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FM12 ahead! but what do I need to warn our tech support about before they try and install?

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 13:50:05 GMT

My manager, who has been pushing (not to say kicking and shoving) on my behalf for some months, has come to my desk and told me that our request for FM12 and whatever-the-latest-CS is has been approved. In fact, even, acted on; so tech support are now ready to install. afaik, I'm due to receive FM12, Acrobat Pro, PhotoShop, Illustrator, InDesign and Bridge …

Before I let tech support loose, what helpful advice do I need to give them: I seem to remember it's important to install FM before Acrobat, and/or make sure FM does not sneakily install PDF Creator … any other gotchas to be aware of? Also, is it feasible to leave FM10 on the PC for a while so I can get used to FM12 and not find I've hit a problem that stops me working?

better Find/Change

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 06:31:05 GMT

… including

regular expressions
history lists for both find and change terms
copy selection as find term
place cursor in find field when opening dialog – the time I've lost when I've not paid attention and FM has interpreted what should have been a find string as a command
find/change text+style

"Error 109" in files returned by customer

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Wed, 09 Jul 2014 13:48:44 GMT

My workflow uses FM10 and Acrobat Pro to create .pdfs for sending out to clients. Just had a 'phone call from someone saying he can't open the .pdfs any more, even though he's been using them for a while. Acrobat Pro X brings up the bookmarks list, but then displays the message "There was an error processing this page. There was a problem reading this document (109)."

Any idea where the problem lies and what to do about it? I suspect it may be file-corruption at the client's end, but I'd welcome confirmation before telling him so!

FM vs fonts

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Tue, 08 Jul 2014 11:43:22 GMT

While aware that some error messages in no wise indicate a genuine problem … I always prefer to keep my source files clean and my error logs empty. So, I'm a bit peeved that the latest irritation appears to be a present from FrameMaker; even more so that it is intermittent and (for me) unpredictable – but since I've started posting I may as well finish:

The "font not found" message when I try to create a .pdf refers to Stag-Book. The PC has, indeed, no font called Stag-Book – the hyphen only appears in the FPostScriptName attribute buried deep in the .mif file.

<PgfFont

What's to do?

how to make objects touch

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Fri, 27 Jun 2014 08:00:32 GMT

[CS5 on Windows 7] I have an assortment of rectangles in a line, and want to arrange them so that the left-hand edge of one exactly touches the right-hand of the next. They're not all the same width, so I can't use a grid … any tips? Thanks in advance!

navigating a long list of cross-reference targets

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Fri, 27 Jun 2014 06:17:24 GMT

probably nothing new here, but in case it helps someone I thought I'd mention a recent and satisfying Aha! moment …

I'm working on a (strictly manual) translation of a book with copious end-notes; I set these up in a file of their own with autonumbering, and have now reached the stage of inserting the cross-reference to each note. The way the cross-references list bounces cheerfully back to the top of the file was beginning to depress me, as well as slowing things down – with references like KdR II, 121 and KdR I, 96 (and end-note numbering that restarts in each chapter, and the tardy discovery that the original book has accidental duplicates, omissions and out-of-order end-note numbers …) it was turning into a huge and unencouraging task.

Yesterday evening I had a sudden idea. After correctly inserting a cross-reference 54, I copied it – and pasted it where cross-reference 55 needed to be. This meant that I could use it to open the cross-reference targets list and have the focus on 54 immediately; clicking on the next entry is a lot quicker and easier than scrolling down from the top of the list every time.

Once again, FM makes it possible to do more than I expected in less time than I'd anticipated ;-}

One or more of the files in your FrameMaker book is not a FrameMaker document …

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Thu, 19 Jun 2014 11:39:20 GMT

"One or more of the files in your FrameMaker book is not a FrameMaker document. This file will be ignored while FrameMaker updates the book."

Nonsense, of course, but I notice the file in question (not always the same file) temporarily loses its .fm icon in the book panel.

My guess would be, network problems slowing the writing of updates; any comments before I mildly mention this to our IT Support?

will this have to be my first-ever equation?

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Thu, 05 Jun 2014 08:23:54 GMT

One of the product managers has asked me to include tolerances in a spec. sheet. The way I've received the information, in a technical drawing, it looks like this:

what's the simplest/most maintainable way of reproducing this in a textual description? I could use superscript for the +0.2, and subscript for the 0, but have no immediate idea how I could then stack the two elements.

