FAQ Suggestions and Corrections

Test message. Feel free to post FAQ suggestions of corrections here.

What about FrameMaker to On-line Help?

Sean,

I think we need an FAQ entry dealing with Save As PDF. If I remember correctly, you rely on this method, but it is a method that tends to get new users in trouble. Once they know enough about the process, they might use it successfully, but new users should follow Arnis' oft-repeated advice: pretend Save As PDF doesn't exist.

This topic would also have to deal with properly installing the Distiller Printer, but that could be a separate FAQ entry as well, don't you think?

Jeanie

Sean,

I know, I know: everybody's an editor, but how about this?

To create a PDF from FrameMaker make sure that you have installed the Acrobat Distiller printer instance. This is NOT done by using the Add Printer option found in Start > Settings > Printers. Instead:
1. Download the latest Adobe Universal Printer Driver Installer from Adobe.
2. Make sure you have the latest PPD file available. You will be asked to find it during printer installation.
3. Double-click the .exe file to install the driver you downloaded.
4. When you are asked for the PPD file, browse to find it on your system.

Now you will have a printer instance called Acrobat Distiller. Use this printer when you create PDF files or when you create PostScript files from FrameMaker.

Do not use Save As PDF! This seems handy, but doesn't let you control Distiller job options. Instead:
1. From your Frame file or Frame book file, Print.
2. Make sure to select Print to File.
3. Make sure that Acrobat Distiller is the printer selected. It is good practice to make sure Acrobat Distiller is the default printer for your system before you go from Frame to Acrobat.
4. Distill the resulting postscript file.

Using watched folders can make your Frame-to-Acrobat tasks nearly automatic. See the Acrobat Guide for more information.

***
Sean, I think that your post may give the beginner a little too much information they won't understand until they've been at this for awhile. The "If you are outputting to a service bureau..." part for example. I think the FAQ should answer the questions for beginners. As they gain more experience and confidence, they will start to do things your way--the daring Save As, for example!

Your troubleshooting ideas are great. Can you add, under the b&w or grayscale PDF problem that it might be caused by selecting Spot as Black in the Frame print dialog?

Hope I'm not too much a pain about this... Also hope I didn't mess up the details in my suggestions...

Jeanie

nice! Thanks to both of you.

I just wave the baton... Adobe gives us the space. My thanks to them for giving us the ability to share among ourselves and help one another out.

How about the good old missing fonts issue? You're welcome to grab content from my web site www.techknowledgecorp.com/help/help.html if you want, then massage it into a format for this forum.

From reading all the replies so far,it appears to me that there is not a consistent answer to the problem of deleting empty pages in FrameMaker documents which appear after updating a book.
Can one of you experts summarise the procedure for this because the online manual states the obvious: use pagination..delete empty pages or assign a master page to empty page. None of these work.

There were a lot of screenshot discussions within the last weeks. A summary of them might be helpfull for the community.

> > How about the good old missing fonts issue?
>
> Sean "Missing Fonts Error" 3/15/01 6:46am
> Check it out and let me know if it meets the need or needs tweaking.

You could also consider linking to my web page

http://w1.133.telia.com/~u13304072/framers/fonts/unavailable.html

for a more in-depth explanation.

/Thomas

Sean,

Still waiting for someone to summarise an answer for deleting empty pages.Will it be done?

joe

Thanks for all that, Sean! Your efforts are much appreciated.

I haven't read the details on the screen capture FAQ, but
you should consider what Dov Isaacs recently has posted
on the FrameUsers mailing list. His advice in many ways
contradict what people usually think and do with screen
captures. For instance, image resizing should never be
done in the screen capture program, and EPS is the "best"
format (according to Dov).

/Thomas Michanek

I am using Frame 5.5 and having a difficult time finding the best/easiest way to use graphics generated in AutoCad 2000i to paste into my document. The autocad group has been saving as .dwg files and then .doc files. When I try to paste these into my Frame document, what usually would paste in as an anchored frame, pastes in with an invisible frame. If there is another graphic on the page (generated in Autocad 13) the new graphic somehow seems to hide or cover part of it. I would appreciate any thoughts on this. I was thinking that Frame 5.5 doesn't like Autocad 2000i but don't know what step is next. I read the suggested graphic conversion pkgs in the Framemaker FAQ messages but not sure what would be most appropriate. What graphic file format does Framemaker like best?

syllabificaton,spell-checking, language support for FramMaker+SGML

Hi everybody,

we would like to publish on paper documents in many different languages, west & east european languages (in total about 30 languages), and do it nicely (block alignment).

