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Bob_Niland
Community Expert
Bob_NilandCommunity Expert
Community Expert
September 3, 2021
Question

FM to HTML character mapping

  • September 3, 2021
  • 1 reply
  • 163 views

I'm not presently using FM to generate HTML, but based on a couple of recent threads about non-breaking spaces and HTML, I was running some experiments.

According to the on line documentation, the mapping of special characters is controlled by the Character Macros table, found on one of the auto-connect Reference Pages all named "HTML". These RPs may not exist until you Publish to HTML5 or basic HTML for the first time.

The table, however, doesn't seem to do anything.

I changed the default:
| ® | ® |
to:
| ® | ® |
and the output markup remained "®" (Unicode U+00AE, also AEh in most Latin Extensions to ASCII).

FM appears, by default, to render Body text CTRL+space \x11 to HTML as an ordinary ASCII 20h, Unicode U+0020 space, and not as either   or U+00A0 NO-BREAK SPACE.

Adding a row to the Character Macros table, of
| CTRL+space |   |
did not change that.

So what does control mapping for HTML output?

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    1 reply

    frameexpert
    Community Expert
    frameexpertCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    September 5, 2021

    The HTML Reference pages are for the old Save As HTML command, which is still available in FrameMaker. As far as I know, they are not used for the newer File > Publish commands for HTML output.

      Bob_Niland
      Community Expert
      Bob_NilandCommunity ExpertAuthor
      Community Expert
      September 5, 2021

      re: The HTML Reference pages are for the old Save As HTML command…

      Thanks Rick, that would explain why the table appears to do nothing for the Publish path.

      re: …which is still available in FrameMaker.

      Yep, it's still there in FM2020 under
      File » Save-As » Save as type [HTML (*.htm)]
      and it appears to work (and honor the table).

      Amusingly, I first tried it using a test file of mine that I periodically use to check the status of Unicode SMP support in FM. Save-as-htm with that file causes FM to generate part of the html output, then wink out, leaving a lock file. FM doesn't support SMP yet, so I guess it's really not a bug.

       

      But this still leaves open the question of what FM2020 user controls might exist in the Publish path for controlling mapping of codepoints to HTML entities (or other markup).

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