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Create TOC in structured FrameMaker

Community Expert ,
Feb 04, 2024 Feb 04, 2024

I'm looking at a manual made in structured FrameMaker and I am a bit out of my league here.

The book file holds a number of TOC's. I'm trying to figure out how these TOC's are put together. I can create a stand alone TOC by defining elements to include, but the TOC file I generate seems to break the structure in the book. And I am not able to insert an element in the books structure. Trying to so just doesn't call up the elements dialogue. Anybody who can point me in the right direction?

 


Bjørn Smalbro - FrameMaker.dk
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Participant ,
Feb 04, 2024 Feb 04, 2024

Auto-generated TOC's are always generated as unstructured documents.
To change the appearance of the TOC's, use paragraph or character formatting instead of element tags.

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Community Expert ,
Feb 04, 2024 Feb 04, 2024

Thanks @yatani These TOC's are structured, though. So I guess they are not auto generated? Are there any other ways of generating a structured TOC using elements?


Bjørn Smalbro - FrameMaker.dk
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Participant ,
Feb 04, 2024 Feb 04, 2024

If you already have a structured TOC's , you can import formatting and element definitions into your new TOC's .
However, applying elements to the TOC's  is a manual process.

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Community Expert ,
Feb 05, 2024 Feb 05, 2024

Thanks. I have been trying to do just that - insert the elements manually, but I get stuck. When I have inserted the element in the structure, I would expect to get a dropdown or have a panel where I can pick the content I want to reference. I thought Cross References might be the solution, but that doesn't  work. How do I establish the connection between the element in the TOC and the content in other chapter files?


Bjørn Smalbro - FrameMaker.dk
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Community Expert ,
Feb 05, 2024 Feb 05, 2024
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Hi Bjørn,

Generated files in Structured FrameMaker are always unstructured, but you can add them to the book's structure. The unstructured, generated components will show up as generic BOOK-COMPONENT elements. You can see in the screenshot that I have wrapped these into elements that I have defined in my EDD.

 

image.pngexpand image

 

Here is how the parts-book element is defined in my EDD (and associated DTD):

 

image.pngexpand image

Since the purpose of the toc and ix elements is just to hold the generated files and make the book valid, they have a simple definition in the EDD:

 

image.pngexpand image

 

Having a valid book structure is not always important; in this example, the client is exporting the entire book to XML so they want a valid book structure in FrameMaker. In most of my structured work, the client does not need a structured book because they are only printing and publishing from FrameMaker and the book's XML is not used anywhere else. For example, here is a client's FrameMaker book that is generated from DITA content. We don't bother with the book's structure because we just need each component's structure to be valid.

 

image.pngexpand image

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