Have you successfully created a PDF using the Frame target?

pdenchfield · Post by **pdenchfield** » Thu Apr 26, 2007 11:49 am

Have you successfully created a PDF document with the Frame target? If so, I would really love to hear from you!

I'm dealing with several issues that seem to be limited to the FrameMaker target, many of which are Flare bugs. But I know I can't be alone in my desire to create PDFs with the following -

quotation marks in cross-references (confirmed Flare bug),
chapter numbers in cross-references (these are left out for .chm also),
repeated table column headings and \"continued\" indicators (Flare does repeat the table title, so it seems the logic is there),
td p selector not \"taking\" - necessitating application of td classes for every table cell (takes in .chm),
index page use of all footer classes in master page (only uses odd/first right now??),
strange formatting of indented items within declared lists (looks great in .chm output),
PDF bookmarks (no way to edit in Flare!),
headings with heading-level 0 disappear from output (Tech Support/Dev looking at mc-heading-level 0 - possible bug),
variables not taking on formatting (okay in .chm),
disappearing borders under headings (okay in .chm),
probably other issues I'm not thinking of right now.

These issues take on additional urgency when sending source files out for localization. I will be sending out source files for Japanese localization soon. How will I be able to ensure that the disappearing quotes appear in Japanese, for instance?

There must be others on this forum who have successfully created PDFs taking into account at least some of the above factors I find in my legacy printed docs! Please, show yourself! ;-)

pdenchfield · Post by **pdenchfield** » Thu Apr 26, 2007 1:23 pm

Whoever voted Yes on the poll, could you please reply to the issues I detailed?

THANK YOU!

gwadmin · Post by **gwadmin** » Thu Apr 26, 2007 6:46 pm

(1 of 2) just fried the board; need to split this up

pdenchfield wrote:Have you successfully created a PDF document with the Frame target? If so, I would really love to hear from you! I'm dealing with several issues that seem to be limited to the FrameMaker target, many of which are Flare bugs. But I know I can't be alone in my desire to create PDFs with the following -

I'll give it a shot; most of them I handle via a Frame template that I import into the book that Flare produces. You mention .chm files in a few places, so if that's your 'original' source format I'm not sure if all will apply. Another subtle thing I may be missing -- I generate my pdf from Frame, not from Flare; not sure if that's an issue or not -- I've been working on Frame output since v2.0 so I haven't played with whatever PDF/Frame tweaking may have been added in v2.5.

quotation marks in cross-references (confirmed Flare bug),
chapter numbers in cross-references (these are left out for .chm also),

Actually, I don't tend to use either type, so I can't speak to a solution. In my case I'm writing for web-based apps where the online help is the primary deliverable, and I've identified the print/pdf as a "nice to have" that comes along relatively easily. Hyperlinks/xrefs webhelp work as links in a pdf, so that's fine; I do use a print-only conditional to create a "(see page x)" type of cross-reference in key spots where a page number would be handy in case someone actually prints it out.

(I don't believe that "single-sourcing" is possible, per se; rather, books are linear and online is nonlinear -- so you need to pick the primary medium (online/print) and the other is secondary. essentially, webhelp > pdf is putting help topics in a book, and Frame > webhelp via webworks is splitting a book up into a bunch of chunks) <cease>editorial rambling...</cease>

I opt for Frame over Word because...of many reasons, of course, but primarily because templates in Frame actually work and I can adjust the paragraph/character style tweaking more easily and then just import those styles into the Frame book that Flare generates (essentially, I rough out the styles for print medium in Flare, and fine-tune it in Frame where I can see the results immediately without having to regenerate the book each time.

repeated table column headings and "continued" indicators (Flare does repeat the table title, so it seems the logic is there),

The issue is that, when Flare tables come into Frame, the first "heading"-formatted row is just a regular 'body' row in Frame; I wrote a framescript that adds a heading row to each table, copies the contents of the first (Flare's heading row) into the new (real) heading row, and then deletes Flare's heading row. (and inserts the table continuation variable in the title)

gwadmin · Post by **gwadmin** » Thu Apr 26, 2007 6:47 pm

(2 of 2)

td p selector not \"taking\" - necessitating application of td classes for every table cell (takes in .chm),

