Convert text file to table on Import

[Moxamoll]

We have a lot of tables, that we'd like to maintain outside of FrameMaker (we're using FM9).  I've been trying to figure out the best way to do it, and using the Import>File>Convert option seems like the best.

However, my question is what is best practice for the type of files we use?  At first it seemed like using Excel and saving as a .csv or tab-delimited text file would be easiest.  But there doesn't seem to be a .csv convert option and setting "," as the delimiter means we can't use commas inside the cell content.  And it seems to import tab-delimited cells that contain a comma inside quotes.

It seems like the other option would be to use HTML for the table content.  We are new to all this stuff, so using HTML would add to the learning curve, but I can push it through if it's best practice/will make the cleanest conversions.  Or is there a way to use Excel that converts cleanly that I just haven't figured out?

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

[David_Crowe]

If your table formatting is not too demanding, you might try importing the Excel file directly “by Reference”. You can then update the table using Excel normally, and FrameMaker will simply grab the updated version when you want.

I did a quick test, and it works in principle. But I suspect making changes to the Excel table might alter the way it looks in FrameMaker when you don’t want it to. And working this way means you can’t use special FrameMaker table functions such as header rows, titles or footnotes. Maybe that’s not important to you.

[Michael_Müller-Hillebrand]

Moxamoll,

Are you using structured FrameMaker documents? If yes, a possible solution looks very different from non-structured documents and requires that we know which structure you use in your documents.

I am asking because this is the "Structured" part of the forums, but you did not mention anything like that.

- Michael

[Moxamoll]

My apologies, I didn't mention it BECAUSE this is the Structured section.  Yes, I'm using Structured and I've got all my table formatting set up in the EDD and Table Designer.

I'm looking for a way to import text from an outside source into the tables.

Thanks.

[Michael_Müller-Hillebrand]

OK, if this is not only a one-shot but repeating demand, I would do it something like this:

• store the source data in any XML form.
• create a structured app with XSL preprocessing that transforms the source XML into the XML expected by your structure.

Whenever a table needs to be updated I would open its XML form with that structured application and then copy & paste it in the document where needed.

Any other suggestions?

- Michael

[Van Kurtz]

Last year, based upon a comment on this forum, I imported an Excel table into a structured FrameMaker document by copy. FrameMaker created the table and applied its own version of a structure. For example, row elements were named ROW, cell elements were named CELL, etc. Because my table structure used different names, I had to change them to make the structure valid. There may have been some subtle issues with the table element itself. It was not clean but it got the job done.

Regarding Michael's suggestion  about XML, I DID try this once, and it worked fine. The exported XML from Excel was simple and clean. The XSLT was therefore easy to write. If you have lots of tables to do, this might be the best way to go. It may take some work to get it working correctly, but once it is, subsequent work will be minimized.

Regarding XML from Excel, I was using the old Excel format xls. I have not worked with the newer xlsx format, which IS based upon XML. If you are using xlsx, I would be sure to export as XML and not "save" as XML (not sure what the command would be) in order to avoid getting all the XML used in newer Excel to store formatting and other meta information.

Good luck.