graphics in topics

[Robert Hardy]

We have gone to Flare 11 recently from Word.

We currently have in Word graphics within documents, these graphics occupy the whole page apart from a header, footer and an illustration title between the graphic and footer.

I am trying to re-create this in Flare (primarily for pdf output) so I added a page in the page layout editor for the project with a header, footer, illustration frame (170 mm wide x 190 mm long) and a body frame (170 wide x 30 long) similar to the Word layout.

I added some boilerplate text to the body frame, to change later.

In an empty topic I selected the illustration page and tried to insert a graphic into the illustration frame. All I got was extra blank pages added to the topic with no illustration shown, and the boilerplate text.

Even if I add a graphic directly to the illustration frame in the page layout I only see the text, header and footer when I build the file.

Any ideas? is this the best way to go?

I am looking at adding a table to the blank topic and dropping the graphic into this instead, is this easier?

Any better way?

Bob

[Lydia]

Hi Bob,
any content that you want to add to a topic later goes into a body frame. Any decoration or fixed elements go into decoration/image frames.
Body frames cannot be edited (as in adding text) when working on the page layout. And decoration/image frames cannot be edited when working in the XML editor/ in the topic.
So I wonder, how you managed to get the text in the body frame when working on the page layout
Actually, when you have text and images, you can have one body frame, where you put all later in the topic. And then arrange the text/image elements. You could also have two body frames in the page layout and put the text in one, and the image in the other. To switch from one frame to the other, you have to set the Frame Break to 'always' on the content. Note that if you use two frames, there might be a lot of extra work when you add text and things move a few lines forward and you fixed formatting does not fit anymore.
Hopefully this gives you an idea to move on.
Regards,
Lydia.

[ChoccieMuffin]

Hi Robert
Welcome to the forums, and good luck getting your head round Flare - it can be a bit of a leap when starting with Word. But it CAN be done, I'm proof.

I'm guessing you're working with a Print output, for example a PDF. To help people answer your questions it's worth stating what your output is, as the answers can be different depending whether it's a Help file or printed output. Anyway, I'm assuming your output is for print I suspect your graphic is meant to appear within a topic, as in my little description:

Start of topic
Heading: Setting up XXX. (at the beginning of the topic)
Paragraph text, or lots of paragraphs: "blah blah blah, and here's a graphic to show you about it."
New page: graphic, with a caption below it.
New page: "more blah blah blah."
End of topic

If you're doing this then you don't use a separate page layout for your graphic as your graphic page uses the layout that is needed for the topic. So when you are setting up your page layouts, put a nice big body proxy in the middle, then the body of the topic can contain whatever you want it to (like your text and your graphics and anything else you want to put on it). You can't apply a different page layout in the middle of a single topic. You'll get used to this when you get your head round Flare, but it can be a big thing for a Word user to grasp.

So, for your topic, use your default page layout and start typing. Apply H1 to your heading, or H2, or H3, whatever is appropriate. Type your text, which will be inside a paragraph.
TIP: You can see the structure of your topic using the blocks on the very left of the page. The outside one is html, the next one in is body - this is your body proxy in use - and the next ones in are headings, paragraphs, tables etc. (If you can't see the blocks, look along the bottom of the main window above the tabs saying "XML Editor" and "text editor". In the group of icons at the right-hand end, click the fourth from the right. This shows or hides the blocks on the very left of your working area.)
When you want to add your graphic, have your cursor in an empty paragraph, insert your graphic and then press Enter again. So your graphic is on its own in a paragraph. This means that you can apply a specific class to the paragraph your graphic is sitting in to allow you to specify how the paragraph behaves. Let's call it p.graphic. For example you might want to have the previous paragraph that introduces the graphic to always stay on the same page as the graphic, so you would set the properties of your p.graphic as page-break-before:avoid so that it'll stick with the introductory paragraph, and if you want to always have a caption following the graphic you can specify in p.graphic that the next paragraph you get when you press Enter is p.caption. You'll have to do some of this in your stylesheet, but I don't know how much you already know about stylesheets, so don't worry if I'm not making any sense to you.

I think you might need to have a bit of a play with what I've given you and then ask some more questions, but good luck, and once you've climbed the learning cliff you'll LOVE Flare.


(As a by-the-by, I hope you're not hoping to go backward and forward from Word, it just doesn't work. Going from Word into Flare and then continuing in Flare is ok if a bit painful, and producing Word output from Flare is ok, but you can't start with Word input, play around in Flare, produce Word output, mess about in Word, import it back into Flare again. That's what I mean about going backward and forward.)

[Robert Hardy]

Thanks for the replies!

I have used Flare before BUT it was a loooooooooong time ago (Robohelp then Flare v1)
and lots of bits are better / different now, so trying to remember from those times is sometimes not easy.

I am getting to grips with it and some things are now starting to fall into place (a bit). It's not easy 2 years after retirement and then going back into the fray, but it is DEFINiTELY enjoyable when something turns out well!

It is not always easy I find to sort the good bits of info out there from the dubious bits. I find that I sometimes go down blind alleys and then some small bit of info sets me off on another track and things fall into place.
I find that I am going back and documenting the successful bits so that I and others can refer to what works for us, even going back to these sometimes prompts me to try something different second time round.

As ever the help from Madcap and these forums is among the best I have ever come across!

Ah Well! back to the next bit - trying to get Capture to do what I want it to do. I am looking at this as an alternative to importing illustrations from Inkscape (another superb program!
I like that the Capture output can be used on screen and printed from the same source, this will probably save some time if it works well.

Bob