Inspiring

Question

Linking to Framemaker

Forum|Forum|14 years ago
October 20, 2011
4 replies
2976 views

Hello all,

When I link to an FM doc, I can make changes (i.e. add image maps to pics, restructure the TOC) to the help file to make it more of a help file. Tweaks, and so forth.

However, the next time I update from FM, all the customization gets wiped and I must start again.

Is there any way to stop that from happening? Can RH be told to update only things that have changed? There is a box to "not update images", but will that preserve image maps?

If it does this all the time, there really does not seem to be much advantage to be gained by "linking" instead of "importing" a doc. Updating a linked file seems to use a brute force approach, forcing you to start from scratch, with no intelligence involved. Can there be?

Thanks for the help.

This topic has been closed for replies.

R

RoboAsh

Participating Frequently

Hi dcrouse10,

If the changes done to the topic (pertaining to a FM document) in RoboHelp are mutualy exclusive to changes done in FrameMaker, then you can preserve the changes in such a topic(FM document)

1. Right click on the FM document link

2. Open properties dialog

3. Select File update settings as shown below

4. check the topics you do not want to update on updating the link.

This will preserve these topics in RoboHelp and will not update wil book/document update

Hope this will help

Regards

Ashish

JDHickey

Known Participant

Greetings!

I believe this is the thread that contains some of the information I need, but I want to clarify it. I have a RoboHelp project with linked files from Framemaker. Up to now, I've been putting all the information in Frame and then building the Help from RoboHelp, which is all fine and dandy.

But now I'm at the stage where I want to add image maps to the graphics in the topics so that the user can click the images to select other topics (the application I'm documenting has oodles of tabs in each of its windows). I tried to add the image mappings in RH, but when refreshed the linked files, the mappings all disappeared.

Does this mean that if I want to add image maps to the graphics to point to other topics, I will need to break the link with the Frame files, because otherwise they'll always get wiped out if I do an Update? Is there no way to preserve these image maps?

I'm using RoboHelp 9.0, BTW. If it means I have to break the links, then that's what I'll do, but I was gettin' all excited by the linked files and such. It would be huge disappointment.

--

JD Hickey

Documentia Inc.

www.documentia.ca

Matt-Tech Comm Tools

Community Expert

I haven't checked specifically with RH integration, but FM allows you to process image maps when exporting to HTML. Use text frames with hypertext markers for the map areas, and match them to hypertext markers for the named destinations and you should be ready to go.

-Matt Sullivan

@mattrsullivan

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

Matt-Tech Comm Tools

Community Expert

(Sorry...was logged in with my AATC id when first posting....)

Hi dcrouse10,

There are many things allowing you to tweak for online or print.

Among the things that help:

Linking your paragraph styles to css styles to address numbering, formatting, and topic starts
Using conditional text to more accurately describe online vs. print content or graphics
Applying a separate FM template to redefine variables and xref formats

Once your content is in RH, you can then set your various SSL's to produce different versions of the Help, or to create role-based help that reflects the conditional text you set in FM.

All of them must be handled from Framemaker, as it is the Single Source for your content.

Editing the RH content is the same as editing your PDF output...any postprocessing of material made outside of FM will be wiped out.

-Matt

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

A

Anonymous

Hi dcrouse10,

There are many things allowing you to tweak for online or print.

Among the things that help:

Linking your paragraph styles to css styles to address numbering, formatting, and topic starts
Using conditional text to more accurately describe online vs. print content or graphics
Applying a separate FM template to redefine variables and xref formats

Once your content is in RH, you can then set your various SSL's to produce different versions of the Help, or to create role-based help that reflects the conditional text you set in FM.

All of them must be handled from Framemaker, as it is the Single Source for your content.

Editing the RH content is the same as editing your PDF output...any postprocessing of material made outside of FM will be wiped out.

-Matt

Jeff_Coatsworth

Community Expert

Should be posted in the FM Integration forum; nevertheless, there is a way of preserving RH topics from getting updated with FM content when linked by right-clicking the topic & telling it to not update or something like that (I import, so I don't run into this). There's no way to "preserve" the other stuff that you're tweaking as far as I know.

Captiv8r

Legend

Uhhh, Jeff, if you would aim before shooting you would have realized the post is already inside the Framemaker integration forum.

Jeff_Coatsworth

Community Expert

Sorry, replying via e-mail client doesn't show the changes until a new post shows up - was sort of waiting to see Peter's note that it had been moved as well like the OP's other post.

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