Can Documents Fetch Data?

[Guest]

Hello,

New Technical Writer here; I've been teaching myself FrameMaker mostly by trial and error, and so far it's been going rather well.

I introduced my boss to FrameMaker (who loves it), but his ideas on what might can be done with the software are growing much faster than my experience. In this specific case, he wants to know if I can get a document to fetch data from another file or location, much like excel does when you tell it to take a figure from another cell and use it in a formula.

For example, lets say I have a bulleted list that goes something like this:

• Specification 1: ______________

• Specification 2: ______________

• ETC

Can I get FrameMaker to look somewhere for that data in say (preferably) an excel file, or at least fetch from another FrameMaker document? It's so similar to what Books do with Documents I would not be surprised if FrameMaker has it, but I cannot find it in the menus (or have but didn't know what I was looking at).

Sorry to ask a simple "how to" question, but I have yet to find much (free) training on this software, so I have been mostly left to my own whims (you don't want to know how many days I spent trying to figure out how to get the tab feature to work!). As such, if someone could direct me to a great learning source (preferably free but I would be willing to pay if I heard of a program that was worth the money) I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks!

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Is this fetching going to be changing all the time? If not, you could use Text Insets to do this I guess. If so, then you probably want to hook it up with a freebie database program like Mirano Personal Edition (search the forums for mention of it - Arnis Gubins has recommended it).

As for FM "books" I'd recommend Scriptorium.com's Unstructured FM8 Reference - it's clear & easy to understand and even though the UI is different in FM9+, it still works 99% the same.

[Van Kurtz]

If you go the text inset route, note that a text inset pulls in the entire flow of a document, not just part of it. HOWEVER, a document can have multiple flows. So, if the fetchable content is small, you can keep it all in one document, putting each chunk in its own flow. See the FrameMaker documentation for the details. I have not tried this with unstructured documents, so I may not have all the details correct.

[Bob_Niland]

Since you're probably on the Windows platform, Frame does support OLE, but it's just as unwise to use OLE in Frame as with any other application.

You can also extend Frame using the FDK, but that's apt to be more trouble than you had in mind.

[Guest]

Thank you all for your tips and advice.  I think I'm going to go the text inset route. I appreciate you all taking the time to help me out!