Preparing FrameMaker documents for conversion to Help

If the FrameMaker document that you are importing is an unstructured FrameMaker book, you can define a single FrameMaker template for the conversion. You can then specify this template as the project template that overrides the formats of individual documents at the RoboHelp project level. You can also reuse the conversion settings across other projects by exporting the conversion settings.

Carefully examine the FrameMaker templates before importing the documents into RoboHelp, such as when you use a general-purpose FrameMaker template. If this template contains formats that aren’t used in the book, omit those formats in the template you use for the conversion.

1)Create a FrameMaker template that contains the formats you need in Help. Alternatively, customize the FrameMaker template. You don’t have to apply the template manually. You can set RoboHelp to apply a selected template to FrameMaker files before they are linked or imported to RoboHelp.

In Structured FrameMaker, the element definition document (EDD) or the DTD used in the structured FrameMaker template automatically controls formatting. Because structured FrameMaker enforces a valid structure and format, structured documents do not contain format overrides.

2)Apply context-sensitive Help markers to the required topics. See Convert context-sensitive Help markers from FrameMaker documents.

3)Enclose graphics, callouts, and graphic or text frames you created with FrameMaker graphic tools into anchored frames. RoboHelp imports only those FrameMaker graphics that are enclosed in anchored frames. By default, when you import graphics and multimedia files into a FrameMaker document, these are placed in anchored frames. On the other hand, if your FrameMaker document contains graphics that are placed in graphic frames, you should place these into anchored frames before linking or importing the FrameMaker files into RoboHelp.

note:    If the offset for an image in the FrameMaker file is set to a negative value, the image can be partly hidden in the HTML. Change the value before importing.

4)To maintain the original quality of images, insert them in FrameMaker documents by refer­ence. RoboHelp copies the referenced images directly from the source if the complete image is visible inside the anchored frame. Similarly, if the images are large, insert them in the source document by reference.

5)Fix any issues in the document such as unresolved cross-references, missing fonts, and irreg­ular numbering issues. See FrameMaker Help for more information.

6)Set up alternate text or captions for the images and graphics to create accessible online content. See Create alternate text for images.

7)Apply conditional text settings in FrameMaker documents. See FrameMaker Help.

8)Edit the FrameMaker TOC reference pages to have indented hierarchical headings with different styles. See Convert a FrameMaker TOC.


September 30, 2016

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