Any way of keeping book structure on import?

[ksoltys]

I have several FrameMaker books that I want to import into Flare. The size varies, but they average around 100 topics each.

From what I have seen in my testing so far, I have to manually re-create the structure of the book after I import the topics. This is painful.

Is there any way of automatically creating an outline that matches the existing structure of the document being imported? (This is exactly what WebWorks ePublisher does). I want each Heading 1 to have its Heading 2 level topics nested under it, and those have their Heading 3 level topics under the Heading 2 topics.

I also have a lot of Word documents that I want to convert to WebHelp. More than likely, I would have one big project for these, with each document in its own subtopic. Having to manually recreate the outiine structure will significantly add to the time it takes to do the conversion.

[GregStenhouse]

I don't understand what you mean by outline, do you mean the structure of imported files in the Content explorer, or the TOC, or long topics with nested headings inside?

If the content explorer: As you've probably noticed, Flare will store everything in one folder (the book name) in the Content Explorer. Topics are named according to truncated-heading text. From memory, that is very different to WebWorks, which displays HTML files and images under the Frame file name, and names files according to that filename+1, 2 etc. I any case, how things are in the content explorer does not impact on your final build. Any structure you create there is to make your job as an author easier to manage topics/conditions etc.

If you mean the TOC: if your Frame book has a TOC, then that will be converted into a Flare TOC (also known as a print outline TOC) that respects the heading structure and levels. Make sure you add just the FrameMaker book to the import, not the individual frame files.

If you mean a big topic with headings nested inside, then in the Flare import file, you can specifiy "New Topic Styles". Reduce that down to just Heading 1 if you want long topics with sub headings.

[ksoltys]

Ah, enlightenment dawns.

When I was testing importing out I was working with individual chapter files to save time. There were no TOCs, so Flare didn't build a TOC from the Frame TOC.

I just did a test import with a Frame book and a Word file that had an embedded TOC and Flare built a TOC for me as I would expect.

Thanks,
Keith