Numbers and bullet styles not showing on FM import

[gkidder]

Please can somebody tell me how to get numbered and bulleted lists to show up when importing from FrameMaker 8?

In the style conversion editor, none of the styles available show numbers or bullets, despite being named obvious things like p.BULLETS and p.NUMBERS. I thought maybe this was just a preview display problem. But when I import the files, I don't get any numbers or bullets either.

I've tried every possible variation in the Import > Stylesheets and Paragraph Styles tabs and nothing seems to work. I tried attaching a stylesheet with li tags and they don't even show up in the Paragraph Styles. No matter what stylesheet I attach, I get the same set of Flare styles to map to.

[gkidder]

Well, ok, since a lot of people have looked at this post but no one's responding, I'll talk to myself and see if that helps someone else. What I've discovered is that a lot of stylesheet properties I need are not offered in the import file, when you map styles or set up Framemaker conversion styles. After import, you have to edit the stylesheet created to add things like autonumber styles, block styles, etc. I've got my list numbers now, using the mc-auto-number-format.
Where on earth is the documentation for this? And why is the text-align property not offered in the import style properties?
And a note of caution: After you edit your stylesheet, be sure to copy it and save it under a different name, or it's liable to be overwritten when you reimport. My advice: Save it under a different name, then link the stylesheet in the import file.

[sharon burton]

Actually, there are a bunch of ways to work this, most of them before you import. I strongly suggest you go to my blog and download the Moving from Frame to Blaze Best Practices. Even tho it's geared to Blaze, much of it applies to Flare as well. madcapsoftware.wordpress.com

Specifically, http://madcapsoftware.wordpress.com/200 ... s-updated/

Try that and see if it helps.

[forfear]

gkidder
welcome to the forums

[kelly1210]

I'm now working out the process of importing FM files to Flare and I, too, can't find a way to convert FM bullet and list styles to the Flare CSS styles I created to handle them. (Background: I have a very clean, successful CSS that I've been using in Flare projects that were created from converted RH projects and now want to use it with converted Frame projects.)

I've read the latest and greatest "Best Practices" document from Sharon and only find reference to numbers and lists at the end of the document that mentions how to create them as if I were just adding them to a topic for the first time. I realize this is a living document, and converting lists may not have been addressed quite yet. But, can I take from this 1) that there is no DIRECT way of converting them and 2) once the Frame file is converted to a Flare topic, that I have to go back and manually fix each set of bullets and lists by removing the default formatting and reapplying the correct styles to them? Can someone verify?

I realize that Frame is not using the same underlying programming as Flare/Blaze and that HTML/XML numbering differs greatly from how it works in our "legacy" tools, so that may be something that just can't be done - or not without lots of new programming. However, I'm concerned because we have LOTS of Frame docs to convert that are filled with lists (bulleted and numbered).

Thanks!

[sharon burton]

Try importing one file. Then make the changes to the css you need to get the bullets you want - personally, I don't like the preformatted numbers and bullets available on the tool bar, so i want to specify my numbers and bullets. When you get it all looking like you want, you can use that css as the template to use for all future imports.

is it elegant? No. Does it work? Yes. Should we be doing a better job mapping and creating the numbers and bullets? Yes. I'll see what I can do to push for it to work differently.

But this will work and you only have to do the css definition 1 time. Thank god.

I'm on vacation until Tuesday. It's my birthday Monday and I'm going to Tulsa in a few hours to hold grand children. Have a great weekend!

[kelly1210]

Thank you, Sharon, for your quick reply. I'll experiment with your suggestion. Never fear! We still love you and MadCap. Have a wonderful trip and birthday. --Kelly

[forfear]

have a great birthday sharon!

[JBMinn]

Is all this still the case with Flare v5 in October 2009? There isn't a way to import my lists and bullets in the Frame document into Flare?

[GregStenhouse]

Flare has always supported mc-auto-numbers for imported bullets/numbers from FrameMaker. For more info, search on mc-auto-number in the help or on these forums. What Flare hasn't supported, and I think this inludes v5, is the ability to create proper HTML lists (i.e. <UL> and <OL> with <LI> items) from FrameMaker styles. Mostly that doesn't really matter, although if you are exporting to word from Flare you'll find Word numbers/bullets are not used, which is a pain.

Cheers
Greg

[mattbnh]

Generally Greg is right, but where it matters is that Flare autonumbers do not format lists with decimal aligned numbers.

(Not that I can figure out anyway - I wish I was wrong but I can't find a way - if I am wrong I would be glad of administered correction and admonition.)

This means that paragraph styles in Framemaker that have decimal-aligned autonumbering, and Flare LI styles as well, which have decimal-aligned autonumbering by default, cannot be duplicated by Flare p autonumbering, and thus every numbered list imported from Flare needs to be re-tagged as LI by hand if you want the lists lined up right. Over a large document, this is a lot of work.

