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frameexpert
Community Expert
frameexpertCommunity Expert
Community Expert
November 23, 2020
Question

Write XML from FrameMaker to a file with ExtendScript

  • November 23, 2020
  • 2 replies
  • 773 views

It seems like I posted something like this a long time ago, but I am not sure. I have some table elements in an FrameMaker document that I want to write out to XML with ExtendScript. I find the XML object in ExtendScript very useful and I am hoping to use that instead of isolating each table and using Save As XML. I suppose I need some kind of recursive function to write the elements and attributes to XML, but if anyone has an algorithm already developed, I would appreciate seeing it (or just having it described in pseudocode). Thank you very much. -Rick

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2 replies

Ian Proudfoot
Ian Proudfoot
Legend
November 24, 2020

Hi Rick,

I did something like that for the Adobe S1000D applicability handling system. I'm not at liberty to share the Adobe source code for that, but here's a general walk through of what I did:

  1. Create a recursive function that walks through the FrameMaker structure.
  2. For selected 'root' element create an ES XML object (it will need a temporary child element too or the XML Object isn't created.).
  3. Read the Attributes array for each FM attribute and create an equivalent ES Attribute object and append it to the current element.
  4. Check the current FM element for properties that are not present in the structure model such as graphic file references or xref format properties.
  5. Consider saving unstructured FM markers as XML processing instructions or XML elements if appropriate
  6. Walk the structure tree for each descendant FM element.
  7. You will now have an XML element object that is an exact match for the chosen FM structure.
  8. Create an ES File object and save the XML object to the file.

 

This method is really quick and to be honest feels more natural that FrameMaker's built-in XML handling as it does away with the need for read/write rules and EDD/template management.

frameexpert
Community Expert
frameexpertCommunity ExpertAuthor
Community Expert
November 24, 2020

Excellent Ian, thank you very much! I really like the ExtendScript XML object. I wish it was more feature rich, like with Xpath 3.1 support, but it is pretty good as is. I will try your approach. Fortunately, the table structure is pretty simple so it should be straight forward to script. Thanks again!

Ian Proudfoot
Ian Proudfoot
Legend
November 24, 2020

Yes the XML object is very useful. I've been using it to pre-check XML documents where the doctype is the same for about 120 different schemas. I can query the content using the XPath 1.0 then select the required XML application for FrameMaker. It's so fast you wouldn't know it was happening!

In the past I've used XML as the format for configuration files using the ES XML object, but now I do that in JSON using the public domain JavaScript to JSON converter (json2.js). You only need to save the ES object as JSON then write it to a file. Reading is just as easy and converts the JSON back into an ES object. Couldn't be easier!

V
vigneshwaranb
Known Participant
November 24, 2020

Dear Rick,

Not sure if my answer is relevant to your query. But i had developed a script in vba.

I copy the table from Fm to word file.

Run the vba script, which simply wraps the respective elements around the content in each cell.

The logic i had used is.

1. The script selects the cell which is accomplished using select property.

2. Using the methods insertbefore and insertafter the respective elements are inserted around the selected cell.

3. This is done until the last cell in the table.

 

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