Thanks in advance for help and tips!

(btw – still soldiering on with FM10, if that makes any difference)

scripting in CS5

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Wed, 28 May 2014 06:42:31 GMT

Looking for information for someone else, I came across a post here that said "use the script ExportAllStories.jsx that comes with your default InDesign installation." Went to my CS5 installation, inherited from my predecessor … no Scripts option anywhere. My Illustrator CS5 from the same installation has File > Scripts; even my FrameMaker, on the remotest fringes of the Adobe family, has File > Script. What do I have to do to access scripting for InDesign?

change stroke-weight on one edge of rectangle

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Mon, 26 May 2014 07:09:06 GMT

CS5 … I've drawn a rectangle, and would like to make just one edge heavier. I selected just that edge using Direct select, but when I then changed the stroke weight the whole rectangle redrew. Am I hoping for too much? or is there a better way to do this? Thanks in advance for hints and tips.

custom attributes for Illustrator drawing elements

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Wed, 21 May 2014 07:22:49 GMT

cards on the table – I'm only an occasional Illustrator user, and stuck with CS5 since corporate decision makers don't see any compelling reason for an upgrade; away from Illustrator, I'm a keen supporter of DITA for structured documentation. What's the overlap? well, elements in DITA have metadata.

Now look at the Select > Same menu in CS5 – that looks to me very much like a list of attributes. Seems to me, with most of my Illustrator to do with informal interface proposals, it could be really handy to set your own attributes and use "select all interface buttons" or "select all ellipses". What do you think? or have Adobe beaten me to it and introduced custom attributes in a more recent version of Illustrator?

selective format copying

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Fri, 16 May 2014 08:49:20 GMT

A specific task reminds me of a question I've often wondered about but never asked … copying all paragraph styles from file A to file B is simple, but is there no native mechanism for copying just selected styles? I know I can copy a formatted paragraph and then update the paragraph catalog in file B, but sometimes that's a bit fiddly.

If there is an answer, I hope it doesn't involve a plug-in; I'm not allowed those :-{

duplicate layers between files

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Mon, 19 May 2014 08:33:03 GMT

Two drawings open in Illustrator CS5 (Windows), and I want to duplicate a layer from drawing one in drawing two. I'm only an occasional user, but I'm sure I used to be able to do this somewhere in CS … copy/paste just seems to take the content of the layers, so I have the faff of setting up a new empty layer in the target first. Hints and tips welcome!

reluctant Acrobat

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Tue, 13 May 2014 06:53:07 GMT

Sudden flurry of management activity after reseller notices there's no documentation in the package the developers send … so, of course, FM/Acrobat choose now to start playing up. A .book that has saved as .pdf without any problems beyond the treacle-through-muslin speeed I associate with FM10 on Windows 7 now hangs; and I also notice that when I break it into a suite of smaller book-jobs, .tps files are being left behind after distilling has finished.

Sympathy would already be good <g> Tips on diagnostics would also be appreciated.

question about indexing styles (FM 9.0)

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Sun, 04 May 2014 11:34:29 GMT

Somehow, I've managed to get through decades of authoring without ever being called on for an index … but I've recently been translating Joris Verdin's standard work Het Harmoniumhandboek, by way of busman's holiday, and this does require an index.

Layout question: I've set the IX paragraph styles to Adobe Caslon Pro 10, and I find that the page-numbers are disturbingly large. I tried setting a character style for Caslon Pro 9 and using it as a building-block on the Reference page, but this didn't seem to achieve anything. Hints & tips?

unicode – now you see it, now you don't

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Fri, 18 Apr 2014 13:45:16 GMT

FM 10, fully patched, on Windows 7

goal

use Unicode characters U+2192 and U+25C0

first approach

set up character style !unicode using Courier New CE
use F,U,P to insert Unicode characters – font set to Courier New CE

result

U+2192 'rightwards arrow' displays correctly in the palette and in the document
U+25C0 'black left-pointing triangle' displays correctly in the palette but just gives a feeble question-mark in the document
checking via a different route tells me (unlike the F,U,P palette) that there is no U+25C0 'black left-pointing triangle' in Courier New CE

second approach modify character style !unicode to use Arial MS use F,U,P to check availability of both characters – font set to Arial MS result U+2192 'rightwards arrow' displays correctly in the palette and in the document U+25C0 'black left-pointing triangle' displays correctly in the palette and in the document

question

what gives? less telegraphically, how come the palette and the document seem to have different ideas? It would save me, oh, minutes every eight or nine months if the palette gave a true indication of which fonts were going to play ball and which were going to play coy :-}

date variable in watermark

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 09:49:27 GMT

I'm generating .pdf as an output option from a DITA environment, and want to set up a .pdf watermark (Acrobat Pro X) to add the current date each time I update the content. I don't mind doing this as a separate step, until I've had time to grapple with the documentation and find out whether the DITA tool can do it for me. Question, then: is there any way of using a variable in a watermark definition, or do I need to use a stamp instead?

