anarchist, licensing is something I
have never been able to understand. Also, I don't think this is a FrameMaker
issue. I don't think enough people have tried to pirate Maker to warrant the
expense of super-clever licensing schemes. Unfortunately
I'm kind of playing around with WIKIs at the moment. I'm most interested in
DokuWiki because it's a file-based system rather than using MySql. DokuWiki
has plugins for export to different formats (OpenOffice, LaTex, and XHTML, for
example). I'm not aware of import plugins yet.
I think the
So, do products like NitroPDF and Solidpdf hose your Acrobat 9 installation? I
had to jump through many hoops to get Acrobat to work on my system, and would
surely hate to get back into that mess. Do Acrobat and Distiller play nicely
when these products are in the sand box?
cud
Hi All...
Is anybody using any of these capabilities? I just set up my WAMP to support
DAV, and it seems interesting -- I wonder if anybody is making meaningful use
out of this?
Cheerscud
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But I don't understand how a db and FM interact. Is it
possible to
import a figure by reference into a FrameMaker
file from a database?
Can you point to a db directory the
way you would to a regular Windows
Explorer directory?
Unless I missed it, the answers I saw to this question don't seem
I'd like to address the red herring (lurking if not actually swimming in this
topic) about whether the file format is native XML. Because that point is
immaterial... No matter what format you use for storage, the stored file has
to be converted to some binary representation that your
Hmmm... It seems you're right, and so this would be a limitation, if not a
bug. Here's what I did:
* Create a ref frame named MyPopup, and give it 5 commands.
4 commands display an alert, and one command displays a submenu.
(Note: the chars display correctly in the submenu.)
The submenu
Please correct me if I'm wrong... I've been out of the markup loop for too
long. But...
I remember in the old SGML days it was explained to me that SGML is a grammar,
and not a language. The same would hold true for XML. Each DTD or Schema makes
a language -- a specific implementation of
I agree with Michael on this... You can't use the FrameMaker conditional text
feature with other editors because, well, you can't. So the Maker PIs make no
sense and are correctly ignored by those editors. OTOH, nothing prevented you
from using special show/hide attributes in Maker. As I
If you can't afford a script, or while you're waiting for one (assuming the
marker has to be on the body page), you could always try to work up some form
of find/replace where you copy the marker and replace by paste. But a plugin
or script should be very simple to produce for this. I could
Is it true that nDesign supports VB scripting? Is the handling of a document
model any better than that for Word? What I mean is, in Maker you can us the
API to get all the text items in a paragraph, and that breaks the pgf into all
the char format changes, all the table anchors, aframe
I think you could also issue the Revert To Saved F_Code. I don't have the
F_Codes in front of me so I can't verify it exactly, but there should be one
for every menu command, at least. So there should be one for Revert to Saved.
This is a way for the API to execute commands that don't have a
I don't know how FrameScript handles this per se, but it must be similar to the
FDK. You need to use the Maker document model, which includes the Maker table
model. (For information, you can look at the FDK documentation -- the
programmer's guide. You should have that, even if you're using
RE the good ole days when men were men and software was innovative.
What we're witnessing is a natural part of any innovative curve. Back when
FrameMaker first made waves, you could subscribe to three different magazines
that printed monthly articles about new and interesting software.
Yet again.
I know this has been discussed, but I can't seem to find it in my searches.
I have FrameMaker 8 and Acrobat 9 Pro. I'm trying to move over to a Windows 7
machine. I have replicated my original setup that worked on my XP machine.
But now when I try to save a book as PDF, I get an
Hi Dov... Thanks for answering.
I was able to generate PDF with the same combination of Maker 8 and Acrobat 9
for the same files on my XP machine. That's what led me to think about Win 7.
I also never had any PDF generation problems with earlier versions of Acrobat,
but with Acrobat 9 I've
Ha! I knew it couldn't be that FrameMaker 8 was unable to create PDF with
Acrobat 9. I turns out I need to patch. Until I get the patches, the
workaround is to turn on tagging in the PDF settings.
Now, I can't seem to find the patches anywhere. They aren't obvious on the
Adobe site. But
Hi all, and thanks for the help so far...