I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but I think I know what you're talking about...if you're using table stylesheets in Flare, playing with the <td> tag doesn't really work because Flare creates styles for each table element, e.g., \"myTableStyle_xx_xx_RowSep_ColEnd\" or something like that. I just created a corresponding paragraph style in Frame for each of those (essentially giving them all the same definition) so that all gets fixed automatically when I import my Frame template.

index page use of all footer classes in master page (only uses odd/first right now??),

my Frame template has master pages for each (left/right/first) page type (I'm blanking right now; not sure if that answers the question)

strange formatting of indented items within declared lists (looks great in .chm output),

Are you using <li> tags for your numbered lists? I created p.numberedFirst and p.numberedNext styles in Flare to implement autonumbering -- doing that essentially mimics the way that Frame does numbered lists.

PDF bookmarks (no way to edit in Flare!),

generating pdf from Frame lets distiller automatically pull the bookmarks (is this what you're asking?)

headings with heading-level 0 disappear from output (Tech Support/Dev looking at mc-heading-level 0 - possible bug),

Guess I haven't come across that, so not exactly sure what you mean. Using a Frame template may be a possibility?

variables not taking on formatting (okay in .chm),
disappearing borders under headings (okay in .chm),
probably other issues I'm not thinking of right now.

#1 & #2, Frame template. #3, probably Frame template

These issues take on additional urgency when sending source files out for localization. I will be sending out source files for Japanese localization soon. How will I be able to ensure that the disappearing quotes appear in Japanese, for instance?

I don't use quotes in my xrefs so I can't help you there; though I am dealing with Japanese localization right now. The best strategy I've come up with so far is to have the vendor edit/replace the text in the Flare source files with whatever text editor they're using so there's no need for them to have Flare expertise. In a few months we'll see if that royally blows up on me or not.

Hope that helps!!

pdenchfield · Post by **pdenchfield** » Fri Apr 27, 2007 7:13 am

Hi gwadmin,

Thank you for the thoughtful replies.

I see a need to clarify some of my questions.

But first, thanks for sharing your thoughts on the inherent fallacy of single-sourcing - you give me food for thought as I continue to venture optimistically (perhaps Pollyanna-like?) into the Flare content world.

pdenchfield · Post by **pdenchfield** » Fri Apr 27, 2007 7:23 am

gwadmin wrote:(2 of 2)

td p selector not "taking" - necessitating application of td classes for every table cell (takes in .chm),
I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but I think I know what you're talking about...if you're using table stylesheets in Flare, playing with the <td> tag doesn't really work because Flare creates styles for each table element, e.g., "myTableStyle_xx_xx_RowSep_ColEnd" or something like that. I just created a corresponding paragraph style in Frame for each of those (essentially giving them all the same definition) so that all gets fixed automatically when I import my Frame template.

To clarify, yes, my Frame-imported content included the ...xx_xx_RowSep_ColEnd... styles for every table cell (as a td class), which I removed. I then opened the stylesheet in the internal text editor and added 8pt and other font information intended for all table cells in the form of a "td p" descendant selector. The tables in Flare looked as expected. At one point, the Frame output looked as expected, too. Maybe it was my determination to rid the stylesheet of all extraneous styles that stopped this selector from working...I don't know. Now the text in my table cells is 10pt, like pretty much all the rest of the text - but only in Frame output. (Actually, I haven't tested in all possible outputs, just the .chm output - the table text there was 8pt as expected.) I'm scratching my head trying to understand why the selector works in .chm but not FM.

pdenchfield · Post by **pdenchfield** » Fri Apr 27, 2007 7:32 am

strange formatting of indented items within declared lists (looks great in .chm output),
Are you using <li> tags for your numbered lists? I created p.numberedFirst and p.numberedNext styles in Flare to implement autonumbering -- doing that essentially mimics the way that Frame does numbered lists.

Yes, I'm using <li> tags for my numbered lists. I am still dreaming the single-source dream. Because of my (as yet) incurable optimism, I am determined to keep formatting tied to the function of the text rather than its place within the linear/book paradigm. So for unnumbered items in numbered lists, such as NOTE paragraphs, I want to always call them a note (<p class=\"note\">) rather than creating a new class based on the <li> tag that names it a note-in-a-list (<li class=\"note\">, which would be necessarily redundant of the p class).