output to contact sheet – "current folder only" required

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Wed, 19 Mar 2014 14:08:40 GMT

The history for the magnifying glass top right tells me I'm looking at "Bridge search: current folder", but what I see is images from current folder and all sub-folders. Is there any way to customise this search so I get just the results from the current folder?

font changes in

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Fri, 07 Mar 2014 13:59:10 GMT

I've prepared some DITA concepts outside FM. In these concepts, the name of the product is hauled in as a reference; the <ph> in the source files carefully reproduces the (naughty word ahead) formatting required by the product manager, namely <ph>productName <i>model</i></ph>.

How do I tweak my EDD so that <i> is seen as permissible content for <ph>? At the moment, my <ph> definition has got as far as

Element (Container): ph
   General rule:    <TEXT>
   Text format rules
      In all contexts.
         Text range.

Or is there some other mechanism I could be using?

Thanks in advance for hints and tips.

a figure about efficiency and ROI …

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Wed, 05 Feb 2014 07:20:48 GMT

Even if a reader who doesn't know better might be left with the impression that FM doesn't do topic-cased authoring, it was interesting to see an article offering clear figures and talking about ROI: unstructured Frame already saves you time and money. (as if we didn't know!) I'm looking forward to seeing what ms Burton has to say about topic-management tools.

The cost of developing content, by Sharon Burton

italics, variables and cross-references

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Mon, 20 Jan 2014 13:50:38 GMT

"Oh Niels, we've decided to use italics for the second word in the product name!"

No problem, I thought, and adapted the variable definition to include a character-style switch:

<Default ¶ Font>Name <!italic>touch<Default ¶ Font>

No problem indeed, except for cross-references :-{ The ToC shows Name touch where I've used the variable in headings, the headings show Name touch in the correct font … but cross-references show Name touch. OK, in this very particular case I could be result-driven and replace Name touch in the cross-references with Name touch. It would be good to know, though, whether there's some finesse I'm missing – always possible, always educational.

The cross-reference format, by the way, is simply

<$paranum> <$paratext>

Thanks in advance for any help on this! if you need more information from me, just ask.

basic cross-platform issue with IDD tagged text

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Tue, 21 Jan 2014 12:59:42 GMT

As I said, basic … but something I've only just run into.

1. I prepare an IDD tagged text file on a Windows PC, so with the heading <ASCII-WIN>. It includes typographer's quotation marks and a scattering of accented characters.

<ParaStyle:p>Lefébure-Wely mentions a similar idea in his 1845 Method, where the following passage occurs among the exercises:

<ParaStyle:quoteEnglish>“The sign ^ indicates that the player should press quickly on one of the pedals while at the same time playing the notes over which the sign is written, in such a way as to obtain a short, strong note on the Poïkilorgue, equivalent to staccato notes on other instruments. It only applies, however, to plaqués chords and to notes separated by a rest at least a quaver [eighth note] long. It would be impossible to apply this technique to an uninterrupted series of short notes,certainly in an Allegro.”

<ParaStyle:quoteFrench>«Ce signe ^ indique qu'il faut appuyer brusquement sur l'une des deux pédales et toucher simultanément les notes sur lesquelles il se trouve placé de manière à obtenir un son bref et fort sur le Poïkilorgue, équivalent aux notes pointées des autres instruments. Ceci ne s'applique toutefois qu'aux accords plaqués et aux notes séparées par un silence qui ne saurait être moindre qu'un soupir. Il serait impossible de faire usage de ce moyen pour une série de notes brèves sans interruption, surtout dans un Allegro.»

<ParaStyle:p>This final restriction brings us back to Lickl, who also says the chords must be separated by rests. Frelon, in his example, gives shorter note values than Lickl and Lefébure-Wely.

