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FrameMaker tab character via XSLT

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
April 30, 2020
2 replies
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Hi, I am using XSLT to transform some XML for import into FrameMaker. I need an entity or character in my XML that will import as a FrameMaker tab character. I tried \t and 	 but they both come in as a single space. Any help would be appreciated.

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Correct answer frameexpert

I had to set this flag in the maker.ini:

[Preferences]

RemoveExtraWhiteSpacesOnXMLImport=Off

In my stylesheet, I am using  for a soft-return and 	 for a tab character. I am glad this works, however, I think it is a poor design choice to have this in the maker.ini because, as far as I know, this setting is persistent for a FrameMaker session. It would be better if I could turn this on and off based on my structured application.

frameexpert

Author

Community Expert

Correction on "poor design choice": This property is actually exposed so it can be set programmatically so the maker.ini doesn't have to be changed. I can simply use this in my script:

app.RemoveExtraWhiteSpacesOnXMLImport = 0;

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L

Lynne A. Price

Inspiring

Russ, Rick,

Handling white space is very difficult because there are numerous situations that look the same but users want to be handled differently. How do you process something that you can't see? There are many use cases that require importing pretty-printed XML where indentation is caused by tab characters. There are other cases where tabs are significant for displaying a screen layout or something similar. Sometimes white space characters can be inserted as entity references, possoibly mapped to FM variables. Users might think about white space created by an automatic process such as XML export from FM differently than they do about white space explicitly entered by a user. I believe automatic determination about the significance of white space is one of the hardest things to define in text processing.

--Lynne

frameexpert

Author

Community Expert

Hi Lynne, Thank you for your post. I agree that white space can be tricky to figure out and process. However, I was a little surprised that output created with this <xsl:text>	</xsl:text> in my stylesheet became a single space on import to FrameMaker. The same with this: <xsl:text></xsl:text>. When I set this before import:

app.RemoveExtraWhiteSpacesOnXMLImport = 0;

I get the desired characters on import. -Rick

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frameexpert

Author

Community Expert

<entry>
  <marker text="openObjectId 10.1.fm:2 1185846"/>
  <text>Operations in Icing Conditions	10.1.22</text>
</entry>

There is a table character between the text and the section number, but when I import into FrameMaker, it gets flattened to a single space. I would like it to come in to FrameMaker as a tab character.

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R

Russ Ward

Legend

Hi Rick,

Somebody like Lynne might come by with the correct answer, but I wonder, is there any way to just put a tab in your XML source? It is within the ASCII range and should import as an FM tab.

Russ

frameexpert

Author

Community Expert

Hi Russ,

I thought so too as it shows as a tab when I transform through Oxygen, but in FrameMaker, it comes in as a single space character. For expediency, I added a <tab> element between the title and page number and have a prefix rule in the EDD that adds a tab. It is for a custom "generated" document so it won't interfere with editing, but I think I am missing something obvious.

Rick

www.frameexpert.com

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