Known Participant

Question

Breaking underscore in FM

Forum|Forum|11 months ago
February 13, 2025
3 replies
1769 views

Our developers have highlighted that content in our documentation with subscripts (for example - for the term tSTAB_DB - where "STAB_DB" is subscript) containing underscores is breaking across two lines.

For example "tstab_db" breaks at the underscore and appears on 2 lines as if a carriage return were present (when copied with formatting and pasted).

Also, these terms are not searchable in a PDF. Searches for complete terms are inconsistent. You can search on "tstab" but not for "tstab_db".

How should this content be entered into FM so that this does not happen when accessing the content in a PDF?

W

Winfried Reng

Community Expert

Hi,

I just tested this here. The text after the underscore breaks only, if the text is at the end of a line.

I can also search in Acrobat for the text including the subscript text without any problems.

When I copy this text from the PDF and paste it in Word or NotePad++ or FrameMaker, there aren't any line breaks.

Strange.

Do you still have this issue?

Do you also have this issue, if you just test this with the FrameMaker default template and not with your company template?

Can you show us the settings in the Character Designer for your subscript format? Are all settings defined in your subscript format or do you also have some As Is settings?

Which PDF application do you and your developers use?

Which font do you use?

Do you use the structured or unstructured interface in FrameMaker?

Best regards, Winfried

D

Debbie34984295jih4Author

Known Participant

This goes back to my initial premise that something came along for the ride with the initial copy/paste process - I found the issue in my original source document. Using Notedpad ++ does not fix the issue. The only work-around has to locate an instance where it works correctly and then paste to non-functioning text.

We apply the standard "subscript" checkbox in Character Designer using:

Font: Arial

and Structured FM

Matt-Tech Comm Tools

Community Expert

Save the offending doc as MIF and open in a text editor...

How is the character represented in MIF?

If intermittent, can you find an instance where it works as expected?

Can you search/replace one with the other?

-Matt Sullivan, FrameMaker Course Creator, Author, Trainer, Consultant

D

Debbie34984295jih4Author

Known Participant

Thanks - no sure what I am looking for - here's the result for "t" underscore -"stab_db" in MIF - this is an example of one that breaks as described:

<Para
<Unique 1697581>
<PgfTag `table-body-center'>
<Pgf
<PgfNextTag `'>
> # end of Pgf
<ParaLine
<String `t'>
<Font
<FTag `'>
<FPosition FSubscript>
<FLocked No>
> # end of Font
<String `STAB_DB'>
> # end of ParaLine
> # end of Para

-------------

frameexpert

Community Expert

What application is the dev team pasting the text into? You can prevent the break in FrameMaker but that doesn't control how the target application handles line breaks.

Jeff_Coatsworth

Community Expert

Not sure about the subscript part, but have you added your underscore term to the custom hyphenation rules/dictionary?

frameexpert

Community Expert

Choose Format > Document > Text Options and make sure there is not an underscore in the Allow Line Breaks After field.

D

Debbie34984295jih4Author

Known Participant

Good suggestion - unfortunately, that did not did the trick - the item on the left is from the PDF - when copied (with formatting) and pasted elsewhere - the term breaks at the first underscore:

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