2. I use file > place in IDD CS5 on a Windows PC and observe with satisfaction that everything is as it should be.

3. I use file > place in IDD CS5 on a Mac and observe with less satisfaction that quotes and accented characters are consistently displayed as something else. (this also happens when I open the file in a Mac text editor)

I hope I'm doing something simple that's wrong, like (for instance) starting the file with <ASCII-WIN> when my Windows text editor says it's saving in ANSI. This idea only occurred to me today, so I haven't had time to check it yet. I've checked the IDD documentation, and shall also try replacing the quotes with <0x201C> and <0x201D>

If there are other gotchas I need to pay attention to, please let me know! it would be helpful to be able to transport the same tagged text file between machines. Thanks in advance.

inline character formatting

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Thu, 09 Jan 2014 14:10:32 GMT

Battling on happily after that Aha!-moment before Christmas, and testing myself by retrofitting structure to existing documents – still having far more fun than I feel I should do at the office :-}

Today's question, which may well reveal an embarrassing lack of basic understanding. In my unstructured documents, I've always used specific character styles for options like !cite and !xph (book-titles and in-line code snippets respectively). Now I'm exploring structure, I haven't yet managed to work out how to handle these in-line changes. "Format change list" looked promising, but how do I define an element that's going to trigger the change? (if "element" is the right word at this low a level)

My battered copy of the FM 7.0 User Guide briefly but tantalisingly mentions "… wrapping items that are inside paragraphs" without farther explanation. What other (online) references would you recommend?

output options from structured FM10

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Fri, 10 Jan 2014 07:42:04 GMT

10.0.2.419, sole user in corporate environment, zero chance of running add-ons and extensions :-{

I'm still a long way from using structured FM to cover the whole route from information to publication, but I'm working on it. This morning, prompted by an external question, I set up an excessively long task with 14 steps: no problem there, and output to .pdf reproduced the task as it had been entered. Out of curiosity, I also tried Save as HTML … and was considerably surprised to get handed a page with no numbering whatsoever.

My for-the-time-being primary tool for DITA offers XHTML (single and multi-page), HTML help, HTML help, Java help, Eclipse help, ePUB, RTF, WordprocessingML, Office Open XML, OpenDocument, Postscript and PDF out of the box, and the XHTML option (I'll take the others on trust) faithfully reproduces the numbering.

Two questions, then:

what's the trick for just getting numbering in html output from FM source with numbering?
what would I need to do to get a similar range of output options from FM?

how to handle DITA xrefs

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Thu, 19 Dec 2013 11:44:48 GMT

Something amazing has happened. After countless attempts to get a toehold on the glassy wall of structured Frame, I've suddenly managed to run up it as far as writing my first EDD – it works, it handles tables, I've successfully tried both ParagraphFormatting and ElementPgfFormatTag, and I still understood it the next day.

So now I'm happily experimenting with some very simple DITA files, prepared and validated elsewhere. I used a <ph conref="_ymvProductVariable.dita#terminal/product"/> construct in my DITA file to replicate the behaviour of a FrameMaker user variable. Opening the DITA file in FM and applying my EDD highlights the <ph> as an invalid element, which I can accept.

Question – to which I may not understand the answer, but I'll try: how do I define the <ph> element, so I can include it in a General rule like (<TEXT> | ph)+ and have it show the value of the variable?

My apologies for trying to run before I can walk, but after years feeling my feet were nailed to the ground it's irresistible.

a black sheep in my flock of files?

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Thu, 12 Dec 2013 09:54:40 GMT

FM 10, fully patched, Windows 7 …

I have a book containing a dozen or so files which I prepared by adding MML tags to a Word source and saving out as text. They're all very much of a muchness, and most of them include a couple of referenced .eps graphics.

Saving the book to .pdf threw up the message 'may happen with FM 6.0 or earlier', so for form's sake I ran Format > Optimise. This cleared things up, and generated a .pdf with all the book content but a sniffy message about just one of the files. When I save that specific file I get a moral/societal observation "File has Bad Type". What does this mean, and what can I do to reform the type in question?

ghost styles? jinxed searches?

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Fri, 08 Nov 2013 12:16:58 GMT

I come to the conclusion there's something I don't understand about FM searches … by scrutinising .mif copies of existing .fm files, I have discovered a redundant style.

