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J
Joshiro100
Participant
June 29, 2010
Question

New to FrameMaker ~ How to define elements?

  • June 29, 2010
  • 2 replies
  • 1288 views

I'm new to FrameMaker and was hoping somebody could help me. I've just uploaded a huge document from Microsoft Word into FrameMaker and I'm having issues with elements. Does anybody know how to define an element for the entire document? When I go into "element validation" on the side toolbar, I keep getting notices that my entire document is undefined.

Hope this made sense! Thanks in advance!

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    2 replies

    Matt-Tech Comm Tools
    Community Expert
    Matt-Tech Comm ToolsCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    June 30, 2010

    Hi Jen, Russ's advice is sound, but do you know that you *need* structured FM?

    If so, then that structured model should be known by your org and you should have a structured template (an existing FM doc with structured content will do...)

    You then need to create the conversion table (you've done that) and start assigning to the structure model you were given in the structured template.

    If you don't have any structured content or a structured template, you're probably working harder than you have to.

    If you do have those things, then you'll need to understand your structure model (either the EDD or element definition document or the DTD, the Document Type Definition). That will be critical to understanding what the conversion document is supposed to do.

    Finally...if this is the only document you have to convert, you may find that you're working really hard to do something you are not likely to do again. You might want to consider contracting out, as it may save you money, and will definitely save you time.

    -Matt

    BTW, if you're looking to learn all of this, we offer classes in Str FM Authoring, EDD Creation, Conversion, and Structured App Development...

    -Matt Sullivan, FrameMaker Course Creator, Author, Trainer, Consultant
    A
    Anonymous
    June 29, 2010

    Joshiro, welcome to the forum.

    Just to be clear, are you clear about the difference between a structured document and a regular, "non-structured" document? It sounds as if perhaps you have your FrameMaker interface set to be structured but that to start with you might just want regular until you get your bearings in FM. Check out File > Preferences and at the bottom see "Product Interface", and then you'll have to close FM and re-open it for the switch to occur.

    Sheila

    J
    Joshiro100Author
    Participant
    June 29, 2010

    Hello Sheila,

    Thank you for the quick response!

    Just to give a quick recap of what I've been working on:

    Basically, I made a conversion table which allowed me to convert my document into a "structured document." After that, I clicked on the "structure view" which showed me all the red areas that needed to be fixed. I fixed most of the red areas in the document; however, there is this huge red line that extends from the beginning to the end of my document in the "structure view" which says "no name" at the top. 

    So, just to summarize what you just said, I have to be in the original document (the one before I made a conversion table) in order to fix the red area? How would I go about doing this?

    Thank you for your help!

    Jen

    R
    Russ Ward
    Legend
    June 30, 2010

    Hi Jen,

    That "NoName" business happens when the conversion table process cannot complete perfectly. Basically, what happened is that the process ran into something that was not accounted for in your conversion table and did not know what to do with it, so it aborted the activity on whatever branch it was on and went back to the main branch. Afterwards, even if you had rules in the table that you thought would wrap all the way to the root, they could not be applied because there was some big unknown stuck in the middle somewhere.

    If you explore the newly structured document, you should be able to find where the glitch occurred. There will likely be some chunk of text just sitting on the main branch with no element tag. That was the text that tripped up the process. You may see it in more than one place, if there are multiple problems in the source file. With that, you have some choices:

    - Figure out what the problem was and adjust your conversion table to account for it

    - Figure out what the problem was and adjust the source file so that the current conversion table works

    - Add that "root wrapper" rule to the conversion table (I forget what it is called, but it is something that sets the root element (HLE) no matter what the outcome. It will not fix the underlying problem of the unrecognized text, though.)

    - Just live with it and fix the structure by hand after the conversion process. You can change the root element tag by selecting it, then selecting an element name in the catalog, and clicking Change.

    You can actually combine any of these methods to get the desired outcome. The best way is always subject to your current situation... there is no cookie-cutter solution that applies to every situation. Stick with it... you'll start to get the hang of it in time.

    Good luck,

    Russ

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