Page/chapter numbering probs in material converted from Word

[AnneOfParadise]

Situation: Need to convert ~300 pages (multiple files) of Word into structured Frame. I'm not very familiar with structured Frame (but am working on this), and am a long-time user of nonstructured. Moving Word 2007 files into Frame9 (in TCS2).

Problem: Chapter/page numbering. No matter what I try, including copies of a file that demonstrably works, one copy does not accept the "Continued" settings for page numbering. It resets the TOC to page 1. Copies of that file added to the TOC also reliably reset page numbering to 1. When I go in to see what's going on I find that the Numbering dialog for each problem file shows it mysteriously reset to start page numbering at 1. (These copies are nearly identical, differing only in a numeral in one heading to remind me what chapter each is file supposed to be.)

Further, when I added an autonumbered ChapterTitle paragraph at the top of each file to test chapter numbering, the page numbering problem resolved itself (!) but the chapters don't increment as expected. Numbering string: "C:Chapter <n=1>" for Chpt1 and "C:Chapter <n+>" for the rest of them.

Test setup: Saw this in production files and stepped back to use a simple Word source file as a test. Constructed several Normal paragraphs, a bulleted list, and a numbered list, and two heading levels (Heading1, Heading2) in this file. Saved; closed. Opened the file in Frame (Structured). Created several nearly identical copies and added all to a book file. Added a TOC to the book. Set the numbering: Chpt1 starts Chapter and Page at 1 and all others are set to "Continued" in both categories.

Added the ChapterTitle paragraph to each file after conversion.

In one experiment I applied several of the "target" Frame paragraph formats. Target formats were supplied by writer who works primarily in a  structured Frame setup that is similar to the one planned for the  converted material. In one file all paragraphs were set to their Frame equivalents. In others there was a mix of original (as brought over from Word) and Frame formats. Made no apparent difference.

Questions: Is this something about structured vs. unstructured? About  structured Frame WRT conversion from Word? Either way, has anyone else  seen (more to the point, *resolved*) similar?

Thanks in advance for any insight!
Anne

[Michael_Müller-Hillebrand]

Anne,

Do the numbering issue appear every time after you updated the book file (to create an updated TOC)?

In this case, there is a simple rule: The book wins! Why this: Youcan set numbering properties from within each document using Format > Document  > Numbering. But in a book you can set the numbering for one or more book components (and I always access it via right-click > Numbering on the book component in the book window. In case those settings are different the book component settings defined with the book file »wins«.

Why this? Well, it is possible for a document to be part of more than one book with maybe different chapter numbers etc. Production would include a book update and the document would gladly follow the instructions set in the book.

HTH,

- Michael Müller-Hillebrand

[AnneOfParadise]

Hi Michael--
Thanks for responding.

Yes, it happens reliably at every update. It's my habit to update any  book file (plus save all open files) quite often. I update after even  minor changes, to see if a change had any effect.

Numbering: yep, in fact that's how I do file numbering: right-click >  Numbering while in the book file. I recall that one can set properties  within each document, but hardly ever have reason to use that  approach.

Sorry, those were two aspects of the test that I didn't think to  mention!
Anne

[Van Kurtz]

Anne,

I am confused about what you are doing. Let me make a few points to see if it helps.

If you are setting the chapter numbering from the book (right-click > Numbering), then your autonumbering format should be

Chapter <$chapnum>

NOT Chapter <n+>

The latter format is the old way when numbering was not done from the book file. <$chapnum> is the building block that represents the chapter numbering from the book file.

Note that chapter numbering and page numbering are separate tabs in the Numbering dialog. Hence restarting a chapter at 1 or setting it to continue does not affect the page number; page numbering could be continuous or restart or whatever. Check the page numbering from the book file, not the document itself.

You talk about using Frame formats and Word formats. Are you opening a Word file in Frame (unstructured) and expecting everything to work properly regarding chapter and page numbering? If so, my guess is that it does not work that way. Is the Word-to-Frame file unstructured or structured? I am not sure that one can mix structured and unstructured Frame files in a book. I may be wrong because I have never done it.

My guess is that you should import the Word file into an unstructured Frame file, then apply a conversion table to convert it to structured. Import your Frame template and clean up the structure. I have heard others on this forum mention things one can do to clean out the Word crap from the unstructured file; I think it is to save to mif format, open the mif file, and save as an fm file. This is probably a good thing to do before converting it to structure.

I hope this helps, at least a little,

Van

[AnneOfParadise]

OK--

WRT "<$chapnum>": check, thanks for the reminder. (Yes, I agree that chapter/page numbering tabs are different items.) 🙂

To clarify: yes, the idea is a Word > Frame conversion. The process stumbled upon so far starts with opening Word files in unstructured Frame. (I'd never done it, either---never had a need to try. Somebody new to Frame asked if it was possible, so we experimented and voila!) I have recommended dropping files into .mif and then resaving as .fm in order to lose any artifactual Word stuff.

Step 2 is applying appropriate Frame paragraph styles from a supplied list, and creating book files. (The page numbering issue resolved once I added a ChapterHead paragraph.  Using the <$chapnum> tag handles the remaining chapter number  issue.)

In theory Step 3 will be the move into handling the fully-converted material as structured Frame documents. The key point, though, appears to be the conversion table. I get this from a WritersUSA article by Alan Houser at http://www.writersua.com/articles/frame/index.html:

FrameMaker provides a mechanism called a conversion table to automate  much of the task of legacy document conversion. The conversion table  maps unstructured FrameMaker paragraph and character formats to  elements, and allows you to automatically nest groups of elements. If  your legacy documents were created using a style-based authoring tool  (typically FrameMaker or Word [!]) and your authors have used those styles  consistently, you may be able to automate 80%-90% of the conversion  process. If your legacy documents include a significant amount of manual  or ad-hoc formatting, the conversion will be substantially more  tedious.

Looks like my group will have to create this.

Thanks, all, for the help. 🙂

Anne