Losing paragraphs next to images in Frame import

[Beryl]

Frame vetran, Flare n00b.

I am importing a set of documents that have been created and maintained in Frame/WebWorks for many years. Much of the import task seems to be regularizing the style conventions in the Frame files and re-importing. However, I am stumped by a problem of paragraphs just not making it through the import procedure.

Frame source:
I have many Frame chapters that start with a H1 heading. Below the H1 heading is a run-into-paragraph frame containing a toolbar icon graphic. To the right of that frame is a paragraph containing short description of the icon.

Next paragraph contains an anchored frame containing a screen capture (the results of clicking the icon), followed by a short paragraph describing the screen.

Flare result:
At best I am losing the text surrounding (or surrounded by) the image frames. At worst, I am losing the images and the text.

Any clues as to what I am missing in preparing my Frame files?

FrameImage.gif

FlareImage.gif

[GregStenhouse]

I've imported a lot of FrameMaker files into Flare (various version) over the years, and can honestly say I've never encountered missing text on the scale you are talking about. That looks like about 5 paragraphs MIA.

Some things to clarify or try:
1) Make sure your paras in Frame are free from any paragraph and character overrides.
2) Make sure they are mapped correctly in Flare (i.e. they are to a normal body or p.body tag and not hidden text).
3) Are there any conditions (e.g. print or comment) at play?
4) Does the text appear at all in the Flare internal preview, or the final output?
5) To isolate the fault, have you tried deleting the image and reimporting? Maybe the image is failing on the import (does Distiller appear and then hang during the import?) and taking some text with it for some reason.
6) Are there any other errors occurring in the import dialog?
7) What versions of FrameMaker, Distiller and Flare are you working with?

Finally you may need to dig about in the Flare source (select a topic and send to>internal text editor) to see if there is anything odd under the hood, or in FrameMaker it is sometimes handy to look at a mif file in a text editor to compare known bad text with known good text.

Like I mentioned though this one seems particularly strange, it may be worth sending your project to Madcap support to get them to take a look.

Cheers
Greg

[Beryl]

Thanks for the sanity check. I created a ticket this morning.

[GregStenhouse]

Probably a good idea Let us know what the result is!

[Beryl]

And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, the solution!

This behavior is a known problem that is fixed in a service release due at the end of May, 2010. The support team has sent me a patch, which I have installed, and which patch fixes the problem.

Overall satisfaction: 9.8.