FM knows it's there – because saving the relevant .book as .pdf throws a warning about a missing font that's only used in this style – and admits it in the paragraph catalogue:

On the other hand, FM steadfastly the style denies exists if I search on Paragraph Tag (virtuously checking body pages, master pages and reference pages) in the files concerned.

Does Find Paragraph Tag actually mean "find paragraph tag as long as it's applied to some text"? That would be rather limiting.

how to save "my" preferences on a corporate PC

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Wed, 23 Oct 2013 06:32:12 GMT

… specifically, how to set Adobe PDF as my default printer. I seem to remember related posts suggesting that on this Windows 7 PC there will be locked-down, Admin only settings and also some I can actually change and save myself. Didn't have this problem earlier, because IT Support at my last shop decided the best way to keep the only FM user out of their hair was to give him Admin rights and deny all responsibility <g>

initial caps in H/F variables

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Tue, 01 Oct 2013 14:06:32 GMT

I've set H/F1 to pick up the top-level heading in the chapter, which is conventionally set with one capital letter – Chapter headings look like this

Someone is now asking for the header style where I use H/F1 to be all caps. I have a particular dislike of mixed-size capital letters, and am vaguely wondering whether [in FM 10] there is a building-block <$lowerCase> or some other nifty workaround. Just a thought!

"no email program" – didn't ask to send a mail!

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Tue, 24 Sep 2013 07:44:08 GMT

Opening .pdfs with Reader XI (11.04) on Windows 7 keeps stalling; after a bit of checking and exploring, I found this is because of an alert box that is not showing up on top of the main Acrobat window. That's bad enough, but the alert itself doesn't make any sense to me when I do manage to display it:

There is no email program associated to perform the requested action. Please install an email program or, if one is already installed, create an association in the Default Programs control panel.

I haven't clicked on any sort of Mail to link, and there isn't even a mail-to link in the document.

Any ideas for persuading Acrobat just to open the document without making a fuss? <g>

Thanks in advance.

formatting structured documents

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Tue, 24 Sep 2013 10:01:09 GMT

So … I have a whole bookmap's worth of valid DITA files I've developed with XML Mind, and it seemed to me they would be a good starting point if I want to explore using structured FM for DITA.

The first thing that hits me when I open any of these files in FM10 is that FM (naturally) applies its own page layouts and paragraph styles. Purely logical, since I haven't defined anything else. Keeping my fingers well away from ths structure, I use the familiar paragraph designer to update the styles FM has applied and soon have a pleasing combination of DITA structure and FM layout … until I save and re-open the document, and find all my formatting has been discarded.

Deceptively simple – can of worms perched on tip of iceberg – question: what do I have to do to update the layout/styles? I realise there may be many more styles defined than elements used by my simple DITA files, and (even) that the inheritance we miss in unstructured FM may suddenly spring in to complicate matters in structured: but if I want to keep my readers and clients happy, I need to wrap the fine bones of structure in the fair flesh of formatting. Keeping me happy wouldn't be so bad, either :-}

problems importing tagged text

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Wed, 11 Sep 2013 11:32:58 GMT

IDD CS5.5, 7.5.2

what I do

prepare IDD tagged text file, using DOS/Windows line ends and ANSII encoding
open IDD CS5.5 file with formatted content
select all content
File > Place InDesign tagged text file, using "show list of problem tags" option

what I get

no angle brackets imported, no errors in the list of problem tags …
74 paragraphs, all using the first paragraph style specified in the tagged text

I wish IDD tagged text were as easy to get on with as FrameMaker's MML … that would also make it easier for me to start with one tagged source file and use the content in different applications with a minimum of effort. Any tips on _exactly_ what has to be done to placate the IDD Import goblins welcome!

wildcards

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 08:29:23 GMT

Not a disaster, but I'm wondering whether there's a work-around for a mild inconvenience … when I'm blatting my way through text files with vi I ruthlessly suppress spaces at the end of a line with s/{space}$//

Thoughtfully, vi then deletes the space but leaves the EOL where it was.

The equivalent in FM deletes the space and the EOL, effectively adding an unwanted join function.

