Mail Merge using Miramo + FrameMaker?

[prem_maker]

How to achieve mail merge using framemaker+miramo personal edition?

From my understanding about miramo.

Miramo is using "push" approach to connect database and generate report from database and generate Frame maker template from report.

Miramo -> query database -> generate report -> generate framemaker template -> and publish it.

Please correct me if my understanding is wrong.

1st question: Has Miramo PE have inbuilt frame maker tool?

2nd question : how to connect database from miramo and generate report and generate framemaker template?

3rd question : If i have Frame maker template with me , how can i publish it online if user click on a link?

where i can find out if i need more practical example about miramo?

waiting for experts update.

[Arnis_Gubins · Accepted solution]

This would be better answered in the Miramo user forums at http://www.miramox.com/forum/index

However for the benefit of others, the general process would be as follows:

1. Using FM, create a template with the formatting, layout and variables that you need, it can include the boiler plate, but doesn't have to. Requires some ananlysis on your part to determine what content you need to include and how it's structured. You only need to do this once.

2. From your database, output the required (sorted?) content with tags (either in Miramo macro convention or XML), e.g. <|Name>John Doe or <Name>John Doe</Name>.

3. Create actions in miramo's mmpp pre-processor to do what's required in FM. For the Name tag in this case, you would probably insert the contents into a variable in your FM boilerplate document. You also need to specify an import for the boilerplate content. The paratags and character tags are defined in your template file from step 1.

4. Use a command file to:

     a) run the mmpp application with your tagged databse output to create a Miramo markup file

     b) run the file that mmpp creates through miramo specifying your template file and the type of output (FM, PDF, etc.) that you need

A clarification, as you seem to have a misconception about how Miramo behaves. Miramo does not connect to the database, rather it accepts as input the output generated by the database reporting mechanisms. If you must have a live link, then use Patternstream or FrameScript.

You can drive the whole process from the database by generating the report and then using system calls to kick off the mmpp and miramo processes to create the desired end products. Alternatively you can create a standard interface using whatever tool your comfortable with to query the database and produce the report, then feed the report contents to the mmpp and miramo apps; or you can do it all manually in multiple steps. It's up to you. Miramo let's you create applications like a mail-merge. It's not a pre-customized specific tool for mail merging right out of the box.

Read the Miramo User's & Reference guides for details on creating the markups and processing the tagged content.

[prem_maker]

Thanks for your valuable answer.

[prem_maker]

Thanks for your valuable answer.

Is there any UNIX version of "MIRAMO Commercial Edition" available?

What are the input formats miramo will support?

What are the output formats miramo will support? e.g. PDF, DOC and HTML?

Can i pass spread sheet as input to Miramo?

Will Miramo support only Frame maker MIF template or can i pass pure XML File as input to Miramo?

Can i use Miramo for report generation? can i use Miramo like IReport if i need it?

    for e.g. Going to display employee details in PDF in tabular format.

         EMPID 1:

              Employee Name: Moorthy

              .......................................

        EMPID 2:

             Employee Name: Nishant

             ......................................

       How to achieve reporting functionality in Miramo?

Will Miramo's java api supports on UNIX ?

[Arnis_Gubins]

The Miramo commerical version is avaialbel for Sun Sparc unix systems.

Miramo can directly parse XML, comma separated, tab separated, fixed width fields as well as miramo macro marked up files, essentially any text format file.

Miramo can output any FrameMaker supported format, PDF, RTF, HTML, XML, FM , MIF, PS. Also, you can add thrid-party tools like Omni Systems mif2go to get various help formats and better quality RTF.

Miramo cannot read binary format spreadsheet values, but it an parse csv.

The "Report" functionality is achieved by exportting an appropriately tagged file from your database query and then running through a Miramo application designed to give you the desired output.

AFAIK, the java api functions are only available in the Windows version.

[prem_maker]

Thanks for your response Arnis. I can writejava code to fetch data from database and create XML file to give it to Miramo.

Could you please clarifiy me what is exactly "Miramo application"?

[Arnis_Gubins]

Hi Moorthy,

What I meant by a Miramo "application" is any coding created using XSLT or mmpp to transform your specific data markups (typically only raw content devoid of any formatting characteristics) to that containing formatting information for Miramo to use to pipe into FrameMaker for publishing. For example, specifying which paratag to use with a certain element, etc.

[prem_maker]

Thanks Arnis.

I want to display conditional paragraph.

for e.g.

fetching productID from database (productid = 10)

if(productID = 10)

  product name is "TV"

else

  product name is "DVD"

how to achieve this using frame maker and miramo?

Could you please guide me?. I am aware of creating conditional tag in frame maker.

how miramo input xml should be? what should i do in frame maker? I need some coding help.

Thanks.