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LeeHoward
Participant
Mar 29, 2016 5:46 PM UTC
Question

How do I format PDF output from DITA?

I am evaluation FrameMaker. I produced a DITA document that publishes well to HTML formats.

But when I publish to PDF, I don't like the format.

It seems no matter what I do to change paragraph and character formats in WYSIWYG view,

the changes don't stick, but instead revert to the default formats.

What do I need to do to get the PDF output to keep the formatting I set?

Is there a specific template that must be changed?

Thanks for your help.

-Lee

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9 replies

surendrab87258306
surendrab87258306
Participant
Jun 11, 2018 2:26 PM UTC

Hi Lee,

Did you get the answer for this?

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Arnis Gubins
Arnis Gubins
Inspiring
Mar 31, 2016 6:00 PM UTC

You might want to have a look at this blog article on customizing FM DITA templates: [Guest Post] “Customize FrameMaker 2015 DITA Templates for your Corporate Design” by Bernard Aschwanden – TechComm Centr…

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    LeeHowardAuthor
    Participant
    Mar 31, 2016 8:12 PM UTC

    Thanks, Arnis Gubins this was exactly what I was looking for -- when I open structured topics, they are formatted correctly.

    (I edited the templates in C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\AdobeFrameMaker2015\Structure\xml\DITA_1.2\app\technicalContent\template).

    But when I save to PDF, it still reverts to some other template. Do you know which one it's using?

    Thanks again for your help, Arnis.

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    peterc47573221
    Known Participant
    May 25, 2016 9:44 AM UTC

    I had the same problem when I was evaluating FrameMaker.

    Although you're using the DITA_1.2 files, FrameMaker still looks at the \xml\DITA folder for outputting maps. Try editing:

    C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\AdobeFrameMaker2015\Structure\xml\DITA\outputTemplates\ditabase.template.fm

    I'm using DITA 1.3, so in order to get the PDF to format correctly, I had to edit:

    C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\AdobeFrameMaker2015\Structure\xml\DITA\outputTemplates\ditabase1.3.template.fm

    Interestingly, if you delete the xml\DITA folder (rename it would be better), Framemaker is forced to use:

    DITA_1.3\app\technicalContent\template\ditabase.template.fm

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      cudspan
      Inspiring
      Mar 31, 2016 4:44 PM UTC

      You have to modify the template that your DITA structured application uses for the topic.  I also use composite documents to generate DITA for a full map -- the ditamap template also must be updated.

      FrameMaker uses an EDD to map structure to formatting.  You might need to modify that EDD to control some of the formatting changes and then import the EDD into your template.  You also might need to modify the paragraph format catalog in the template.  Then, when Maker opens the DITA topic, it flows the XML into the template, and that should show your changes.

      I'm not giving much detail here...  All this is covered in the FrameMaker documentation.  In my opinion this is easier than using open source DITA tools to set up PDF output.  BUt it does take some work.

      Hope this helps...

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