Automate the process of saving Framemaker documents (*.fm) as Xml Files

Report · Apr 17, 2015

Hi,

I am new to framemaker. We have a list of Framemaker document files (*.fm files) coming into a folder. We need to pick up these files and convert to xml format (same as the saveAs opertion from the File menu).

I have written the follwing function to Save fm files to xml

Code to Save fm files to xml files

function saveAsXml (doc) {

// Get required parameters for the save function.

var params = GetSaveDefaultParams();

var returnParamsp = new PropVals();

// Replace the .fm extension with .mif.

var saveName = doc.Name.replace (/\.[^\.\\]+$/,".xml");

var i = GetPropIndex(params, Constants.FS_FileType);

params.propVal.ival = Constants.FV_SaveFmtXml;

// Save the document as XML.

doc.Save(saveName, params, returnParamsp);

}

How to automate this process so that code checks -

1) New fm files in the folder

2) Saves the fm file as xml

3) Moves the saved fm file to a different folder

Thanks,

GC

[Message moved to Scripting Forum by moderator]

Report · Apr 20, 2015

Have a look at the sample script below. The "while" loop waits for the specified number of milliseconds, then reads the contents of a directory and processes every individual file in the directory. In my example, it just prints the file path to the console. You would replace this part with your Open / Save as / Move sequence.

For more file system commands, refer to Adobe's Javascript Tools Guide, "File object functions".

var stop = false;
while( stop==false ) {
    // Wait for 20.000 ms
    $.sleep(20000);
    var fld = new Folder("c:/incoming");
    var filesInFld = fld.getFiles("*.fm");
    for(var f=0; f < filesInFld.length; f++) {
        // process the individual file
        $.writeln(filesInFld); 
    }
    // Exit the  loop after 19:00
    var time = new Date();
    if( time.getHours() > 19 ) stop = true;
}

Report · Apr 20, 2015

JoH's script is good but it may eventually time out or run out of memory. Where are the .fm files coming from? A better approach may be to have a script on their machine that will automatically save and send an XML file to the incoming folder whenever they close the .fm document.