Yes, I found that it's the need of a patch that has caused my Acrobat problems.
Yes, I was completely blind, and failed to see the link to the patches... If
it was a snake it would have bit me -- I can never find the mustard in the
refrigerator,
So my question would be, what do you want the listing to display? Filename and
page number of the XREF? Other?
cud
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I agree... There's no reason for this to me a maintenance issue. I would
implement a solution that flushes all the auto-generated xrefs, and
re-establishes them each time I invoke the task. By keeping it clean, there's
no issue... That's the standard approach to this type of thing. It
My fundamental problem is that the new windowing model isn't properly exposed
in
the API. Also, it has some problems. Open a book, then open all files in
book. Especially if it has many files, you get funny results -- the document
windows nest within each other. I've raised this issue a
I just watched this video -- thanks for the reference. I'll say a couple of
things:
1) I like some of the new features, especially the Insets browser. This is
good
stuff.
2) It's also good that some of the previously modal dialogs are modeless.
3) I still maintain that the notion of working
Bill says:
If you get creative with your authoring approach you can
handle most anything, and for everything else there's the API and
wonderful tools like FrameScript and IXGen.
If you have found a way to control pods and windows via the FDK, please let me
know! I'm desperate!
cud
I don't have Maker 7.0, but I do have Maker 7.2. Also, I can't be sure,
because
it was a LONG time ago, but... Isn't the Maker 7.2 help system just an online
version of the 7.2 User's Guide? So if you have that help system, then you
should be OK. Further, if you don't have it but know
A few points...
I have a freeware tool called HuntOverrides that gives you a list of pgfs with
overrides. It generates a hypertext list of pgfs that have overrides. You can
navigate to them and fix them. Find it at cudspan.net...
It occurred to me to make a tool that wipes out overrides,
Do you have a good Java runtime installed? I'm guessing Maker needs Java to
run
Xerces (funny, I always assumed they used the C++ version). Somehow it can't
find a runtime. So you need to verify that you can run other Java programs on
your system. (Just grasping at straws here, but that's
Hi all... I have been out of the mainstream for quite a while -- apologies for
any inconvenience. A quick answer is, I compiled, *briefly* tested, and posted
some freeware plugins for Maker 9 on my site. (http://cudspan.net/plugins/)
Try them out, but please understand that I haven't been
This is so wierd, because this JUST happened to me last night. Indeed, it's a
Word document opened in Maker. For my situation, it happened to the PGF that
follows a text inset... once in a table cell, so it was the last pgf in the
flow, and another time in the middle of the document.
I
Interesting... Rick had an answer to the clicking the button a million times
issue. I frequently save Maker as HTML, and use it for a help system. I don't
use structured Maker, so I don't get this problem with the missing element --
but it DOES create the unwanted links at the bottom of the
You may need more RAM. But I will say that my experience with tables shows
there's a threshold across which tables get *very* sluggish. I've created
plugins that use tables to manage some data. If the data set got too big, the
tables became unworkable. I'd bet 400 pages of tables will do
What I understand that you want to do is similar to this (I'm only describing
two documents for this example):
Merge doc A and doc B such that the common text between then will be
unconditional, and the specialized text will be conditional.
For two documents you can do this with the Doc Compare
Hi All...
Not necessarily FrameMaker, but obliquely related...
I just posted a little Java app that helps create alias files and redirect
files when making a merged CHM RoboHelp project. If you have tried doing this,
then you know what I mean. It's got a GUI, and it creates the content
Cool article, Max! Love that SunView screenshot... I remember that Reversi
game fondly.
cud
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Maker 8 introduced UNICODE, didn't it? Anyway, I found that it was squirly
with text lines in graphics. Try to always use text frames instead. I think
this even bit me after fully updating.
HTH cud
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I agree with Richard Combs... You should create your special char tag to
account for the effect you get by applying two more general char tags. But I'd
go a step further. Don't name it Italic_Bold, or anything like that. In fact,
you should never name your char tags (or any other tags) by
The best way to set up table column widths (and consequently table widths)
would be via the read/write rules. That's my opinion, anyway. You should look
into using that approach. You don't need to modify the source code, and so you
don't need to talk to the programmer. I guess that is
To look at it as though it's something you intend to do...