My p (no class) paras work fine in numbered lists. I use the no-class p for system responses to user actions in procedures, for example. I would like to use the note class for ALL notes, regardless of note location (avoid --> \"oh, this is a note in a procedure, so I have to apply the li.note class\").

This approach works great in .chm output. Why not Frame outputs, too?

pdenchfield · Post by **pdenchfield** » Fri Apr 27, 2007 7:37 am

gwadmin wrote:
PDF bookmarks (no way to edit in Flare!),
generating pdf from Frame lets distiller automatically pull the bookmarks (is this what you're asking?)

Flare includes an option to automatically generate a PDF. However, the bookmarks in said PDF vary widely from build to build. Sometimes a PDF includes bookmarks for every procedural step! I see no way to edit the bookmarks from the Flare program before the PDF is generated. Because of this (and some other issues as you mention), the automatic PDF generation is not useful to me. I must instead generate a Frame book and then play around with settings from there. It's maddening that I can't simply save the bookmark settings somewhere, either in Frame or Flare (yes, I can in Frame but it doesn't apply to a regenerated Frame book from Flare). I submitted a bug report on the absence of bookmark settings in Flare on April 12th but haven't heard back yet.

pdenchfield · Post by **pdenchfield** » Fri Apr 27, 2007 7:50 am

gwadmin wrote:
headings with heading-level 0 disappear from output (Tech Support/Dev looking at mc-heading-level 0 - possible bug),
Guess I haven't come across that, so not exactly sure what you mean. Using a Frame template may be a possibility?

The book paradigm demands that we include files in output but exclude them from the TOC page of the output. For example, my installation guide includes front matter (such as document conventions) that appear in the book before the TOC page and that I want to exclude from the TOC. Flare's approach: Have us writers apply a unique heading style (such as my class h1.noTOC) that has an mc-heading-level setting of "0". To see this setting, select any of the heading styles, such as h1, select Assorted Relevant Properties under Show, and then expand PrintSupport. "mc-heading-level" is the first setting. You'll find that h1 is level 1, h2 is level 2, and so on. For Frame outputs, the TOC page differs from the Flare "MasterTOC" used to determine which topics go into the output. The Frame output TOC page includes every heading that uses a level of 1 and up (I haven't tested the upper limits but know it goes to level 6). So we have to apply a level of 0 to headings we don't want to appear in the TOC page.

The result? Any heading in my files that has a level of 0 disappears from the Frame output, resulting in pages merging together. The headings are not in the output FrameMaker files.

My workaround so far - which I would like to avoid as the files are going out for localization and I want to change the tags just once (hopefully Flare will fix this issue soon?) - is to apply a p class that emulates my heading style, being sure to set the page-break-before property.

Anyone else dealing with this disappearing-headings issue?

pdenchfield · Post by **pdenchfield** » Fri Apr 27, 2007 8:26 am

gwadmin wrote:
variables not taking on formatting (okay in .chm),
disappearing borders under headings (okay in .chm),
probably other issues I'm not thinking of right now.
#1 & #2, Frame template. #3, probably Frame template :)

I can see how the Frame template would take care of disappearing borders under headings, but can you tell me how to take care of the lack of formatting for variables? For example, the variable "XYZ" in the phrase "See the XYZ Installation Guide" does not take on the BookTitle span tag even though it's applied in Flare. The rest of the book title "Installation Guide" does take on the BookTitle span tag. How can I resolve this issue?

pdenchfield · Post by **pdenchfield** » Fri Apr 27, 2007 8:38 am

gwadmin wrote:
index page use of all footer classes in master page (only uses odd/first right now??),
my Frame template has master pages for each (left/right/first) page type (I'm blanking right now; not sure if that answers the question)

The FrameMaker index file output from Flare only has the right and first master pages attached. I can manually copy one of the pages, name it left- (not left, which is reserved), and edit to match the intended left master page (page number on left, doc title on right)...then go into Format> Page Layout> Master Page Usage to apply the left to all even pages. That's my workaround.

