Linking to FrameMaker from another application

[joshkephart]

I've been googling around for this forever but haven't had any luck.  I need to be able to hyperlink to FrameMaker files which is no problem, but I was wondering if there was any sort of marker support, like going to a specific spot in the file.  Acrobat PDFs support this by appending #nameofmarker to the end of the URL you are opening.

Does FrameMaker support anything like this?

[Barb Binder]

Links within FrameMaker docs, yes. It's a two-step process.

Specify a named destination:

1. Click an insertion point where you want to link to go
2. Special > Hypertext
3. Command: Specify Named Destination and add newlink yourlinknamehere (substituting your link name for my words yourlinknamehere, of course)
4. Click the New Hypertext Marker button

Add the link to the named destination:

1. Select the hypertext link hotspot (could be an otherwise empty frame, or an insertion pt within a para, or an insertion point within a character format within a para
2. Special > Hypertext
3. Command: Jump to Named Destination and add gotolink yourlinknamehere (substituting your link name for my words yourlinknamehere, of course)
4. Click the New Hypertext Marker button

You can test the link by pressing Control Alt and clicking on the hotspot.

Barb Binder

Adobe Certified Instructor

Rocky Mountain Training

[joshkephart]

Sorry, I guess I didn't make it clear enough in the post .

I need to link to FrameMaker files from outside of FrameMaker.  I want to be able to put a hypertext link in a Word document to a named destination in a FrameMaker document.

Adobe Acrobat files support this by appending a # to the end of the URL.  For example, in a Word document I could put in a link like this: 'http://www.example.com/acrobatfile.pdf#nameddestination'  .

So does FrameMaker support anything like that?

[Barb Binder]

No, no, no, your title made it clear, but then I wasn't sure from the actual post. I was hoping that you could go ahead and create the named destination as specified, and then link to it from the other application. I've never run across your specific application, so now I'm just guessing. Did you try putting in a named destination in Frame, and then linking to it with the html-compliant #anchorname as in your example?

~Barb

[Arnis Gubins]

FM's command line options are quite limited (see technote: http://support.adobe.com/devsup/devsup.nsf/docs/51645.htm ).

To get a link to a marker location in a FM file, you would need to either:

1. create your own FDK client to accept command line parameters (see technote: http://support.adobe.com/devsup/devsup.nsf/docs/51004.htm

2. create a Framescript that can be triggered from a batch command that starts FM and parses command line parameters

Perhaps if you explain what you are trying to accomplish, there may be some other techniques that could be used.

[joshkephart]

Thanks for the links, I'll look into both of those when I get to work tomorrow.

So, here's a summary of what I need to do:

We have a bunch of Excel files where we have requirements that we need to test.  For each requirement we have to show where we are testing it in our test documents (in FrameMaker).  Right now, we just put in text for the section number and title where it is tested.  Obviously, this is undesirable because the test documents are quite large and finding the actual exact test step that verifies the requirement is kind of cumbersome.  So what I want to do is make links directly to the step in the FrameMaker file from the Excel file.  That way you can open up the Excel file, see the requirement, click the link and have FrameMaker open up and go right to the line of the file that verifies the requirement (wherever I put the named destination).

Now, don't ask why we're using Excel, not my choice.  In the past I've done this same thing but used FrameMaker instead of Excel so it was no problem to create links from FrameMaker to other FrameMaker files.  I'd prefer to do that but am stuck with Excel due to things outside my control.

So, I'll take a look at those links tomorrow but does anyone know of anything existing that could do what I described?

Although the last custom stuff I've dabbled in was using fmbatch on the UNIX version of FrameMaker 7.2,  I'm comfortable looking into the FDK or Framescripts, so those types of links and ideas are also welcome. 

Thanks for the help so far.

[Russ Ward]

joshkephart,

As Arnis suggests, the FDK or FrameScript will be a requirement. In addition to his post, I'll mention this... if you are crafty about it, you could have the linking happen in real time, rather than just at startup using command line parameters. With the FDK, you might need an asynchronous client. I'm not sure if FrameScript supports the same concept of asynchronous scripting.

Relatively speaking, the FDK/FrameScript task of jumping to a known destination in a document is reasonably simple. The challenge will be to find a logical way to initiate this from Excel, presumably using Excel macros, which are quite powerful but don't have any inherent ability to call Adobe applications. No surprise there. 

Russ

[joshkephart]

Thanks for the responses.  I'll likely look into addressing it with an FDK client in the future.