I need to export FrameMaker docs and retain the image file names.

Forum|Forum|1 month ago
March 2, 2026
3 replies
93 views

I want to export a FrameMaker book as PDF (or some other format) and retain the names of all the embedded images. My company needs several user guides ultimately converted to Markdown for use in a custom LLM. Currently, the LLM returns text but skips over any and all images unless the image is specifically referenced in the text (see image below, etc.). Is there a way via a plugin or script to accomplish this?

Jeff_Coatsworth

Community Expert

Why not go the FM to HTML route and then convert the HTML to Markdown?

rleepurvisAuthor

Participant

I’ll look into it. Thanks for the advice.

rleepurvisAuthor

Participant

Thank you for getting back to me. We don’t want the name to appear anywhere in the text; we just want the image names retained upon export/conversion. All the images (well, most of the images) retain there original positions upon export. Right now, my process involves exporting a PDF from FrameMaker; using Adobe Acrobat to convert the PDF to Microsoft Word .docx; then, using a command-line tool called Pandoc to render a Markdown version from the .docx. Following all this, the images get renamed to “image1.png” etc. So when the Markdown is used in the LLM to offer responses to user queries it fails to pull up the associated images. My company is convinced that if the names for the images are retained (since the images have context-specific naming conventions [“contact_button.png”; “viewer_window” etc.]). I’m happy to hear there might be a solution available via ExtendScript. Unfortunately, having no experience with ExtendScript, I’m worried I won’t have enough time to figure things out.

frameexpert

Community Expert

The images are being renamed somewhere in the FrameMaker to PDF or PDF to Word process. My guess is the FM to PDF process. There is no way to control this that I know of.

The alternative is to use a script to extract the names and put them somewhere in the text where they will be preserved. Then in the Markdown step, you can put them where you want them, ideally, in a programmatic way.

You could also look at going directly from FrameMaker to Markdown using scripting. The feasibility of this would depend on how consistent your FrameMaker documents are. You are welcome to contact me offlist if you want to explore a scripting solution. rick at frameexpert dot com

www.frameexpert.com

frameexpert

Community Expert

This could be done with ExtendScript, but there was no image included with your post to see how and where you want the image name to appear in the text.

www.frameexpert.com

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded