FrameMaker Import Wizard - only p tags displayed

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ann650
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FrameMaker Import Wizard - only p tags displayed

Post by ann650 »

I am using a Flare demo. When I get to the mapping window, only the p. styles are displayed. There are no li tags listed so I cannot map to lists. If I map a FrameMaker bullet style to p.bullet, it converts to paragraph format. If I skip the mapping, the bullets show up in the conversion, but the side bar still indicates a paragraph with a "p."
pathowe
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Re: FrameMaker Import Wizard - only p tags displayed

Post by pathowe »

I was also confused regarding the conversion of bulleted and numbered lists from FrameMaker to Flare. I just assumed that they were going to be converted as HTML ordered and unordered lists using <ol> <ul> and <li>.

Flare 3 does not use the standard HTML method. Flare converts bulleted lists to 2-column tables, with the bullet in the first column and the text in the second column.

I kept trying and trying to figure out how to convert lists to HTML lists, but I was unsuccessful. So, submitted an Issue to Flare Technical Support. I received the following response indicating that they made a conscious decision to convert lists to tables rather than HTML lists:

"For autonumbering in Flare, to ensure that the numbers line up properly in an XHTML environment, our developers have decided that it's best to have a table lining up the numbers/bullets. Below is an email that I typed up to a customer a few days ago explaining the reason why Flare's not using <li> for FrameMaker lists:

In FrameMaker, when you apply bulleted or numbered lists, it actually uses Autonumbering to make the "bullets" and "numbers". For example, if you want a bullet and a smily face in front of every bulleted list item, you will be able to do that in FrameMaker. So in another words, FrameMaker's way of making lists is far more powerful than the way that Web Documents handle lists. Web documents use <ol>, <ul>, and <li> to handle lists.

When Flare imports in a FrameMaker document, it will convert all the "paragraph styles" from the fm files into paragraph styles in Flare's stylesheet. Since FrameMaker handles lists using paragraph styles, Flare will import them in as <p> styles also. FrameMaker uses Autonumbering to create list items; that is why when Flare imports the frame files in, the FrameMaker lists become autonumbering paragraphs in Flare also.

Since paragraph styles are a lot powerful than list styles, you can't really map list styles to paragraph styles during the import. I suggest you not to convert the p.bullets to li because of all the additional problems you might run into during the conversion.

So, to answer you question, right now it's not possible in Flare to convert FrameMaker lists into <li>'s. My suggestion for you is, you should continue to use the <p> classes that Flare makes to create lists. If you want to create brand new lists, you may be able to use the <ul> and <li>'s, but for your existing lists from FrameMaker, I suggest you use the imported paragraph styles just so that the new lists stay consistent with the FrameMaker imported lists...:


I hope that this answer from Tech Support helps. I have been using this method to convert FrameMaker lists, and I am not having any trouble. After you get the .CSS set up properly, you can pretty much control what it looks like.
gkidder
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Re: FrameMaker Import Wizard - only p tags displayed

Post by gkidder »

I'm struggling with the same problem. So ok, Madcap prefers to use <p> in a table with autonumbering. But I don't see any numbers or bullets at all. How am I supposed to map the bullet and list styles to get the numbers and bullets?
Also, I copied the styles.css sheet from the Flare Help, but I don't see all the styles that are in the .css file listed for mapping. Where are the styles coming from that are available to map to?
Nick A
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Re: FrameMaker Import Wizard - only p tags displayed

Post by Nick A »

Having used Flare for a few months, I need to import some old FrameMaker documents. It seems like a very poor decision (or feeble excuse) by Madcap to completely ignore the proper importing/mapping of bullets and numbered lists. It will take ages for users to manually apply their Flare CSS <ul> or <ol> styles to every imported <p> that was supposed to be a bullet or numbered item. The quickest solution I could find was to:

1) Map my incoming FrameMaker Bullet1 or Numbered1 style to my Flare CSS p.Indent1 style, Bullet2 or Numbered2 to p.Indent2, etc. to make it easier to see the paragraphs that are supposed to be bullets or numbered lists.
2) Record a Flare macro that applies a default <ul> list style to a selected set of paragraphs.
3) Assign the macro to a shortcut. Alt+L seemed logical to me. This macro/shortcut is also useful when writing new bulleted/numbered lists.

Once that is done, converting sets of imported <p> tags to bullets is as easy as selecting the set of <p> tags and pressing Alt+L. If they were supposed to be a numbered list, not bullets, you can now just select the bullet group's <ul> tag and click your preferred <ol> style in the Styles window.
NorthEast
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Re: FrameMaker Import Wizard - only p tags displayed

Post by NorthEast »

Nick A wrote:Having used Flare for a few months, I need to import some old FrameMaker documents. It seems like a very poor decision (or feeble excuse) by Madcap to completely ignore the proper importing/mapping of bullets and numbered lists. It will take ages for users to manually apply their Flare CSS <ul> or <ol> styles to every imported <p> that was supposed to be a bullet or numbered item.
I agree, and understand your problem. When I imported our FrameMaker projects, I spent 2-3 full days just reformatting the paragraph styles into lists!
That was 12 years ago, so I doubt that this will ever be improved.
ChoccieMuffin
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Re: FrameMaker Import Wizard - only p tags displayed

Post by ChoccieMuffin »

Sadly, I don't think you're going to find an easy solution to importing from Frame to Flare's regular lists, as the <ul> or <ol> way of doing lists isn't the same as Frame, in which you use formatted paragraphs. As an alternative, could you consider dealing with your lists in Flare in a similar way to Frame? I don't do it that way but I know many people DO have p.ListNumber, p.ListBullet kind of things - perhaps someone who does can explain how it's done in Flare?
Started as a newbie with Flare 6.1, now using Flare 2023.
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