Of course, you could stop all numbered lists at 9. Maybe this is a sneaky best practices limitation.

It also means that if you re-tag and try to round-trip back to Frame, things are not the same.
If Flare were Star Trek, Kirk's left hand would be attached to his right arm after going through the transporter.

In addition, when you send a standard LI list from Flare to Framemaker output, the tab stop that defaults to decimal alignment in LI is changed to a Left-aligned Tab stop, causing a need to re-import your formats in Frame, even if you have synchronized your Frame template styles with your Flare CSS.

In a way it is a workflow knock for comparison purposes with Frame->RH so-called single-sourcing. I have to post-process lists to get decimal alignment in Flare generated PDF. The guys in a competing group using Adobe TCS say they do not.

What is needed is a list style mapping section in the Import editor that would let you map a Frame list para style to an LI style in Flare. And an output mapping that would create in Frame the same list that you had in Flare.

[LTinker68]

Generally Greg is right, but where it matters is that Flare autonumbers do not format lists with decimal aligned numbers.

(Not that I can figure out anyway - I wish I was wrong but I can't find a way - if I am wrong I would be glad of administered correction and admonition.)

I've never used FM, so I only caught a bit of what you said. Are you trying to map FM lists that are aligned on the decimal to a class in Flare? The ol tag by default creates numbered lists that are aligned on the decimal, so you should be able to map to the basic <ol> tag. If you're talking about a custom paragraph class with an auto-numbering format, that might be possible. I thought there was an example in the forums of an auto-number format aligning on a decimal, but I might not be remembering that correctly. I can try looking for it tomorrow.

Are you trying to map to the basic HTML list tag (<ol>) or to a custom paragraph tag?

Or are you saying that you're trying to map to the basic HTML list tag but the import options don't support that type of mapping for FM imports?

[NorthEast]

Or are you saying that you're trying to map to the basic HTML list tag but the import options don't support that type of mapping for FM imports?

That's one of the points; you cannot map any lists in FM to HTML lists (ol, ul, li tags), Flare doesn't support that; you can only map FM list styles to paragraph styles.

What is needed is a list style mapping section in the Import editor that would let you map a Frame list para style to an LI style in Flare. And an output mapping that would create in Frame the same list that you had in Flare.

Absolutely, I'd guess it'd probably need a slightly more 'intelligent' way of mapping, as your lists in FM lists can comprise of a number of styles. A basic numbered list will normally need two styles (start numbering, increment number), and you may have lists with multiple levels or indented lines.

[LTinker68]

Or are you saying that you're trying to map to the basic HTML list tag but the import options don't support that type of mapping for FM imports?

That's one of the points; you cannot map any lists in FM to HTML lists (ol, ul, li tags), Flare doesn't support that; you can only map FM list styles to paragraph styles.

Kind of surprising Flare doesn't support that yet. I would have thought when they introduced Blaze that they would have added that type of support.

[mattbnh]

Probably bigger fish in the fry-o-later for improving FM import and PDF targets at the time.
I would expect this to be an enhancement soon, because for customers who want to synchronize FM documents to Flare (which effectively prohibits editing in Flare) this is a problem if not a stumper.

But if you are moving to Flare based single sourcing (ie satisfied with Flare usability and PDF output) this is a one-time blip when you import Frame docs - a one-pass fix and then bye-bye Frame.

[NorthEast]

Probably bigger fish in the fry-o-later for improving FM import and PDF targets at the time.
I would expect this to be an enhancement soon, because for customers who want to synchronize FM documents to Flare (which effectively prohibits editing in Flare) this is a problem if not a stumper.

But if you are moving to Flare based single sourcing (ie satisfied with Flare usability and PDF output) this is a one-time blip when you import Frame docs - a one-pass fix and then bye-bye Frame.

You can map them to autonumbered paragraph styles; but yep, it is an issue if you want to use HTML lists (as we did).

[bugatha1]

I'm just investigating moving to Madcap Flare, but have lots of Frame files to import and this bullet/numbering issue sounds pretty problematic. Have there been any recent improvements in this area?

[kirinawust]

(...) What is needed is a list style mapping section in the Import editor that would let you map a Frame list para style to an LI style in Flare. (...).

We just started using Flare - with a huge Word legacy. The problem seems to be the same in 2014. How can you match Word formats using bulleted lists or numbered lists bulleted with corresponding, HTML-correct list styles?
So far, I have succeeded only in getting <ul>... </ul> around each paragraph instead of around the complete list, and missing the <li> </li> tags.

Any hint on best practices would be welcome.

Ciao,
Irina