Have you successfully created a PDF using the Frame target?

This forum is for all Flare issues related to PDF, eBook, Microsoft Word, Adobe FrameMaker, XPS, and XHTML book targets.

Have you successfully created a PDF using the Frame target?

No, I gave up
4
20%
Yes, I created a deliverable that met expectations
7
35%
I'm trying...no success yet
7
35%
Other
2
10%
 
Total votes: 20

pdenchfield
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thanks, gwadmin

Post by pdenchfield »

Yes, you did mention FrameScript earlier. Today I learned what FrameScript is.

I would like the next Flare release to remove my need for FrameScript as I only use FrameMaker to produce (print-quality) PDFs. MadCap's best interest is served by facilitating the PDF generation workflow for us all.
alex
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Joined: Fri Aug 25, 2006 11:22 am

Re: Have you successfully created a PDF using the Frame target?

Post by alex »

Thank you for the thorough documentation of your issues, findings, and solutions!

Speaking of table problems -

We have a table that spans multiple pages in the Frame output. The top table row border does not print on pages 2, 3, etc.

Is this something we can tweak in Flare or can we fix it only in the Frame output? We haven't tried yet to set up anything in Flare to indicate the table is continued on the following page - would that make a difference?

Thanks,
alex
pdenchfield
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Re: Have you successfully created a PDF using the Frame target?

Post by pdenchfield »

Hi Alex,

Flare 3.1 does not output Frame tables with heading rows. As far as I can tell, you have to fix it in the Frame output. There's nothing you can do in Flare before outputting to Frame.

Looking forward to seeing Flare 4 - my wish is that it removes this issue (or that the new Frame-less, Word-less PDF workflow produces the quality of output needed).

Hope this helps!
andyr
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Re: Have you successfully created a PDF using the Frame target?

Post by andyr »

Hi there, an interesting conversation here.

I thought it might be worth throwing in my two peneth worth.

In terms of the general possibility of single-source I think the points raised here are key. We have a focus on on-line help and then pull topics out to create printed training material. By ensuring th online help also has a flow and logic that can be read from start to finish (arranging it into logical chapters etc) we have found we can cater for most printed output.

In terms of technology we have also found that by using some tech that transforms out XHTML topics into XML-FO (a print language similar to HTML) we can have exact and complete control over our printed output. A tool called XSLFormatter then converts the XML-FO to PDF.

We produce PDFs that include the following features (usually the reserve of high cost approaches):

* Front Matter
o Graphical Front and Back page
o Table of Contents for the book
* Separate Chapters
o Mini Table of Contents for each Chapter
o Chapter name in the header
o Clickable links from Table of Contents to relevant section
o Marginalia (notes, references, notifiers)
* Full Bookmark tree.
* Odd/Even Pages
* Odd/Even Headers and Footers
* Indexed (generated from Flare's index system)

There are no intermediate steps in the conversion - it is all automated. The content are selected in and out my adding them to a particular TOC in Flare.

I thought this may both foster further discussion on the topic and provide a possible alternative to the Word/Framemaker dichotomy.

Hope that helps - question/suggestions/criticisms most welcome.
Andy R
danielg
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Re: Have you successfully created a PDF using the Frame target?

Post by danielg »

Yes; please visit http://www.foxracingshox.com/fox_tech_center/index.htm. I don't have time at the moment to address any issues, but in the meanwhile please feel free to download (xrefs will work if you download to local folder and open it from there).

I'm using Flare this way to provide the English owners manual once a year (coming up on the 2009 model year release), and occasional beta draft dev output to partners, for their browsing/printing convenience.

Cheers,

Daniel Green
Technical Communications
Fox Racing Shox - Bicycle Division
130 Hangar Way
Watsonville, CA 95076

http://service.foxracingshox.com
...沒有容易地打破一根三倍繩子。
jbarwick
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Re: Have you successfully created a PDF using the Frame target?

Post by jbarwick »

I found out something yesterday and BOOM I have index header/footer.

Trick?

1) Ensure that index.htm (topic) is in the TOC
2) apply an "index" master page. Same as Previous..here is my TOC entry:

<TocEntry Title="Index" Link="/Content/manual/DocIndex.htm" SectionNumberReset="same" VolumeNumberReset="same" StartSection="true" MasterPage="/Content/manual/Master Pages/Index.flmsp" StartChapter="true" SectionNumber="1" ChapterNumberReset="same" PageNumber="1" PageNumberReset="reset" />

3) ensure that the MASTER page has a FIRST PAGE header/footer. Ensure that the ProxyBody style does not restart page numbering.

You now have headers on index proxy pages.
jbarwick
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Re: Have you successfully created a PDF using the Frame target?

Post by jbarwick »

Bad formatting in <li> tags...

