Learn how to create EDDs in FrameMaker by choosing an appropriate strategy.
An EDD is a structured document. Use the structured editing features to create and edit the EDD.
The EDD contains both structural rules for the document (Document Type Definition or DTD) and styling rules, which dictate how elements of a specific type are styled. An application developer generally creates the EDD from an existing DTD file or from scratch. For more information, see the Structured Application Developer Reference guide.
Following are the basic steps to get started with structured authoring in FrameMaker.
Before building the proposal template, analyze existing proposals to identify their components. Based on this analysis, you create a content map. The proposal example results in the following sequence:
Title
Executive summary: Title, One paragraph
Project description: Title, One or more paragraphs
Cost: Title, One or more paragraphs
Schedule: Title, One or more paragraphs
You can build an EDD in multiple ways:
Create the entire EDD yourself.
Import a DTD or schema to create an EDD that contains structure definitions.
Use a conversion rules table to structure an existing sample document. Then create a first draft of the EDD that contains basic element definitions and formatting that matches your unstructured template.
Modify an existing EDD—one of the samples supplied with FrameMaker or an EDD from another source.
Based on the content analysis, you can now create the proposal EDD.
Make sure you are in Structured FrameMaker. To switch from unstructured to Structured FrameMaker, choose Product Interface drop-down list, select Structured FrameMaker. Close and restart FrameMaker.
. In theChoose
to create an EDD file. Default elements are inserted in the EDD.Choose Structure View panel.
to display theCreate the top-level <Proposal>
element.
Position your cursor to the right of the Tag bubble in the Structure
View, and type in Proposal. As you type, the letters
appear in both the Structure View and the document
window.
Open the Elements Catalog.
In the Structure View, click to the
right of the red box (which indicates that additional information is
required). Notice that the contents of the Elements catalog
change because of the new cursor location. In the Elements catalog,
select Container and click Insert.
The <Container>
element and a child <GeneralRule>
elements
are inserted. The general rule specifies which elements are allowed
inside the proposal element. During the content analysis, you identified
the following: title, executive summary, project description, cost,
and schedule.
Type a general rule for <Proposal>
: Title,
ExecSummary, ProjectDescription, Cost, Schedule
Insert a <ValidHighestLevel>
element
as a sibling of the <GeneralRule>
element.
To do so, click underneath the <GeneralRule>
element
to position your cursor, click the <ValidHighestLevel>
element
in the Elements catalog, and then click Insert.
The <Proposal>
element
is complete. You must now provide definitions for each of the child
elements: <ExecSummary>
, <ProjectDescription>
, <Schedule>
,
and <Cost>
.
Position your cursor at the bottom of the structure.
Using the Elements catalog, insert an
Element bubble. Name the element <ExecSummary>
,
make it a container, and specify the following as the general rule: Title,
Para+
Repeat step 2 to define the remaining elements. The general rules are shown in the following table:
Element |
General Rule |
---|---|
ProjectDescription |
Title, Para+ |
Cost |
Title, Para+ |
Schedule |
Title, Para+ |
Title |
<TEXT> (Type the word TEXT with angle brackets around it.) |
Para |
<TEXT> (Type the word TEXT with angle brackets around it.) |
Save your EDD file as proposal_EDD.fm.
You have now built an EDD that provides the structure for a simple proposal. However, when you type content, no formatting is applied.
The following section describes how to provide formatting, and how to automatically insert the correct text for the various titles. By default, text uses the Body paragraph style.
In structured_proposal.fm, choose and change the default definitions of the Body and Heading1 paragraph styles. For example, change the font or place a line above the Heading1. To make your changes obvious, you may also want to assign unique colors to the two tags.
In proposal_EDD.fm, modify the <Para>
element
definition to include a formatting rule. To specify that <Para>
should
always use the Body paragraph style, click under the <GeneralRule>
element,
add a <TextFormatRules>
element, and then
add an <ElementPgfFormatTag>
element. Type Body as
the text for the <ElementPgfFormatTag>
element.
For
the <Title>
element, you need more complex
formatting rules. <Title>
should automatically
display section titles, such as Executive Summary, Project Description,
and so on. You must write a context rule that specifies what text
to display for each type of heading, and specify that <Title>
uses
the Heading1 paragraph style.
In proposal_EDD.fm, modify the <Title>
element
definition to use the Heading1 paragraph style. Add the same <TextFormatRules>
and <ElementPgfFormatTag>
elements
as you did for the <Para>
element.
Next,
add a prefix rule to the <Title>
element.
Prefix rules let you specify text that should appear at the beginning
of the element. Based on the <Title>
’s position,
you’ll specify which text should be displayed.
Position your cursor in the <Title>
element
to insert a child of <Container>
after <TextFormatRules>
.
Insert a <PrefixRules>
element.
Insert a <ContextRule>
element. The <If>
and <Specification>
elements
are inserted automatically. For the <Specification>
text,
type ExecSummary.
Position your cursor underneath the Specification element and insert a Prefix element.
For the Prefix element text, type: Executive Summary
Repeat steps 3–5 for the other elements that need titles—<ProjectDescription>
, <Schedule>
,
and <Cost>
—and insert the appropriate text
for each prefix.
Save the EDD.
Import the element definitions into your structured_proposal.fm file to test the results. Each section should display the title text you’ve specified.
To test the EDD, you import it into a document and then verify that you can create the structure you expect. At this point, the document does not have any formatting, but you can still verify the structure.
Create a new, blank, portrait document by selecting Portrait.
, and then clickMake sure that the EDD and the new document file are both open. From the new document, choose Import from Document drop-down list, select the proposal_EDD.fm file and click Import.
. In theThe
structure definitions in your EDD are imported into the blank document.
To verify that the definitions were imported, position your cursor
in the main text flow and then display the Elements catalog.
You should see the <Proposal>
element.
Insert a <Proposal>
element. The <Title>
element,
which is required as the first child of <Proposal>
,
should now appear in the Elements catalog.
Insert the <Title>
element. Continue
inserting elements until your proposal structure is complete.
Save your file as structured_proposal.fm.