The first question is, what DTD are they using? Is it a standard (DocBook, for
example), or is it a DTD they created themselves? Related to that question...
Do they need the full DTD to express the structure in your document, or can
The post was:
A local company listed this as one of the responsibilities in a job ad for a
technical writer:
coach engineers to improve their writing skills
It makes me laugh and cringe in equal measures.
My reply is:
How often do you complain that engineers don't like to give you the
I created a dll plugin in Maker 7 that does this. I could pretty easily build
a Maker 9 version of it, anyway. I doubt it would be incompatible with Maker
anything-later. All Ido is look at markers in the TOC and use that to build up
smaller files.
I assume a few things:
* You have a book
Rather than deal with all this, I made a tool called TocBreaker. You go into
your generated file (TOC or Index), and put in hard line breaks and page breaks
where you want them in the file, and then save that info to the Reference
page. Then, the next time you generate, you call the feature
And to add onto this, you could convert the generated list into a 1-column
table, then sort it.
On 2012-05-15 16:29, Robert Lauriston wrote:
Is there a utility that will check a FrameMaker book and report
duplicate heading names?
You could use Special List Of Paragraphs (Alphabetical) for
Oops. I can write, but I can't read!
From: Combs, Richard richard.co...@polycom.com
To: Chris Despopoulos despopoulos_chr...@yahoo.com;
framers@lists.frameusers.com framers@lists.frameusers.com
Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2012 1:43 PM
Subject: RE: utility
I can't say anything about the crash. But I can say that the inconsistencies
when saving as HTML may have to do with your book-wide HTML setup. The first
document in the book should have two sets of HTML setup flows, one for the
document and one for the book. Look at your ref pages in that
Good work, John...
From: John Sgammato jsgamm...@imprivata.com
To: Chris Despopoulos despopoulos_chr...@yahoo.com;
framers@lists.frameusers.com framers@lists.frameusers.com
Sent: Tuesday, June 5, 2012 3:12 PM
Subject: RE: FM10 crashes saving book as HTML
Slightly off topic, but I made a product that manages variables on the web.
You have a PHP web app running on your web server, and then Maker interfaces
with it directly. The variable definitions are extracted out of the document
as a text file and posted onto the web site. Then you can
I thought the idea was to format via the EDD, only. Users should never just
apply pgf formatting, because it will get lost (as you describe). Structure
demands template dictatorship on steroids... Or rather, it imposes it. To add
new pgf formats, and to set up users to apply them, you would
Jang, I think we're in agreement. I wasn't suggesting format rules over
formats stored in catalogs. I was only saying that the formatting *triggers*
have to be stored in the EDD. Maybe I didn't make the point clearly, but that
was what I meant to say. I personally prefer to use formats
Rebecca asks:
Hi guys
If you're planning to roundtrip through XML, with different authors
using different XML editors, you'd need to have all the formatting in
the EDD, right?
Or am I on completely the wrong track in my ignorance?
Thanks
Rebecca
I have a plugin that automatically saves a copy of each document as MIF...
This is a super-backup and you can then open the MIF in any version of Maker.
I just keep it running all the time. Saves are a bit slower, but I sleep
better at night. If I get any interest, I'll put it on my site as
On 22Sep2012, at 2:17 PM, Chris Despopoulos wrote:
I have a plugin that automatically saves a copy of each document as MIF...
This is a super-backup and you can then open the MIF in any version of Maker.
I just keep it running all the time. Saves are a bit
It's starting to get weird, how often this subject keeps coming up.
First, Maker 10 MIF should not have any problem opening up in Maker 8. So
there's no obvious need to actually produce Maker 8 MIF. (Unless your work
flow demands that the MIF actually be version 8.)
Second, I have a
JOHN SAYS:
We
are going to move to knowledgebase-centered doc support for our
products. An attempt at a MindTouch transition met with frustration and
failure. SalesForce looks no more promising.