Again, took me forever to fix. However, I created a "print" media and in the print media in the CSS my ul tags look like the following:

Code: Select all

	ul
	{
		list-style-type: square;
		margin: 0in;
		padding-left: 0.25in;
		margin-left: 0.25in;
		list-style-position: outside;
	}

	ul.level2
	{
		list-style-type: circle;
		margin: 0in;
		padding-left: 0.25in;
		margin-left: 0.25in;
		list-style-position: outside;
	}

	ul.level3
	{
		list-style-type: disk;
		margin: 0in;
		padding-left: 0.25in;
		margin-left: 0.25in;
		list-style-position: outside;
	}
This gives me nicely formatted bullets in framemaker.

For ol tags:

Code: Select all

	ol
	{
		margin: 0in;
		padding-left: 0.25in;
		margin-left: 0.25in;
		list-style-position: outside;
	}

	ol.level2
	{
		margin: 0in;
		padding-left: 0.25in;
		margin-left: 0.25in;
		list-style-position: outside;
	}

	ol.level3
	{
		margin: 0in;
		padding-left: 0.25in;
		margin-left: 0.25in;
		list-style-position: outside;
	}
Hope this helps
danielg
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Re: Have you successfully created a PDF using the Frame target?

Post by danielg »

Hi again -

We've release the 2009 English owners manual, a 322 page pdf book outputted from Flare => Frame => .pdf. Go to http://www.foxracingshox.com/fox_tech_center/index.htm to view/download.
It should be said that Flare outputs reasonable Frame source, but considerable massaging in Framemaker is required to get it into a presentable .pdf deliverable. This process is largely "de rigueur" for me; perhaps others might not appreciate that so much. ;-], =dg=
...沒有容易地打破一根三倍繩子。
jbarwick
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Re: Have you successfully created a PDF using the Frame target?

Post by jbarwick »

danielg wrote:Hi again -

[snip] It should be said that Flare outputs reasonable Frame source, but considerable massaging in Framemaker is required to get it into a presentable .pdf deliverable. This process is largely "de rigueur" for me; perhaps others might not appreciate that so much. ;-], =dg=
I, too, am outputing to PDF from FrameMaker. I've read through your PDF and can't tell from any of the formatting what you had to "massage" in order to get it "presentable". Can you exmplain what you had to do?

During my PDF generation from Flare, I don't do any massaging and I can't find anything more complicated in your PDF than what I'm trying to do.

I'm curious because I want to know what to watch out for if I ever need to do something other than what I'm currently doing!

Thanks!
danielg
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Re: Have you successfully created a PDF using the Frame target?

Post by danielg »

Hello, jbarwick.

I'm rarely dropping in these days, so my apologies for the slow turnaround here with my response.
I'm only venturing a guess; perhaps my Frame source fixing might have to do with my level of Frame (6.0). Otherwise, perhaps some of it was due to the legacy of the original HTML source (created in RoboHelp in 2005/6, well before my time here). Regardless, the Frame output produced by Flare 3.1 was a *bloody mess* (broken links, paragraph styles mostly). With all that stuff repaired/updated, I could then generate the TOC in Frame, which translated well enough into a PDF book that's reasonably useful online. the user can also send it to Kinko's to create a coil-bound hard copy.
I hope this clarifies things somewhat; it meant a couple of days of extra work, but it wasn't too onerous. If I hoped to do the same for all the language translations, uh, don't think so. :wink:
Cheers, =dg=
...沒有容易地打破一根三倍繩子。
jbarwick
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Re: Have you successfully created a PDF using the Frame target?

Post by jbarwick »

thanks for the response.

I started with FrameMaker 7 (now on 7.2) and all of our RoboHelp documents were moved to Flare "manually" (cut/paste...style re-apply) with brand new stylesheets.

I have not had any problems and with Flare's topic conditions and master pages TOC's or Indexes. (you can specify the master page in the stylesheet..not only in the TOC) I have been able to mix "printed" material, "online" material, and with a master page for the section, been able to create "front page matter" all using Flare and have had none of the issues that I've read on this forum and have never done any reformatting in FrameMaker.

So, I am still curious. So far (knock on wood) all links, bookmarks, footnotes, and other materials have all worked perfectly. Also, I do use "paragraph" conditionals so that printed materials do not have "dropdown" boxes or other online specific links/styles.

Best of luck!
danielg
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Re: Have you successfully created a PDF using the Frame target?

Post by danielg »

Thanks (although I'd rather believe more in skill & experience than luck :lol:). I failed to mention that the person replaced here at Fox tipped me off about Flare, and all the source here at the time was in RoboHelp 5. So, we started by cleanly importing this source into Flare 2, with no links breakage or any other problems. The Frame-to-PDF project was just an afterthought of mine, as I thought a fully-hyperlinked PDF book might be a valuable deliverable to the market in middle Europe. So, the Frame stuff outputted by Flare (vers 2, 3) had its issues in Framemaker 6.0, but that was fine; I enjoy working with Frame anyway (creating new paragraph and character styles, etc.)
I've since retrofitted our service site (http://service.foxracingshox.com/consumers/index.htm) with a master page, besides the Japanese and simplified Chinese versions of the owners manual; carrying that through to completion with all the other languages might happen, or it might not. :wink:
...沒有容易地打破一根三倍繩子。
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