How do I assign a character format in marker text?

Forum|Forum|10 months ago
March 12, 2025
6 replies
1611 views

I'm generating a List of Markers to serve as an index of figures with their respective sources rather than citing the source with each figure in the body of the book. I'm using a marker on each figure and then adding the source in the marker text. Some of the sources require bold or italicized type, and using the <> building blocks doesn't work; it just generates the text exactly as I type it into the Marker Text.

(So instead of having "source stuff document title date" it says "source stuff <Italics>document title</> date")

I inherited this project and the syntax was already there, so I assume it was working in prior versions. What's wrong and how do I fix it?

frameexpert

Community Expert

Here is a 10-minute video that illustrates my programmatic solution. Apply character formatting to a list by making a FrameMaker index act like a FrameMaker list.

https://youtu.be/p3TQRpvbYjs

frameexpert

Community Expert

You can make an index look somewhat like a list if you remove Group Titles from the index. Go to the IX Reference Page and delete the contents of the GroupTitlesIX paragraphs, while leaving the empty paragraph intact.

L

Lin23827968yzveAuthor

Known Participant

I tried that, and FrameMaker crashed and it still didn't work as expected. Is that the only change I should be making to the reference pages?

frameexpert

Community Expert

Let me know if you want to meet via Zoom or Teams. It is probably easier to troubleshoot it that way. Please contact me offlist: rick at frameexpert dot com

Barb Binder

Community Expert

@Jeff_Coatsworth you provided the light bulb moment. The character styles do work as intended in an index but not in a list. The same marker be pulled into either, but when you make a list the words appear, when you make an index they assign the character style.

So @Lin23827968yzve: this is confusing: "I'm generating a List of Markers to serve as an index of figures" because you can generate a list or an index. If those character styles were working before, it was because it was an Index of Markers (IOM) and not a List of Markers (LOM). Take a look at the bottom of the Insert menu while in the book window:

Create TOC is the most popular list, so it is pullled out for our convenience.
List Of is next and offers the remainder of the list options, including Markers and Markers (Alphabetical). Character styles will not work in these.
Standard Index is the most popular index, so it is pulled out for our convenience.
Index Of is last and displays the other index options and also offers Markers. You need to use this one.

~Barb

~Barb at Rocky Mountain Training

F

FrameMaker-dk

Community Expert

The small example I showed above, is from the reference pages of a List Of (subject) Markers. You can accomplish the desired for formatting by applying character tags to the reference pages. Not in the markers, though - that is true

Bjørn Smalbro - FrameMaker.dk

Jeff_Coatsworth

Community Expert

This help page - https://help.adobe.com/en_US/framemaker/using/using-framemaker/user-guide/topic_format-text-in-an-index-entry.html - seems to imply that you can enter character tag instructions in the marker text (at least in Index type markers) - but they seems to be styled a particular way - take a look.

F

FrameMaker-dk

Community Expert

<Italics> is the name of a character tag/format. Have you tried applying that character tag to something to check whether it actually makes text italic?

Bjørn Smalbro - FrameMaker.dk