Hopefully Madcap Software will fix this issue so I don't have to manually tinker with the FrameMaker file every time.

pdenchfield · Post by **pdenchfield** » Fri Apr 27, 2007 8:57 am

gwadmin wrote:
repeated table column headings and "continued" indicators (Flare does repeat the table title, so it seems the logic is there),
The issue is that, when Flare tables come into Frame, the first "heading"-formatted row is just a regular 'body' row in Frame; I wrote a framescript that adds a heading row to each table, copies the contents of the first (Flare's heading row) into the new (real) heading row, and then deletes Flare's heading row. (and inserts the table continuation variable in the title)

Can you send me the framescript? I've yet to use one, let alone write one...your solution sounds doable, and your analysis gives me much-valued insight. I didn't realize that the tables went to Frame without official heading rows. Thanks.

pdenchfield · Post by **pdenchfield** » Fri Apr 27, 2007 9:00 am

gwadmin wrote:
These issues take on additional urgency when sending source files out for localization. I will be sending out source files for Japanese localization soon. How will I be able to ensure that the disappearing quotes appear in Japanese, for instance?
I don't use quotes in my xrefs so I can't help you there; though I am dealing with Japanese localization right now. The best strategy I've come up with so far is to have the vendor edit/replace the text in the Flare source files with whatever text editor they're using so there's no need for them to have Flare expertise. In a few months we'll see if that royally blows up on me or not.

Please keep me posted on your Flare/localization experience.

Thanks, gwadmin! This is my last reply to your messages above. I look forward to your answers and musings whenever you can get to it.

pdenchfield · Post by **pdenchfield** » Tue May 01, 2007 8:26 am

Where are you, those who have created PDFs that met expectations? I see we have two now in the poll....

Were you able to go straight to PDF (avoiding doing fixes in the output FrameMaker files first)? Do you have nifty FrameScripts to do your work for you, maybe from the command line? What about localization teams - how do you ensure that links and such work in Japanese, Spanish, or other languages, and that the content is identical?

Tell us your tricks! You have an eager and awaiting audience!

pdenchfield · Post by **pdenchfield** » Thu May 24, 2007 12:53 pm

Update on status, latest understanding, and workarounds for the issues I listed in my 4/26 posting:

* quotation marks in cross-references (confirmed Flare bug)

STATUS: Unresolved. Bug confirmed by MadCap Technical Support.

IMPROVED UNDERSTANDING: This problem occurs only when I use a modified xref style. For some reason, the default xref style keeps the quotation marks in FrameMaker output while modified styles do not.

WORKAROUND: Import cross-reference styles into the FrameMaker output and manually go through each and every cross-reference to apply the correct style. (Flare outputs xref styles as \"xref#\" where \"#\" increments by the file sequence within the book and other unknown factors [resulting in one or more unique styles per file], so simply importing the formats does not solve the problem.) This issue is hands-down the most time-consuming and possibly problematic for translation.

* chapter numbers in cross-references (these are left out for .chm also)

STATUS: Fixed.

IMPROVED UNDERSTANDING: Cross-reference and paragraph formats imported from FrameMaker need analysis - I had a \"C:\" numbering scheme in mine. Once I replaced it using the logic suggested by MadCap Technical Support, the chapter numbers showed up as expected.

WORKAROUND: Revise applicable formats after import from FrameMaker.

* repeated table column headings and \"continued\" indicators (Flare does repeat the table title, so it seems the logic is there)

STATUS: Unresolved. Bug confirmed by MadCap Technical Support.

IMPROVED UNDERSTANDING: Flare imports FrameMaker tables without the \"continued\" indicators (FrameMaker system variable titled \"Table Continuation\"). Flare outputs tables to FrameMaker as a series of body rows...any heading rows are converted to body rows before output.

WORKAROUND: For every table in the FrameMaker output, recreate the table (cannot \"add a heading row\" in FrameMaker), copy/paste content from old table, reinsert the system variable in the new table title, and delete the old table.

* td p selector not \"taking\" - necessitating application of td classes for every table cell (takes in .chm)

STATUS: Unresolved.

IMPROVED UNDERSTANDING: None. Tried various tricks with regular and table stylesheet links...no success yet.

WORKAROUND: Manually apply a \"p\" tag to every table cell in the Flare project and then apply the appropriate class (\"thead\" or \"tbody\").

