I'm new to Structured Framemaker and XML, though I've used Unstructured Framemaker for several years. My company has asked me to look into options for converting our many publications to e-book format, but I'm a bit overwhelmed and unsure where to begin. Can anyone offer a basic outline for what to focus on, in what order, and good resources for learning? I learn best by example, and links are welcome.
Thank you.
Hi guys,
is there any way to quickly validate a DITA specialization against standard DITA resulting in a list of what had been specialized?
I'm necromancing a long dead legacy document here, that had been written in some DITA specialization.
Problem is, nobody remembers about there wheres' and whats' of the document (my boss even barely remembered that there had been "something").
For now I managed to save it as XML, but the error logs went crazy while doing so
The only person who might have had an idea about the case left the company years ago, too.
The issue at hand is, that the document needs to be imported into some CMS with DITA import filters - and I need to know at least where problems may occur.
As I have literally no time and budget for this, I need some quick and dirty solution
Maybe you guys have some bright idea.
-Alex
Hi,
I'm very new to DITA, I understand XML but am looking to create more documents using it and DITA/Framemaker seems the way to go.
Is it possible to create a document that looks through all of the topics in a folder then creates a new topic from those (essentially a summary), pulling out certain elements?
I'm looking at a timesaving mechanism, so that I can have lots of folders with subjects in each (ie - several topics) then be able to quickly create either summary sheets or note sheets from that content
Many thanks
John.
Hi,
Would appreciate some help on this one, as I can't seem to figure it out.
How do you create a frame or box to surround an element, for example when using Hazardstatements.
The only way I can think of is to use tables, but is there any other way?
Example:
| Danger | |
|---|---|
| Some warning text Some warning text |
Thanks
Best regards
Ronny
I have been trying to create some Boolean expressions to filter conditional text, with mixed results. The Boolean expression is three conditions separated by ORs followed by four conditions preceded by AND NOTs. When I apply the expression, FrameMaker exhibits and error and has to quit. The numbers in the error message are:
9004, 4908044, 6134440, 5459515
The hidden log file appears to be nothing more than a stack dump.
Do the numbers listed above indicate anything?
Are there any known limitations on how long a Boolean expression can or should be? One expression with one fewer OR worked.
Does there need to be a space between an AND and a NOT? The builder does add one, so I assume it is not necessary.
Does anyone have some general rules of thumb when working with Boolean expressions for conditional text?
Thanks,
Van
Hello,
we are working with structured FM 8 and do translate in pretty much all languages except for Arabic. So far, there were no complaints for the Asian languages. But now, we receive the feedback that the characters for Thai (Arial Unicode) are correct but that there are spaces between some characters making it difficult to read the text. We have done various tests and recognized that all True-Type fonts are causing these problems. Now, I installed an OTF-Font for Thai and the problems stay the same. Therefor, my question if the Thai font is upported at all?
Thank you very much in advance,
Sandra Ullrich
I'm opening up a thread so any Structured-related or DITA FM issues with latest 9.0.3 patch can be discussed in one place.
If there are general items, please use the thread in the General FM Discussion Forum - http://forums.adobe.com/thread/493911
This patch should update your version to FM9.0p250.
I have just begun using structured FrameMaker after working in unstructured FM for years. Even after reading the help, I'm having a hard time understanding some concepts.
All we want to do is open a ditamap in FrameMaker, save as a book, add a TOC and index, and then save as PDF.
You can save a ditamap as one of the following book files:
Book w/FM components - saves each XML file as an FM document.
Book - maintains the XML file formats.
If all we're doing is adding a TOC, Index, and then saving as PDF, which format do we need?
Another question - After I save a ditamap as a book, open all files in the book, and then try to update the files, FrameMaker says the XML application for one file cannot be found. When I opened this particular file before updating the book, I chose the structured application and saved the file. After receiving the error, I went to set the structured application, and it was already set. What gives?
Could this be any more difficult? That's a rhetorical question . I'm very frustrated.
I appreciate your help.
Hello,
I am having an issue with the ChangeBar property in my FM file.
I use the following:
prop = F_ApiGetTextPropVal(docId, &eventP->txtloc, FP_ChangeBar);
retInt = prop.propVal.u.ival;
This works good for normal text in FM. However, if there is change in text that comes from one of the FM variables - it doesn't seem to work.
Any suggestions on how to track the changebar for text being taken from the FM Variables?
Thanks.
hi everyone,
thanks for all your help to answering my question first.
and attached is my 1st edd file,please help me to check it.
2nd, whak kind text editor soft you use to check your XML file? I tried to open the XML file based on my edd file in Epic editor and the graphic was missing. please give me some advise.thanks.
thanks very muck for all of your patience.
When saving a structured document to XML, the Table Continuation variable is translated to an entity named "fm.tcont".
Strangely, the content of the entity is a control character (0x11). The file is saved as XML, but the parser returns an error,
Error at file d:\test\100219\doc_test.xml.1F0, line 31, char 22, Message: Invalid character (Unicode: 0x11)
Error at line 31, char 24, Message: Expected a literal entity value or PUBLIC/SYSTEM identifier
Parse error at line 31, char 20: Not well-formed (invalid token)
Parsing aborted.