Does anyone have experience with authoring in FM and publishing to a good
knowledgebase?
If I do
Well, I guess TemplateMapper would do what you want... But that may be
overkill...
cud
From: Gillian Flato gillian.fl...@nexenta.com
To: Chris Despopoulos despopoulos_chr...@yahoo.com;
framers@lists.frameusers.com framers@lists.frameusers.com
Sent: Thursday
What MIF wash actually does is simply ignore any garbage in the file. MIF is
pretty much a text representation of the binary format. But MIF interpretation
is loose, so if there's any garbage in there, saving as MIF *might* write the
garbage out, but it will certainly not read it. In this
FrameMaker 11 has reached a level to convince me to use it... Since the switch
to the new GUI, I had stuck steadfastly to Maker 8, but Maker 11 includes new
structure/XML support that is quite worthwhile, and the GUI seems to have
improved. It's enough to convince me to go with 11, and
There's every reason to have this capability... Create a bullet list and then
sort it... Add new entries and sort it again. The work flow would be, select
a range of pgfs, and execute teh sort. Many times I have had to convert to
table, sort, then un-table the table. Even if it doesn't
No clue based on numbers, but check for font problems...
What are you printing to? PS, PDF, Other??? I crashed on PDF generation
because I had an old Courier font. I forget exactly what the problem is (I'm
dumb about fonts), but it had to do with that. I pulled out all use of that
font,
Go here, and look for TreePrint:
http://www.cudspan.net/plugins/
It's free. It gives you a CudSpan Doc Tools menu. Select the root of the tree
you want to expand or contract, and choose the command.
The only funky command in this is collapsing all attributes in a tree. For
some reason, you
Where did the Publish option go? Yesterday I published my ditamap to a single
Maker document. Today the menu option is greyed out. What could have
happened?
I'm trying my best to get Maker into a DITA work flow, but it sure aint easy.
Documentation would certainly help, but it's pretty
Hi Dave...
I haven't followed this thread closely, but I have to say that is VERY unusual
that there would be a problem with Maker faithfully reading the read/write
rules file. If that's what's happening, then there must be an error in your
installation and/or setup of the configuration
A reference to an old TV commercial for powdered cleanser. You shake out white
powder and it turns blue when it gets wet. Conclusion? This is the cleanser
you should buy!
I implemented conrefs in my DITA, and FrameMaker imports them wonderfully.
Except they TURN BLUE! This makes about as
You are the bomb, and I am forever in your debt. All this, and no dead
unicorns!
Thanks...
From: Writer generic...@yahoo.ca
To: Chris Despopoulos despopoulos_chr...@yahoo.com;
framers@lists.frameusers.com framers@lists.frameusers.com
Sent: Wednesday, July
I think I recall copy and paste from Word doing that. If you reformat
then the tag will no longer exist in the catalog.
Actually, copy/paste from Word can cause even more mischief. I never paste
directly from Word into Maker -- I always paste into a text editor to clean the
stuff out, and then
I think the first step is to determine the value proposition of the product.
Then determine how much of that value must come from the engineers, and how
much your group can provide. From there the responsibilities should shake out
on their own. This may be a negotiation, but I think it's the
This could be utter baloney, but it might work... Just change the declarations
to XML declarations and try opening the files. If you don't need to round-trip
back to the SGML that might just do it for you... Sloppy and funky, but what
the hey?
cud
Becky Says:
I
have recently started working with a team of people new to Frame, but
who have programming experience. We are trying to automate working with
xml files that use a home-grown schema. We have files set up for
successful opening and formatting in Frame 11.0.2.384 on Windows 7. We
I'm very grateful to have this documentation!
I really wish Adobe would put this information into the Object Model Viewer --
Either that or give me the source files and I'll do it! The OMV uses XML for
its data. Eating the FrameMaker dog food, there's no reason you can't EASILY
convert this
Rick says
[Snip!]
I wasn't aware of the Socket
object, but I just tried your script and it works great! This opens up
possibilities for some interesting applications.
[Snip!]
