How to save formatted text for reuse?

[Michael314]

Dear forum members,

For years MS Word has had the Autotext feature whereby you can format  text that need to use repeatedly (including headings, lists, and  tables), save the text  in a Word template, and then insert it as needed  from the Autotext menu. They made this harder to do with Word 2007, but  it's still there.

Can you do in Framemaker? I'm stuck on Frame 7.2 at my current job, so I don't know if it is part of later releases. I tried searching the forum but nothing came up.The nearest method I can think of is to save the formatted text as a separate FM file and do File > Import > File and search for the file, but that's kind of clunky.

Yours,

Michael F

[Michael_Müller-Hillebrand]

Michael,

It would have been the first hit of a Google search with the terms autotext and framemaker:

http://www.siliconprairiesoftware.com/Products.html

The Auto-Text plug-in is what you are looking for.

- Michael Müller-Hillebrand

[Michael314]

Michael,

I asked the question here because I thought the wealth of detailed end user knowledge was here. 

Your link to Silicon Praise Software is both good and bad. Good because it shows a solution, bad because it shows that Adobe is apparently not interested in providing productivity features like autotext, macros (Unix only), and user definable shortcut keys and we must pay extra to a third party for something analogous to what Microsoft built into Word years ago. But at least the add-on is cheap at $10.00.

Yours,

Michael F

[Bob_Niland]

I asked the question here because I thought the wealth of detailed end user knowledge was here. 

Hey, you got a prompt accurate answer. It just wasn't the answer you wanted. To get the answers you want, you have to upgrade your forum subscription to the Fontminder Platinum level.

... bad because it shows that Adobe is apparently not interested in  providing productivity features like autotext, macros (Unix only), and  user definable shortcut keys and ...

Not so. See:

http://www.adobe.com/products/framemaker/features.html

Many of the new features, such as scripts, are specifically user productivity.

_____

Which is, admittedly, not terribly helpful for a 7.x user.

[Michael314]

Error (I wish you would give us a more afable appellation),

Yes the product description sounds like it includes great features and ones I would use daily. It's just a shame that we had to wait until version 10 to get them.

At $999.00 for a single license, my manager will be hard to convince since I'm managing OK with 7.2. The autotext add-on from Silicon Prairie is peanuts compared to Adobe's excessive cost.

I should probably check eBay. Where else can one find discounted software? I mean legitimate stuff.

Yours,
Michael F

[Bob_Niland]

Error (I wish you would give us a more afable appellation),

I will once Error 7103 is no longer part of my daily FM experience, and that will happen when we are finally forced to abandon 7.1 on Unix.

It's just a shame that we had to wait until version  10 to get them.

Something happened between 7.x and 10.0: Frame now has a serious competitor. This means two things:

1. keep up on features, or die, and

2. hello Adobe, there really is a viable tech pub authoring market

My impression, up to 10.0, was that FM was pushed to the back burner at Adobe, and was about to fall off the stove entirely. This seems to have changed.

[Michael314]

Error,

Interesting analysis.

In previous contact jobs inthe past year or so, I have had limited or no use of Frame before I started this contract in June. So I haven't kept up with changes in the product. Who is the new competitor? They might be worth investigating.

Yours,

Michael F

[Mike Wickham]

Adobe is apparently not interested in providing productivity features

like autotext, macros (Unix only), and user definable shortcut keys

>

Actually, user-definable shortcut keys are already built into

FrameMaker, just not as a menu item. There are configuration files that

you change. Look for the "Customizing FrameMaker" documentation that

comes with your installation or find it here:

<http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FrameMaker/8.0/customize_frame.pdf

[Michael314]

Mike,

Thanks for the reply. And thanks to all the others who pointed out Silicon Prairie and the fact that the newer releases of Frame have what I need.

I guess I will have to work on a justification for upgrading my Framemaker license. For now, I'll get that $10 autotext add-on from Silicon Prairie.

Yours,

Miochael F

[Arnis_Gubins]

(Late to the party)

Michael,

You can also store relatively extensive formatted text (using character tags) as a Variable in FM that can quickly be inserted with a few keystrokes. It kind of depends upon the amount of content that you need formatted and the complexity of the formatting for that content.