[Guest Post] “Explore TCS4, Excluding Content in FrameMaker to RoboHelp”, by Kevin Siegel

In this guest blog, Certified Adobe Expert and Trainer, Kevin Siegel of ICONLOGIC, covers a powerful technique when publishing from FrameMaker through RoboHelp via Technical Communication Suite (TCS4). In this blog, Kevin touches on many principles he shared in one episode of his 3-part webinar series, “2) Explore TCS4: FrameMaker to RoboHelp to eBook … Oh My!“

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TCS4, FrameMaker to RoboHelp: Excluding Content

Linking content created in Adobe FrameMaker to an Adobe RoboHelp project is as simple as visiting the Project Manager pod, right-clicking the **Project Files **folder and then choosing FrameMaker Document.

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To control how the content that exists in FrameMaker will be handled by RoboHelp, you would next choose File > Project Settings > Import and choose an appropriate CSS from the CSS for Style Mapping drop-down menu. (In the image below, I’ve elected to use the default CSS that comes with RoboHelp.)

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Back on the Project Manager, you finish the Link process by right-clicking the FrameMaker content within the Project Files folder and choosing Update > Generate. All of the content contained within the linked FrameMaker files will be converted into RoboHelp topics. It’s really that easy. And since the FrameMaker content is linked to the RoboHelp project, should you make any changes to the FrameMaker content, you can quickly update the corresponding RoboHelp content by right-clicking the FrameMaker content within the RoboHelp Project Files folder and choosing Update > Update.

It’s a good bet that there will be some content contained within the FrameMaker source files that you simply do not want to appear in the RoboHelp project. For instance, in the image below you can see that I’m using a callout (Stress anyone?) in the left margin of one of my FrameMaker documents. The callout, which is using a FrameMaker format called SideHead, is simply a graphical element to break up the page.

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  1. Choose File > Project Settings
  2. Select the Import tab
  3. Click the Edit button to the right of Edit conversion settings for FrameMaker document
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  5. Double-click the Paragraph group from the FrameMaker Settings column
  6. Select the style that you don’t want to use from the FrameMaker column (in this instance, I selected SideHead)
  7. Select Exclude from output
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  9. Click OK to close the Conversion Settings dialog box
  10. Click OK again to close the Project Settings dialog box
  11. Update the project content by right-clicking the FrameMaker linked content and choosing Update > Update
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