RoboHelp-FrameMaker Integration: Some Tips

Topic Name Marker

One of the most powerful features of FrameMaker Integration is the power to separately define a Topic name and the File name for pagination (breaking of Documents into smaller HTML topics)

We all know that by using any Custom marker, we can paginate (break) a document into multiple topic by specifying the marker name in the above shown field in Others Setting TAB on the conversion settings dialog

This marker can be used for two more things

1. It can be used to specify the Title on the topic thus created
2. It can be used to specify Name of the corresponding HTML file thus created (name of the physical file)

How to Use it:-

To specify the Title we have to write a Pipe Symbol ‘|’ and the Title after it in the Marker text of the Marker used for pagination

* To specify any specific File name for the HTML generated, we have to write the Filename (just the name not the extension) in the Marker Text
* To specify both Title and File name we write “File name | Title” in the marker text

For elaboration of Topic Name Marker, see section “Topic Name Marker” on Topic “Integrating with Adobe Technical Communication Suite / Importing FrameMaker documents into RoboHelp/ Pagination for Help” in the Help

Creating Sub-Index directly from FrameMaker

Everyone of us know how do we get the Index marked (using Index marker in document) into RoboHelp but very few of us must be having idea of the power of RoboHelp to get even a Sub-Index from FrameMaker documents

How to Use it:-

We take an example that we want to create Sub-Index for ‘Variable’ say ‘How to create Variable’, ‘How to Modify Variable’ and ‘How to Delete Variable’

So first to create the Index for Variable we go to that part where Variable is referred place an Index marker and type marker text as “Variable”
Secondly we go to the part of document where its creation is described and place an Index marker and type marker text as “Variable: How to create Variable”
Then we go to the part of document where its modification is described and place an Index marker and type marker text as “Variable: How to Modify Variable”
Then we go to the part of document where its deletion is described and place an Index marker and type marker text as “Variable: How to Delete Variable”

So when we Import/Link this FrameMaker document into RoboHelp and Mark the Index for conversion we get these Sub-Index items too and hence we will have one more level of editing power at FrameMaker end.

Improving the referenced Images (without call outs)

Most of the times we face the issue that the image that was referenced in the FrameMaker documents and which even do not have any call outs (text in a box or a line on the image inserted using “Graphics->Tools”) are not generated properly in the RoboHelp.
For such scenarios we can just specify ‘Width’ and ‘Height’ in Preferred Dimensions of Image in the Conversion Setting dialog to zero as shown below

cheers!
Ashish Chandtra Gupta
RoboHelp Engineering