The content of the variable is nothing suspicious, just " (continued)", where the first character is a normal space.
Did anyone encounter the same problem and knows how to fix it?
This is on FM8.0p277 on Windows XP.
Thanks a lot in advance,
Johannes
Hi everyone...I am fairly new to structured framemaker and spent the last week reading every piece of information I could on the subject.
I've been given the task here at work of taking some unstructured framemaker documents and structure them using MIL-STD 40051C as a guide.
If someone could please give me some help on this....I don't even know where to begin. Information overload. I have a DTD provided to me, as well as a folder containing XSL stylesheets for what seems like nearly every tag and a boilerplate folder.
Some of the links for my source material can be found here:
https://pubsweb.redstone.army.mil/DTD-FOSI/40051C-AMCOM.html
http://www.asrl.com/tmconstr.htm
So far I have imported the DTD to framemaker and saved as an EDD. Everything seems to be fine there. As far as the next step, I really have no idea.
I presume that if I wanted to build, lets say, a cover page...I would refer to the standard and build a page using the tags described.
I have given this a try and all I get is a tree structure with no formatting. How am I supposed to link to a stylesheet in Framemaker? What's more...there are about 50 styles in the folder I was provided so how do I know which one I am supposed to refer to?
Basically this is a huge scope of an effort that I am just getting my feet wet in, so if someone who is familiar can PLEASE give me some initial guidance it would be sincerely appreciated. I can't even find any documentation for this stuff on the web so this is my only hope.
Thanks very much
- Doug
How do we import a pdf file with all its pages in a FrameMaker file ?
I found that we can import only one sheet of the pdf in a FrameMaker file.
Hi,
FM10 not patched, WinXP SP3
I've bumped into a very serious problem that I am able to replicate, but not solve. When I import (custom) XML, any whitespace following <xref> elements is deleted. I don't know if it exclusive to crossreference elements or any no-content elements... but for sure it is happening with xrefs.
Here is a zip with sample files with which I am able to replicate this. The XML file has two <xref>s separated by "and". When you import the XML (using the DTD, rules, and template provided), the whitespace before the "and" is deleted.
http://www.weststreetconsulting.com/downloads/test.zip
I disabled all my personal plugins and all DITA plugins that I could find, same thing.
I don't know if anyone has the time to look at this, but I'd be very appreciative if anyone could confirm the problem. This has caused a real mess in my source files that I can go fix using non-breaking spaces, but this is really a pain and very much suboptimal.
Thanks,
Russ
I'm running FrameMaker 11 on Windows 7. I just changed the settings from unstructured to structured Frame and restarted my computer. Now FrameMaker comes up for a few seconds and goes away. Is there something I can do to get FrameMaker to launch?
Guys, I guess I'm kinda stupid or blind or both, but I got this trivial issue:
I try to roundtrip graphics from a simple EDD to XML and back.
So I got this pretty simple rules in EDD, DTD and RWR:
EDD:
element (graphic): image
attribute list
1. Name: href String Optional
Initial graphic element format
1. In all contexts
Insert anchored frame
DTD:
<!ELEMENT image EMPTY>
<!ATTLIST image href CDATA #IMPLIED>
RWR:
element "image"
{
is fm graphic element;
attribute "href" is fm property file;
}
I got a basic element as top level element defined to get the image placed...
So, what bothers me is, how the hell do I get the damn href attribute told, where the image reference is? The XML output places the image element without problems - but the ref is missing.
Pulling my hairs out on this one...
Cheers Alex
Is it possible to change the default setting in the FrameMaker 11 PDF Set UP window to RGB. The current default setting is CMYK.
I have not been able to find a way to do this.
Thank-you for your assistance.
Brenda
Hi...
I think I know the answer to this, but is it possible to control table row or cell properties (like shading, padding, borders, etc) through context rules in an EDD? I'm not aware of any way to do this, but thought I'd toss it out there to be sure.
Would love to hear that I'm wrong.
Cheers,
...scott
Using Framemaker 12.0.1.331 all publish operations crash if the document contains a UserString of 1 or more characters in a table element. We use UserStrings in this way to hold metadata about tables such as database keys and effective dates.
The Mif looks like this: [We would normally have an xml fragment here but this is enough to produce a crash]
<Tbl
<TblID 10>
<UserString `A'>
<TblTag `Format A'>
<TblFormat
Incidently a zero length UserString doesn't result in a crash.
Looks like a bug to me.
regards,
Colin
Hi,
FM12.0.0.329, Win7
This question has been asked in various permutations with little successs, but let me try again. I need to find a way to disable the Console panel, which pops up every time I open an XML document with a message similar to the following:
XML Read Report Log
Source Document: C:\documentation_test\common\modules\test_ipeth_ping.xml
XSLT Processor Messages
Transformation Successful.
Everything worked fine but I still get this message with every document. Can I make it stop? If anyone from Adobe is reading, I want to say with some emphasis that this situation makes FM12 unworkable for me. I can't justify migration from FM11 if there is no way to stop this intrusion.
Thanks,
Russ