Is it possible to get a correct syllabification for any given language ? How can exceptional words be handled, e.g. by a special dictionary ?

Can somebody help ? Thanks, Johannes

Hi there..
Any help on the topic mentioned below will be appreciated by two novices in Framemaker....

We r preparing a usermanual for an airline product. We have mostly inserted tables and pictures from MS Powerpoint (do forgive, because we r new to Adobe products..still learning).
But now one obvious difficulty is that when we bring some text down by hitting the ENTER key, the pics/graphic objects do not move. Any suggestions?

Also we'd like to insert one full page between two pages. How do we do this? We weren't able to find any options which'd enable us to insert one whole page ....

Thanx in advance

Sean, I got a suggestion for the FAQ...

It might be nice to address some of the more common issues regarding upgrading from 5.x.x to 6.0. I am sure there are issues, and a little 'heads-up' here might help.

Thanks

Good suggestion, Brian. I came to the FAQ for help with the $chapnum variable and alas! I found none. The Neuberger book distracted me from cursing the online Frame help. It also answered my questions. Another 5-to-6 kink that shows up frequently in the forum is the "I used to be able to open a file in a Frame book by double-clicking...now all I can do is rename..." Not a big problem, but it is something that bugs many people. Perhaps the FAQ could reassure them.

Jeanie

Sean,

I am trying to post a message to Problems creating PDF's from Framemaker, but I guess the thread is now stopped.

Basically, I have recently encountered these problems:
1. While generating PDF's from Frame Maker using Save As, only half the chapters of a 10-chapter book appear OK. The rest are broken up, text is missing.Oddly enough, the cloured pictures are OK.

2. Secondly, before I can generate PDFs I have to reset my default printer to Adobe Distiller, then open each chapter independenly as FrameMaker keeps telling me it can not generate PDFs as fonts changed. I find this quite laborious opening each file and then saving it again to generate PDFS.

Any suggestions? Sorry if this is not the intended thread.
Joe

You just have to be a little quicker on the clicking finger to open a file from a Frame book. And yes, the first time it wanted me to just rename a file I was a little annoyed, too.

Here's my question about converting from 5.5 to 6.0.

Our Books consist of a TOC file, a Preface file, and then whatever number of chapters it takes. In the generated TOC, the page numbers for the chapters show up as 1-3, 2-3, 3-3, etc. That works just fine.

The problem is the Preface. The Preface follows from the TOC, the page numbering for each is in Roman numerals. The problem I'm having with 6.0 is that I can't seem to get rid of the - for the Preface in the generated TOC. The listings for the Preface show up as -iii, -iv, -v, instead of just iii, iv, v.

In 5.5 you defined the dash by typing \= into the dialog. I've tried all sorts of things in the 6.0 Numbering dialog, but to no avail.

How do I get rid of the - in my Preface TOC page numbers?

Lynn

joe and Lynn,

You have both managed to post questions here concerning the use of FrameMaker. This is the FAQ forum for FM.

Read the text in red within the yellow box at the top of this page...

/Thomas

Sorry Thomas, you're right. I forgot where I was.

I've posted my question in the forum topic "Help! Ugraded from 5.5 to 6.01, TOC problem" (yes the p is missing from upgraded). I've since found a solution and have added this information to my post.

Lynn

So I've taken on the mission in my writing group to find out if FrameMaker can effectively produce a four-color, Z-fold (or 11"x17"), layout-intensive installation guide. I know that there are other tools much more suited to this kind of document,
such as PageMaker, In Design, etc., but we are currently in the process of streamlining our whole operation including using single-sourcing tools to help us manage multiple projects that may have a lot of similarities. So it would be very cool to be
able to use just one application for all our print deliverables.
Has anyone tested the limits of FrameMaker in this way? Any success stories? Is it more pain than it's worth? I would love to hear about other people's experiences in this area. Thanks,

Gabe
gaad19@hotmail.com