Any ideas? I've already tried s/{space}$/{char}/ in case this might support a two-step approach where I then delete all occurrences of {char}. It doesn't :-{

variables, formatting, find/change …

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Fri, 13 Sep 2013 13:16:49 GMT

Time and again, I open a new document set from the libraries I've inherited and start basic tidying up … experience has amply demonstrated that it's worth using a variable for each library's product name, for one thing, but it doesn't quite work as I'd hope.

define $product as required
replace first instance of Acme Eradicator with $product, and copy the variable to the clipboard
use find/change with Acme Eradicator as Find and By pasting for Change

Every occurrence of the string Acme Eradicator is duly replaced by the variable, but with the formatting of whatever context the first occurrence of the variable was copied from

Is there any nifty trick I can use to make to the pasted variable take on, chameleon-like, the formatting of its new surroundings?

integration – I can dream, but I can also ask questions :-}

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Wed, 21 Aug 2013 14:27:30 GMT

Don't ask why, 'cause it's demeaning for a grown man to break down and sob, but I've just had to copy/paste some text changes from a FM document (in-house source) to a .pdf (submitted by an external agency after they'd somehow massaged our content into InDesign) for the next round of updates. I observe that this copy/paste helpfully prefixes the actual content with a generous list of fonts.

I can (and did) cleanse the text with a textEditor wash – like mifWash but different – but just wondered if there is any light to be cast on this quirky mis-cooperation between FM and Acrobat?

incomplete headings in book window

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Wed, 14 Aug 2013 07:06:36 GMT

Just noticed, as I try to bring order and consistency into four "growed like Topsy" books … where the chapter headings diligently include a user variable (here, the product name), the title display in the book window omits anything after the variable. Result, in this case, three apparently identical chapter headings.

Have I uniquely screwed something up, or is this a feature?

shortcut for FM 10

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Tue, 06 Aug 2013 07:05:21 GMT

Strange: can't understand why I've not got round to asking this earlier :-}

Special > Variables obediently opens the Variables tab, but apart from reaching for the mouse and selecting one of the Close options from the context menu how do I then get rid of it and reclaim valuable screen real estate?

And while I'm asking, I don't suppose there's a handy F-key that accesses variables the way F8 and F9 access character and paragraph styles? or some other shortcut?

"unavailable fonts" – same topic, different question

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Mon, 15 Jul 2013 08:08:09 GMT

Many of us will have seen the message The {font name} is not available flash past in the error log. Sometimes it's actually a true statement … often, it seems to me, it ain't! or, if not an absolute untruth, it's certainly a different world-view.

I've just been presented with this assertion again. I've checked the source file in question, identified the paragraph styles that call for the font, and there the font is in the pull-down: not greyed out, just there for selection like any other. No suspect graphics in the file, just one .jpg. What's more, if I check the .pdf font properties, there's the "unavailable" font in use; marked as "can embed font", yet.

The result – the .pdf deliverable – is as required. Not being harassed by portentous messages would, then, reduce author stress levels! Hints and tips welcome …

PgfLocked

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Tue, 09 Jul 2013 06:36:04 GMT

While checking earlier threads about insets and unwanted spacing, I came across references to PgfLocked as a property you need .mif to get to. It wasn't part of my problem, but I'm curious: what would it have been doing, if it had been there?

fonts and the Info block: a conceptual question and a factual question

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Thu, 04 Jul 2013 13:35:28 GMT

Hacking my way through various operations, trying to root out "unavailable font" messages, and I've noticed (not for the first time, but for the first time I've been minded to ask questions) a whole slew of paragraph style definitions in the .book. Even if I assume they've drifted in there from the component .fm files, I'm still left wondering why.

And considering I've just exposed one area of ignorance, let's go for broke with another question: what is encoded in the BookFileInfo block?

unicode in CS5/Windows

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Thu, 04 Jul 2013 10:18:47 GMT

OK, I'm only an occasional Photoshop user; but most of the things I need to do to tweak or fake screenshots I can manage. Today's challenge, though, has me stumped. I want to enter two unicode characters U+2776 and U+2777 or ❶ and ❷ – see, no problem for a mere browser.

I managed to copy/paste from FrameMaker. The file/layer information in the tab renders the characters correctly, the layers palette renders them correctly, but the drawing itself just displays the x-on-box "problem" glyph. What's more, while I can select these glyphs and try to apply a different font (Lucida Sans Unicode), PhotoShop sticks with MyriadPro.

A patient, step by step explanation of how to use the font of my choice and enter these unicode characters would be much appreciated!

feeble question around scripting

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Mon, 01 Jul 2013 09:15:50 GMT

OK, I admit it – I've never managed to get my head round OO :-{ and, accordingly, never got very far trying to understand FrameScript. I did, though, manage to use some of the default scripts while I had FrameScript on another installation.

