FrameMaker help with heading order

[sakopp@mmm.com]

At work I have been thrown into the role of becoming the Framemaker expert. I'm familiar with Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign, but brand new with FM and trying to figure it out. (I'm using version 16.0.4.1062.)

We have many documents that need to be updated that were formatted by my predecessor. They all have, at the top of page 1, a text frame with title information. At the bottom is a text frame containing the document text that flows to the following pages.

I need to first export them as .rtf files so that others can open them in MS Word and redline the changes. This is working fine. However, several of the .rtf files have the title information at the very end of the document instead of at the beginning. In Framemaker, those documents display correctly with the title at the top of page 1. But when I look at the Navigation View, the title is at the end of the list instead of the beginning.

So I believe this is why the .rtf document isn't correct. Is there a way I can change the order of the title heading?

Thanks for the help.

[frameexpert]

The export filter probably exports one FrameMaker flow at a time, regardless of where it starts on the page.

[FrameMaker-dk]

You may have more luck, if you publish/save to pdf. Then op the pdf and export to word/rtf. I update a major electronical standard this way, where the owners want a workflow going from word to frame to word etc. and using pdf as an inbetween have proven solid.

[Winfried Reng]

Possibly the order of the creation of the two text frames is important.

You might open the master pages and cut and paste one of the two text frames and then export to RTF and then try again with the other text frame.

[sakopp@mmm.com]

Some good thoughts. Thanks everyone. So far the best option looks like it's going to be to create a .pdf first, then a .doc from that. It's a bit of a hassle but at least it gets the results in the end. At least I should be able to create a batch process for .pdf to .doc.

This brings up another peculiarity. Sometimes in Framemaker selecting File >> Save as PDF… creates a file where the pages are blank except for a tiny, low res image in the middle of each page. I don't expect anyone to know what's going on there but I thought I'd throw that out and see what happens.

Thanks again.

[Bob_Niland]

Try the File » Publish [PDF] route.

I've not seen the Save-as-PDF (or Print-to-PDF) route render as thumbnails, but I wonder it that might depend on the currently configured default printer instance.
Check File » Print Setup ▼ Adobe PDF
and then the page size & other options within.

[sakopp@mmm.com]

Thanks for the ideas. I'll have to try that several times before I can determine if it fixes the issue.

[FrameMaker-dk]

I don't think you will be able to "iron" out the creation of blank pages. I believe it is an error in that version of FrameMaker. It also sometimes produced pdf files of completely different, random files than the source. My suggestion would be to upgrade to 2022 if the problem is persistent and big.

[sakopp@mmm.com]

Thanks for the idea. I didn't realize there's a newer version. I did install it. But it didn't correct the problem with moving the title block to the end of the .rtf.

[FrameMaker-dk]

The simplest option is probably to just fix the issue. Connec the two text frames. You may have resize the top text frame forcing it to continue at the next textframe in the flow.

[Bob_Niland]

Before connecting Text Frames, make sure they are the same Flow (usually A). They get collapsed to the same Flow upon connect, and I'm not sure what the priority is.

The Frames don't need to be contiguous on the page, but might need to be re-sized if the re-flow does something undesired.

Frame connect is found at:
Format » Customize Layout » Connect Text Frames

[Bob_Niland]

re: They all have, at the top of page 1, a text frame with title information. At the bottom is a text frame containing the document text that flows to the following pages.

Do you know why that page layout was used? Normally, a paragraph format named Title can be placed in the normal Flow A body text frame, and set off via its format attributes in Paragraph Designer.

I personally do what I can to avoid having to need specific chapter/section initial page layouts (that often need to be mapped via Reference Page table & Apply Master Pages), and in particular multiple-Body-frame layouts.

This, of course, is just one aspect of the possibly-impossible challenge of easy FM⇌Word round-tripping.

[sakopp@mmm.com]

Thanks for all the input.

I don't know why this layout was used. That pre-dates me. These are product documents so the title block on the first page is made to have a consistent look across all products. Perhaps they didn't want the title information to flow with the rest of the text? No idea.

"The simplest option is probably to just fix the issue." Normally I'd agree. But we're talking dozens if not humdreds of doocuments and not all of them have the issue. Also I'm not familiar enough with FrameMaker to know how to do it.