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How to draw a box around characters

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
April 15, 2019
4 replies
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Hello,

I'm trying to figure out a way to draw a box around characters to indicate certain keyboard actions. For example, I'd like to draw a box around CR to indicate Carriage return and LF for line feed. I need to include these this kind of thing a number of times throughout the document. I was trying to use a table (which might work) or text frame but thus far, I couldn't get it the way I wanted. Plus, I was hoping that there might be an easier way to do it.

Here is an example of what I am trying to do. Any help is greatly appreciated.

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Correct answer Matt-Tech Comm Tools

*I noticed my first screen capture didn't show the character designer settings. I've updated to include the settings I used in the example.

Here's an example, using Winfried Reng's suggestion of using a character tag to control the "box" and the color of the text. Note that because LF has both a leading and trailing space, Smart Spaces needs to be turned off in Format > Document > Text Options, or you need to place the LF and character tag in a variable.

While this doesn't have a box around the characters like your example, the text and background color can be whatever you want.

Placing the text and character tag in a variable would also give you an easy way to quickly and consistently insert the codes you need.

Matt-Tech Comm Tools

Correct answer

Community Expert

*I noticed my first screen capture didn't show the character designer settings. I've updated to include the settings I used in the example.

Here's an example, using Winfried Reng's suggestion of using a character tag to control the "box" and the color of the text. Note that because LF has both a leading and trailing space, Smart Spaces needs to be turned off in Format > Document > Text Options, or you need to place the LF and character tag in a variable.

While this doesn't have a box around the characters like your example, the text and background color can be whatever you want.

Placing the text and character tag in a variable would also give you an easy way to quickly and consistently insert the codes you need.

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

bobk21020394Author

Participating Frequently

Thank you Matt. I've never used this feature before. I'll give it a try.

Matt-Tech Comm Tools

Community Expert

did you get something usable?

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

Bob_Niland

Community Expert

What's the semantic context here?

I haven't seen a keyboard with a LineFeed cap since the ASR 33 teletype, and don't ever recall seeing one that had a Return/Enter key actually labeled "CR" or "CarriageReturn". The only key usually seen nowadays is "Enter↵" (and even that will vary by localization).

When I've had this requirement, I usually rely on a keycap-style font, or use a custom embedded vector graphic enclosing actual text (Frame graphics or SVG).

In a Unicode future that may not be near us, and a suitably populated font, the literal enclosed CR and LFs might be implemented with:
U+240D SYMBOL FOR CARRIAGE RETURN
U+240A SYMBOL FOR LINE FEED
U+20E3 COMBINING ENCLOSING KEYCAP

W

Winfried Reng

Community Expert

Hi,

You might also create a character style and set a background.

This would also highlight your characters.

Best regards

Winfried

bobk21020394Author

Participating Frequently

Thanks Winfried.

LinSims

Community Expert

Hmmm. Looking at the preview for keycaps, it doesn't appear to have anything like CR or LF as a character. So it looks as if your option is to create a graphic that can be inserted using the image insert. Sorry about that.

LinSims

Community Expert

There are two options.

Create individual graphics and insert them inline using the File > Import > Image function. You can probably find free graphics images of the different keyboard keycaps.
Find a keycap font and use a character tag to alter regular letters to a keycap image. There's one at the ShareFonts site. I've never used the site or the font, though, so I can't really comment on how well either would suit your needs.

Both of these will probably require some fiddling with the spacing between lines to prevent overlap, but Frame does a fair job of handling that if you make sure that the paragraph tag does NOT have Fixed line spacing selected.

bobk21020394Author

Participating Frequently

Thank you for the help. I'm going to try your first suggestion and see how works.

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