* index page use of all footer classes in master page (only uses odd/first right now??)

STATUS: Unresolved.

IMPROVED UNDERSTANDING: Speculation that the index file's position as the first file in Flare's master TOC that uses a different master page (only in FrameMaker - not in Flare!) may cause it to omit the left page...?

WORKAROUND: Import left master page into the FrameMaker output for the index file.

* strange formatting of indented items within declared lists (looks great in .chm output)

STATUS: Unresolved.

IMPROVED UNDERSTANDING: Speculation that the disconnect lies in the different paradigms for handling lists. While Flare nests lists, thereby allowing me to \"get away with\" using the same paragraph format tag (\"Note\") regardless of the paragraph's relation or non-relation to a list, FrameMaker necessitates explicitly relating the tag to the list (\"Note-for-list\").

WORKAROUND: In Flare, applied special tags to unnumbered, unbulleted items in lists.

* PDF bookmarks (no way to edit in Flare!)

STATUS: Unresolved.

IMPROVED UNDERSTANDING: None.

WORKAROUND: Set the bookmarks in FrameMaker. My print specifications necessitate several \"tweaks\" in FrameMaker anyway, so a Flare-generated PDF is not an option until the tweaks become no longer necessary.

* headings with heading-level 0 disappear from output (Tech Support/Dev looking at mc-heading-level 0 - possible bug)

STATUS: Unresolved. Bug confirmed by MadCap Technical Support.

IMPROVED UNDERSTANDING: None.

WORKAROUND: Apply a paragraph class designed to look like the proper heading level. Make sure the paragraph class has all the necessary heading attributes such as page-break-before enabled.

* variables not taking on formatting (okay in .chm)

STATUS: Unresolved.

IMPROVED UNDERSTANDING: None.

WORKAROUND: Convert variables to plain text.

* disappearing borders under headings (okay in .chm)

STATUS: Unresolved. Bug confirmed by MadCap Technical Support.

IMPROVED UNDERSTANDING: May be an XML issue...?

WORKAROUND: Import heading styles into FrameMaker output to ensure that desired heading levels have borders underneath them.

* probably other issues I'm not thinking of right now

I'd be happy to forward more details to anyone interested.

If you have more information on any of these issues, please let me know!

gwadmin · Post by **gwadmin** » Thu May 24, 2007 1:17 pm

pdenchfield wrote:Update on status, latest understanding, and workarounds for the issues I listed in my 4/26 posting:

* repeated table column headings and "continued" indicators (Flare does repeat the table title, so it seems the logic is there)

STATUS: Unresolved. Bug confirmed by MadCap Technical Support.

IMPROVED UNDERSTANDING: Flare imports FrameMaker tables without the "continued" indicators (FrameMaker system variable titled "Table Continuation"). Flare outputs tables to FrameMaker as a series of body rows...any heading rows are converted to body rows before output.

WORKAROUND: For every table in the FrameMaker output, recreate the table (cannot "add a heading row" in FrameMaker), copy/paste content from old table, reinsert the system variable in the new table title, and delete the old table.

You can add heading row to a table in Frame -- the Table > Add Rows or Columns dialog defaults to 'Above Selection' for rows, but one of the available options is 'To Heading'

pdenchfield · Post by **pdenchfield** » Thu May 24, 2007 1:21 pm

Thanks, gwadmin! I did not realize that I could add a heading row.

By the way, I'd appreciate a copy of your FrameScript for automatically adding heading rows, if you don't mind.

rekiwi · Post by **rekiwi** » Thu May 24, 2007 10:37 pm

I managed to produce Frame/PDF output that met expectations only after a lot of tweaking.

The killer for me has been xrefs. I've never got them working right. Xrefs from one chapter file to another work, but xrefs with a target in the same chapter file don't work. I did a lot of twiddling and troubleshooting, including some analysis of the MIF here: http://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewtopic.php?t=2608

Another annoyance is Flare prepending the CSS tag selector to the Frame tag name (\"li.Bullet\" becomes \"li_Bullet\", \"p.Body\" becomes \"p_Body\"). Frame doesn't distinguish between lists and body text. I wish Flare did the same with its Frame output. I named the styles in the CSS to match the names in my Frame template. It's a bummer to have those best-laid schemes foiled. I could rename the tags in my template, maintain a separate template for import, or use a host of scripts and tools to rename/reapply tags, but I'd rather not.

