On Wed, Oct 12, 2005 at 03:19:23PM -0400, G. Roderick Singleton wrote:
> On Tue, 11 Oct 2005 23:49:55 -0400, Jack Carroll wrote:
>
> > I wonder if there's anyone here with FrameMaker experience, who I
> > could go off-list with?
> > I've been doing some moderately complex engineering documentation in
> > FM 3.1, with title blocks done by drawing unanchored frames on the Master
> > Page and putting tables filled with user-defined text variables into them,
> > then drawing the sheet borders directly on the Master Page. There are
> > usually at least two Master Pages in a document, one with a complete title
> > block used on the cover sheet, and a "Right" master page with a minimal
> > title block used on continuation sheets. I can send a few examples, in
> > PDF and editable FM format.
> > Now I need to do the same thing in OOo. G. R. Singleton
> > demonstrated that it's possible to draw a border outside a text column in
> > OOo, but that was right on the body page. The OOo user manual has some
> > hints that a Page Style can do a lot of what a FM Master Page can do, but
> > if it's possible to draw text columns in a Page Style that don't become
> > part of the main flow, and place graphic features in a Page Style that
> > show up on body pages using that style, and then position all that on the
> > page with exact dimensions, I don't see how to go about it. I could use a
> > few hints about where to start and what to read up on.
> >
> >
>
> I will guess you want frames. THese behave on a page the way you describe
> and can be linked.
Frames is one part of it. In FM, you typically have one or two
unanchored, unlinked frames on a Master Page, and then a linked frame for
the main text flow. If you have a header and footer, you build them inside
the unanchored frames. But you can have any number of frames on a master
page, and you can put them anywhere at any rotation angle -- there really is
no such concept as a header or footer built into FM itself; it's just
something you can create on a Master Page. FM comes with some templates
that include frames at the top and bottom of the page.
The other thing I did in the example you saw is draw a rectangle
directly on the Master Page, without putting it in a frame or text column.
That's the document border. One of the important features of FM is that you
can create graphics and locate them at numerically exact positions, by
typing in their height and width dimensions, and offsets from the origin. I
placed frames for the title blocks with their lower left corners at the
exact locations of the border rectangles, and then built the title blocks as
dimensionally exact tables within the frames, so that they were the exact
width of the border rectangle and flush with its lower edge. (One of the
differences with FM is that drawing isn't a separate program; it's a feature
of the main publishing program itself.)
Anyway, I want to do the same thing within an OOo Page Style, so
that I can create drafting page layouts once, then apply them to any of the
body pages that form the main text flow and actually print out. Typically,
I want a "Cover" page format that contains the full title block at the
bottom and has the main text flow flush with the top of the border
rectangle, so that a current-revision table at the beginning is flush with
the top. Then the standard continuation sheet has a minimal title block
flush with the bottom, and a linked text frame spaced away from the top
border and the title block. Finally, the last-page continuation sheet has
its linked text frame aligned flush with the top of the title block, so that
the revision history table can be feathered to align on top of the last-page
title block.
Building the title blocks in the main text flow would have the
disadvantage of letting them get out of sync rather easily. Letting them
show through from a Page Style is a lot easier to maintain.
So, is there any kind of writeup that thoroughly explains how Page
Styles really work, and/or how to draw graphic objects and edit background
text in one?
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