So with that as context, I was sheepishly wondering if anyone happened to have a new-fangled script to share that will save all .book components out as .mif for FM 10 – I have various housekeeping tasks to perform, and they'd go a lot faster with mif.

local overrides on text style in tables

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 06:38:39 GMT

Leaving aside any discussion on the inherent naughtiness of overrides … I wanted to apply one this morning. It didn't take. I'm wondering why.

Here's a screenshot. After the caption and the header, all the table content uses :ttx. So, to indent the codes, I opened the paragraph designer and applied an 18pt indent to the standard :ttx definition. Nothing happened. Out of curiosity, I cleared the indent I'd tried to apply via the Table cell tab and applied it again via the Basic tab. Still nothing.

Hints and tips welcome, as always.

products that play together, stay together :-}

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 11:52:12 GMT

A sudden dream moment … wouldn't it be great if, when referencing an .eps graphic in FM, we could turn its layers on and off. At the moment, I try to keep a base drawing and its variants as an .ai file with thoughtful use of (named) layers: but then I have to save each view as a separate .eps, so if something basic like a logo changes there's a small but significant amount of extra work to do. Yup, I've been informally advised there's a logo-change ahead

insert file save date as variable

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 06:49:05 GMT

The CS5 online help is pretty tight-lipped about variables … is there an easy way of pulling in the save date as a variable? ID can do it; even Word can do it :-} Thanks in advance for any hints/tips.

anchors, graphics and tables …

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 13:18:36 GMT

So … I updated a pin-out table as requested, deftly adjusted the colspans and rowspans to match the drawing I'd been given, and drew the lines. The results were as attached. You can guess what happened next: we dropped a paragraph of text upstream of the table. The table moved obediently up, the graphic frame stayed where it was.

I thought that adding an anchored frame to hold the graphics frame might be the answer, but so far I haven't persuaded an anchored frame to cross the boundaries of the table cell :-{

Hints and tips welcome, as usual. I suppose it's no big deal to recreate the whole table as an .eps in Illustrator, if that's what it takes – just less elegant.

spot cross-reference

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 07:21:53 GMT

Once in a blue moon, I want to work with a spot cross-reference … I run into the same question every time, and promptly forget the answer. The illustration in my battered copy of the FM 7.0 User Guide seems to show exactly what I want to achieve, a single word defined as a marker and then showing up elsewhere as a hyperlink. My problem is, I can't work out the building block to use in the cross-reference format: I was expecting something like <$markertext>, but don't see it. I tried <$paratext>, but that was a bit too generous :-}

half-hearted Exclusion

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 06:33:17 GMT

Good thing I was relatively awake! After extensive remodelling (or to put it another way, sorting the content into a more logical order and removing duplications) of an inherited document, I ran a Find to see whether there were any of my :question paragraphs left. Imagine my distress when FM reported more than a few … imagine my relief, mingled with mild irritation, when it turn out they were in a file I'd set to "excluded" but left in the book structure in case there any more discussions to get through before publication.

I don't suppose there's an option anywhere to make Find a bit more focused? I seem to remember it also paints outside the lines when I use "search in book" and have a couple of files from another book open.

groups and pTOC

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Wed, 15 May 2013 09:04:00 GMT

Never even thought about them before, so I'm only vaguely aware that Groups are available at book level. Can I pull a selection of files into a group and then generate a ToC just for the group? or is there some other mechanism better suited for this task?

another jour, another glitch?

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Fri, 10 May 2013 06:22:46 GMT

Probably as long as I've been using FM, I've always included "keep with next" as a property in heading styles. I do also use "keep with previous", but normally only for figure captions; they come after their graphic, obviously, in my standard layout.

Wednesday I started on a new section in a chapter: added a level 3 heading, then a graphic, then a comment … and saw to my surprise that that the heading is staying on the page before the graphic.

Here's a picture. The "Accessories and options" heading style is set to keep with next; the style for the graphics link and the style for the comment have no keep properties set. In fact, the "keep with next" behaviour seems to have fallen off some other heading styles as well; but it would take longer to track down an example.

What's going on? how do I make sure that keep with next keeps with next – like it always used to? Begins to remind me of the [original book] The Bodysnatchers – little things changing in an old friend's behaviour. I knew adding pods to the interface was a mistake <rofl>