FrameMaker to RoboHelp Conversion: Converting Complicated EDD Rules
I am creating a conversion file for structured FM files that we're linking in RH. For the most part, the work has been pretty straightforward. But the structured templates we use have given rise to several issues that I cannot overcome. These templates are old, I question the approach that was originally taken in authoring the EDD (very convoluted and overly complicated), and over the years, many tweaks have been added. In other words, a Franken-template of sorts.
Mapping the simple FM elements to new RH styles is what went well. Where I've found problems are the places in the EDD that use if/else conditions to determine the placement of elements on a page, usually indentation. The first instance I found was with our note/tip/caution/warning elements. Depending on how they were used, the if/else conditions used different rules for indentation and placed the element according to its contextual use. This was a puzzling challenge, since when you link the FM files in RH, you're pulling over the FM elements, but not these rules. So you end up with a single element and no way to differentiate indentation, depending on its contextual use in the RH file. My solution was to indent all of them four tabs universally, which fortunately worked in this case, given the purpose of the element I was dealing with...
However, I'm experiencing a similar problem with images, and see no reasonable workaround even. The images are associated with an anchored frame and a paragraph style. I thought I might be able to map the FM paragraph style to something in RH, but the FM style doesn't come over into RH, or at least I can't find it. I adjusted the image parameters in the Project Setting options and was able to initially get most of the images to appear reasonablly. However, I still have a lot of images coming in with funny margins/indentations: none, some centered on the page, others far right. It looks pretty bad and doesn't seem acceptable to me, given all the trouble I've gone through to tweak the rest of the template and the mapping features RH is supposed to offer with FM files.
I might be willing to create a new FM element and force the writers to reauthor the images, if that would work. But I'm not even sure if that would be a good solution or what approach I should take. Any direction regarding this possibility would also be appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
Douglas