I'm looking forward to Frame output with more polish.

gwadmin · Post by **gwadmin** » Fri May 25, 2007 6:32 am

rekiwi wrote:I named the styles in the CSS to match the names in my Frame template.

I did the reverse -- I added all of the Flare-named styles to my Frame template, so my template just updates the styles that Flare spits out.

gwadmin · Post by **gwadmin** » Fri May 25, 2007 6:41 am

Here's my basic table script -- changes the first row to a proper heading row, adds the TableContinued variable, and sets the title style to TableTitle.

Code: Select all

//run through each table in the current document
Set vDoc = ActiveDoc;
Loop ForEach(Tbl) In(vDoc) LoopVar(vTbl) //   
  Run ConvertFirstRowToHead //myTable(vTbl); 
  Run InsertTableContinued //myTable(vTbl);
  Run SetTableTitle //myTable(vTbl);
EndLoop
  
//--------------------------
// convert the first row of the table to a header row
Sub ConvertFirstRowToHead
  If vTbl.FirstRowInTbl.RowType = RowBody; // if the first row is a body row then convert it
    Select TableCells TableObject(vTbl) TopRow(0) RightCol(vTbl.TblNumCols - 1); //select top (body) row
    Cut Text CutTblCells; //cut top row to clipboard
    New TableRows TableObject(vTbl) HeaderRows(1); //add new header row
    Select TableCells TableObject(vTbl) TopRow(0) RightCol(vTbl.TblNumCols - 1); //select header row
    Paste Text ReplaceCells; // paste cells into header row (replacing cells)
  EndIf
EndSub

//----------------------------------
// insert a continuation variable at the end of the title paragraph
Sub InsertTableContinued
    Set vTbl.TblTitlePosition = TblTitleAbove; //enable the caption above the table
  Set vTitlePara = vTbl.FirstPgf; //first paragraph (table title, in this case)
  //Set vTitleText = vTbl.FirstPgf.Text; //text of first paragraph 
  New TextLoc NewVar(vTextLoc) Object(vTitlePara) Offset(ObjEndOffset - 1);
  New Variable Format('Table Continuation')
  TextLoc(vTextLoc)NewVar(vVar);
EndSub
  
//----------------------------
// set the table title paragraph format to TableTitle
Sub SetTableTitle
  Set vTbl.FirstPgf.Name = 'TableTitle';
EndSub

pdenchfield · Post by **pdenchfield** » Fri May 25, 2007 8:24 am

Thanks, rekiwi, I had not seen the posting you mentioned on same-chapter xrefs. I posted a reply here: http://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewto ... 8143#18143

Thanks, gwadmin, for the script! Now I need to figure out how to use it....

I heard that Flare v3 might use Blaze in place of Frame...?

Post by **LTinker68** » Fri May 25, 2007 10:26 am

pdenchfield wrote:I heard that Flare v3 might use Blaze in place of Frame...?

Flare and Blaze will be two separate products but they'll be able to share content or else you import from Blaze into Flare. Not sure how it'll work yet. But hopefully Blaze will have built-in PDF generation and the workflow should be a lot smoother.

gwadmin · Post by **gwadmin** » Fri May 25, 2007 11:06 am

pdenchfield wrote:Thanks, gwadmin, for the script! Now I need to figure out how to use it....

http://www.framescript.com

pdenchfield · Post by **pdenchfield** » Fri May 25, 2007 11:17 am

Thank you, gwadmin...I didn't realize I needed to buy a copy of FrameScript to use the script. Oh well. Maybe we can get buy without this additional expenditure...here's to a much-improved PDF workflow in the upcoming Flare release!

gwadmin · Post by **gwadmin** » Fri May 25, 2007 11:36 am

Sorry about that; I thought I had mentioned FrameScript earlier on. Whether it's worth it depends upon your workflow and how much you do with Frame (vs. Flare) -- I do some basic print formatting in Flare, but once exported to Frame I use Frame templates/scripts to fix tables, graphics, etc. which ends up being a tremendous time savings (and I'm freer to do builds as necessary since most of the cleanup is automated).

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