Indeed, this can get real interesting. I while ago I developed a web app to
manage variable definitions, and a GUI
Save the chapter as HTML, copy it, then use Smart Paste to paste it into a DITA
topic. Every P should translate into the correct DITA paragraph element (also
a p)
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I'd say what you're doing wrongly is saving as XML first. Save your
unstructured doc as HTML, then copy/smart-paste into the body tag of a new DITA
topic. This is just a quick way to get lots of structure for free. If you're
talking about a novel, you should really have nothing but p tags
it for everything, including databases and cleaning your
closet. :)
cud
From: Theresa de Valence t...@bstw.com
To: Chris Despopoulos despopoulos_chr...@yahoo.com;
framers@lists.frameusers.com framers@lists.frameusers.com
Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2014 1:52 PM
Subject
Word = HTML = Structured
Maker. I think there's more promise in that use case.
From: Rick Quatro r...@rickquatro.com
To: 'Chris Despopoulos' despopoulos_chr...@yahoo.com; 'Theresa de Valence'
t...@bstw.com; framers@lists.frameusers.com
Sent: Friday, May 23
I'm sorry, but at a certain level this question is either too general (would
require a collection of books to answer) or nonsensical (no context to base the
comparison on).
I think the first question should be, what are you trying to achieve? If all
you want is an in-house process for a
Using Maker eliminates FO. Instead, you set up a Maker template, and work in
near WYSIWYG. If you will use Maker, definitely, use structured Maker. You
could use a simplified structure -- not necessarily DITA. For example, why not
use XHTML? Then you can make your PDF look like whatever
An odd problem... I have a DITA publication, and I save as a Composite
Document. All is fine, except I have some hypertext links implemented as
markers on codeph text. (That translates to text with a specific text format,
ao it shold work like any hypertext marker.) When I look at them in
Did that, got the T-shirt. No joy. Also, the destination is external...
They're all links to external URLs. This option just adds data to the
potential destinations within the given PDF file.
From: Rick Quatro r...@rickquatro.com
To: 'Chris Despopoulos' despopoulos_chr...@yahoo.com
Coming in late, but I want to chime in on MIF. As I recall, MIF also includes
object IDs, and they get generated every time you open a file. Note that each
object in your document has two IDs... The ObjectID, which is what you usually
use to access the object in a script or the FDK, and the
I'm glad (in an ironic sense) to see that I'm not the only person who is asking
for the API to expose the GUI elements. In a more literal sense, I'm sorry to
see it. Please, please, please... Expose the new GUI to the API so we can
make plug-ins that interact reasonably with the user's
I know you can automatically assign master pages to specific elements. So if
you have a backmatter element, then you can assign the backmatter master page
to that element. I forget whether that auto-master page feature is sensitive
enough to respond to attributes. (I don't have Maker running
I have the same problem, only with Acrobat. So far I've just been using
everything but Acrobat, and not generating PDFs. Thank goodness for Reader and
older versions of Maker. I haven't had the courage to try un-installing all
the products and installing again. Somehow I doubt I'll ever
version of the list.
I'll give it a try...
cud
From: Art Campbell <art.campb...@gmail.com>
To: Chris Despopoulos
Cc: framers at lists.frameusers.com
Sent: Thu, December 17, 2009 8:12:59 AM
Subject: Re: TCS2 Distiller license problem
First, the license u
as the cost to purchase it?
Sigh... I have to start actually gaining a living with my time now...
cud
From: Art Campbell <art.campb...@gmail.com>
To: Chris Despopoulos
Cc: framers at lists.frameusers.com
Sent: Thu, December 17, 2009 8:12:59 AM
Subject: Re
licensing is as squirrely as a Chuck
Jones cartoon.
cud
From: Mike Wickham <i...@mikewickham.com>
To: Chris Despopoulos ; Frame Users
Sent: Thu, December 17, 2009 10:49:59 AM
Subject: Re: TCS2 Distiller license problem
> I don't have any Acrobat
You give me too much credit. As a closet anarchist, licensing is something I
have never been able to understand. Also, I don't think this is a FrameMaker
issue. I don't think enough people have tried to pirate Maker to warrant the
expense of super-clever licensing schemes. Unfortunately
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