Saving FM as HTML?

[Michael314]

Hi,

I have been experimenting with Frame to HTML with Frame 7.2 on Windows XP. For starters, I went to the HTML Setup box and defined the major heading levels. Due to current requirements, I have to have the whole book in one file.

When I used the HTML Setup menu, the first thing Frame did was to ask if I wanted to add several formats to the paragraph and character catalogs. I clicked No because these were old styles that I had deleted.

In the manual it said they were listed on the HTML mapping table on the reference pages, but I could delete them if needed.  I deleted all the obsolete formats but some of them still haunt me when I Save as HTML or modify the HTML setup.

Why is that still happening?

As a limited test, I next went through all my section headings and selected "Heading (auto level)", "Include autonumber", and "Start new linked web page" if it was the chapter, appendix, or similar heading. Frame crashed once but the next time it actually created html files.

I also discovered that unresolved cross references wreak havoc with the process so I had to fix those next.

When I created the html files, the new web pages I had specified for the chapter and appendix number formats came up empty. The glossary and index sections went to separate files as expected, but they had unnumbered titles.  I had to change the chapter and appendix number formats to "throw away" and set the title formats to open new web pages.

Then, after rebuilding the html files, the links to the sub pages opened in the same tab page, which is not good practice if you want to use the main page as your TOC. I had to edit the main html file and go into the <a href> tags and add target ="_blank".

Another quirk is that the converted TOC links carry their page numbers, which doesn't make sense in html. How do you remove them other than by doing it manually from the html file?

Finally, on the main html page after the full TOC, there is a mini TOC of just chapter, appendix, glossary, and index links. Where is that coming from?

Befuddlingly yours,

Michael F

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[John Sgammato]

Hi Michael,

I am struggling with the save-as-a-monolithic-HTML-file process myself, but on FM10.

Here’s what I have discovered:

To save an entire book as HTML, you first set HTML mappings in one file in the book using File > Utilities> HTML Setup. The settings are stored in an HTML reference page (actually a couple of pages) in that file. Then you copy the settings to other files in the book. Now every file has an HTML reference page with your new settings. These settings include whether to break the file at Heading 1, Heading 2, etc – I had to uncheck those to get the monolithic file that I needed.

When FrameMaker converts the entire book to HTML, it reads the HTML mappings from the first chapter HTML reference pages, and then makes a new BookHTML reference page that it puts into the first file in the book.

If those two reference tables have different information, then some of your output will look wrong.

I do not have the ToC problem because I deleted the ToC and Index from the book, as unnecessary for this project, a knowledgebase.

[Art_Campbell1]

Michael, the usual Best Practice for saving from FM to HTML, especially from a "vintage" (new versions have better export, but still kinda crude) release would be to go through MIF2Go, an add-on published by omsys.com.

Does HTML in a variety of flavors and probably fixes most of your problems.

[John Sgammato]

I like Mif2Go, but it can't help him without a custom script. He needs the output in one HTML file, and Mif2Go creates separate files for each chapter.

[Michael314]

John and Art,

Thanks for the suggestions. If I can convince my manager to spring for $295, it sounds like I'll have a pretty good FM to HTML process.

I'll have to finish setting up the rest of my paragraph, character, and cross reference formats and see what the output looks like after that. I may just write some scripts with my NoteTab editor to do some post processing on the html files.

Yours,

Michael F

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[John Sgammato]

It's a great tool for many things, but be aware it won't give you all chapters in a single HTML file. For that you still must go through the FM process, or else use FrameScript to assemble all the chapters into a single file before converting with Mif2Go.

[Michael314]

John,

Sorry if you misunderstood, but I *do* want multiple html chapters. It's my source material that currently has to be all in one file.

Yours,

Michael F

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[John Sgammato]

Then Mif2Go is the tool for you. It's a great tool, but it has a learning curve, and the UI is not real friendly. Fortunately there are plenty of users to help with it.