Framemaker 9 and Ditamaps

[MarttiP]

Hi,

I took a very brief look into FM9 . It allows to save a ditamap as a single fm file or a fm book. What I need is to mangle the topic content (things like converting note-elements into special tables etc.) before it is written as fm-file. Is it possible to use own xsl-transformation for topics during map to fm processing?. What templates and rw's are being used?. The same that are used for topics?. Can this be controlled?

The online documentation did not tell (or I didn't find..).

BR, Martti

[ScottPrentice]

Hi Martti...

In FM8 there was a separate Book application that used an import XSL to aggregate the topic files into a book. In FM9 that's all done by some internal process, which as far as I can tell isn't accessible for modification. There's no specific "app" that controls the conversion of a map to a book, so I don't know where you'd add code to modify what's generated.

BTW .. DITA-FMx 1.1 (beta) works with FM9 and does still make use of a separate Book application for this conversion, so that does provide an XSL that you can tweak to modify the way the files are written.

Cheers,

...scott

Scott Prentice

Leximation, Inc.

www.leximation.com

[MarttiP]

Hi Scott,

Thanks for info, that clarified the situation.

I'll download DITA-FMx and give it a try and let the customer know. They need one-way ticket only, to get PDF fro DITA with the "manual touch" if necessary.

BR Martti

[ScottPrentice]

Hi Martti...

DITA-FMx is most useful for it's extended DITA authoring features, but the 1.1 version does provide a number of new book-building features that may be of use for you as well. (If you can wait for a week or so, the Beta 2 should be out which provides even more book-building features.) Be sure to grab the 1.1 Beta since the 1.0 version does not support FM9 ..

     http://leximation.com/dita-fmx/

Cheers,

...scott