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LeximationLeximation | FrameMaker, DITA, EPUB, and more Leximation FrameMaker, DITA, EPUB, and more MenuHome DITA-FMx 2.0 upgrade pricing ends April 14! The discounted upgrade pricing from DITA-FMx 1.1 to 2.0 will end on April 14 (the 1-year anniversary of DITA-FMx 2.0). If you’re still using DITA-FMx 1.1, you can upgrade to 2.0 for $165. Just log in to www.leximation.com and go to your Tool Admin page, then click the upgrade link. On April 14 the special upgrade price for DITA-FMx 2.0 will end and the cost will be $235 (same as a new individual license). Note that upgrading to DITA-FMx 2.0 does not force you to change your current DITA 1.1-based structure applications. DITA-FMx 2.0 supports both DITA 1.1 and DITA 1.2. DITA-FMx 2.0 includes many enhancements and new features that benefit both DITA 1.1 and 1.2 models. In addition to support for the DITA 1.2 features (keyref, conkeyref, coderef, key-based glossary term referencing, conref ranges, etc.), DITA-FMx 2.0 provides the following features: Robust support for FrameMaker variables. New Generate Book from Map dialog makes it easier to publish DITA maps to FM books. Auto-prolog options now apply to maps as well as topics. Automatically add author and date to draft-comment elements. Additional support for specialized table formatting (row and cell shading and table indenting). Support for imagemap and hotspot development. And much more… To compare the features in DITA-FMx with those in different versions of FrameMaker, review the FrameMaker DITA Feature Comparison . To download a trial, or purchase DITA-FMx .. www.leximation.com/dita-fmx/ . This entry was posted in DITA , DITA-FMx , FrameMaker on 26 February 2015 by saprentice . Unique use of AutoFM for PDF generation The localization team at medical technology company came to us with an interesting automation request. As part of their localization process, all files for a given language and deliverable are provided in multiple ZIP files in a single folder. The ZIPs contain the following: FrameMaker book file (optional) MIF file(s) variables” file (optional) image files They wanted to automate the assembly and PDF generation of the book rather than needing to put it all together manually. This task involves the following logic: Start FrameMaker. Open all MIF files and save them as FM binary files. If a book file exists, open it (otherwise, just one file is used). If a file with _VRB” in the name exists, import the variable definitions from that file into all FM files in the book. Update the book. Save the book or single FM file to a PDF (using a pre-defined job options file). Exit FrameMaker. The user workflow should be as follows: Copy ZIP files into a folder on the user’s desktop. Right-click the folder, and select GeneratePDF” We were able to quickly develop a prototype of this process using the AutoFM plugin. This handled the bulk of the work in opening the files in FrameMaker, converting from MIF to FM, importing the variables, updating the book, and generating the PDF. All that was needed was some type of script or utility to drive the whole process. This entails, unzipping the files into a temporary folder, analyzing the contents, and generating the AutoFM script (a simple XML file that is passed to FrameMaker on startup to perform the specified actions). This could be developed as a compiled EXE utility, or as some type of script. We opted for a Perl script because of the reduced effort in development and because it would be easier to modify in the future. The right-click” functionality is handled by adding a batch file in the Windows SendTo” folder. The Perl script took a couple hours to develop and test, and now the localization team can quickly and reliably generate a PDF from the provided content. This is just one example of how you could use AutoFM to automate tasks with FrameMaker. The AutoFM process is driven by an XML script”, but it can perform various tasks on all types of FrameMaker files. It can also run additional scripting within FrameMaker (ExtendScript, FrameScript, FDK client), to perform whatever custom processing is required. This entry was posted in FrameMaker and tagged AutoFM , automation , FrameMaker , localization , PDF , Perl on 9 May 2014 by saprentice . Working with DITA Codeblocks in FrameMaker When using a DITA codeblock element, the intent is for all of the code to be enclosed in a single codeblock element (to the extent that it makes sense). From time to time I see documents where each line is in a separate codeblock. While this may work,” it’s not an idea way to operate. If the intent was to put single code lines in a codeblock, it would have been called codeline”! Here’s the one-line-per-codeblock approach (not ideal), and here’s the recommended method. If you’re using FrameMaker, this can happen without consciously realizing it. You may insert a codeblock, type the first line and press ENTER, then type the next line and press ENTER again. Each time you press ENTER, you’re creating a new codeblock element. Another problem can happen when you copy and paste from a text file. You insert a codeblock then paste the code that you copied from the source file. It looks reasonable (except for the end of paragraph” symbols), and you save the file and move on. The next time you open the file, the code is all messed up, it’s essentially all on one line that may wrap down the page. Not at all what you had intended! In order to properly format a codeblock, you need to end each line with a forced return” (aka. soft return” or line break”); press the SHIFT+ENTER keys to get a new line. If you do this, your lines will be properly formatted and will remain as a single block of code. The trick” to pasting in content from another file is as follows: Insert the codeblock element, then place the insertion point inside the element and paste the code. Open the Find dialog and select the codeblock element. Enter \p” as the Find text, and enter \r” as the Change text. Select Look in: Selection” and choose Change All. This is what you’ll see after replacing the end of paragraph (Pilcrow) symbols with forced returns. Does this code have tabs? It’s typically a good idea to replace tabs with spaces (not required, but a good practice). Use the same process to replace all tabs with 4 spaces (or whatever makes sense for your code). Open the Find dialog and select the codeblock element. Enter \t” as the Find text, and enter ␣␣␣␣” (4 spaces) as the Change text. Select Look in: Selection” and choose Change All. Of course .. if you’re using FM11 or FM12, you can always just switch to the XML Code View and paste the code directly in there! As long as the code doesn’t include angle brackets, which you’ll need to manually replace with entities (lt; and gt;), and tabs, which you’ll need to replace with spaces, this option works great! ( Be aware that in FM11 , the Code View feature has a problem with indented code lines. It’s likely that any indents will be lost if you flip between WYSIWYG and Code View. FM12 has fixed this problem.) The techniques above work equally well for the other preformatted” elements, pre, msgblock, and screen. That all works fine with DITA 1.1 files, but if you’re using DITA 1.2, you can take advantage of the coderef element! A coderef is just what it sounds like, a reference to a code file. Essentially it’s a conref” to a non-DITA file used for code samples. A coderef must be inserted into a codeblock, and if needed you can include multiple coderef elements in a codeblock or mix hard-coded text with a coderef, it’s up to you. The default FrameMaker DITA support (in FM11 and FM12) doesn’t properly handle coderef elements, hopefully that will be fixed in an update to FM12. But if you are...