Soft return in tabel or figure title?

[ksmithfaa]

I am working in structured FM 9 and would like to break the title of my figures and tables to a second line.  How would I do this in the EDD?

[Guest]

In the Template you need to add the automatic numbering for the paragraph you are using.

In the EDD, add a prefix rule for the element which is used.

The prefix should be \n. (=line break)

[ksmithfaa]

The problem is that the elements are as follows:

Element (Table): Appendix

Element (Table Title): Apptitle

I cannot insert a prefix in the Apptitle element as it does not show up as an option.  Is this a limitation in FM?  How can I solve this problem in the structure?

I need to have Appendix 1 on the first line and the text for the title on the second line.

[jim_monaco]

This depends on where your numbering is done. I suspect the numbering is done on the apptitle. Either the numbering is set in the EDD or the EDD refers to a style that has the numbering. If the EDD sets the numbering - then simply add the \n to at the end of the numbering string. If the EDD refers to a style - then you need to open the template, go to paragraph designer, select the style that is referenced in the EDD and then add the \n to the numbering string.

Jim Monaco

[ksmithfaa]

Jim,

Thanks for the quick response.  Yes, the numbering for the Appendix title is set in the EDD.  However, if I add the "\n" at the end of the Autonumber Format in the Text Format Rules for Apptitle the character "n" shows up in the document.  I have attached the EDD element Apptitle Text Format Rules below:

The Table element will not allow me to use a prefix such as"\n".  Is there any way to split the title line?

Ken

[Van Kurtz]

Ken and Jim,

My EDD uses a line break in a prefix; however, I use \r (return) instead of \n. It behaves as a line break, NOT a new paragraph. If you turn text symbols on, you can see that it is a line break. I am guessing that \n does not work because n is typically used in numbering; but this is just a guess.

Caveat...I do not use it in table titles, so will not guarantee that it will work there.

EDIT: I just noticed in Ken's screen shot that you are using the \n in the autonumbering. I do not believe it works there, though you can always try the \r. I believe \r works only in a paragraph's Prefix, which is NOT the same as autonumbering.

Van

[Lynne A. Price]

Van,

  \n and \r are equivalent in a prefix or suffix in an EDD. Unfortunately, table titles cannot have prefixes or suffixes.

     --Lynne

[Lynne A. Price · Accepted solution]

Ken,

  Since an autonumber cannot contain a line break, the advice you have been given to use a prefix to insert the line break is correct when you are working with containers. In your case, however, Apptitle is a table title and, as you have noted, table titles cannot have prefixes or suffixes. The workaround is to put a new element within the Apptitle and either use a prefix on this child or put the autonumber and title text in separate paragraphs. For example, suppose you define Apptitle to contain an element called TitleText. You could specify both the autonumber and the prefix on TitleText and nothing on Apptitle. Or you could put the autonumber on Apptitle, giving it a prefix of a space so that FrameMaker will start a new paragraph for the TitleText.

  Unfortunately, the TitleText element cannot be autoinserted because table titles don't have autoinsertions either. You could put the title in a heading row that straddles all columns, because autoinsertions are allowed in table cells, but then users would have to straddle the columns and it's just as easy to insert the TitleText.

          --Lynne

[ksmithfaa]

Lynne,

Thanks!  That solved my problem.  However, is there a way to not have the soft return print in the generated TOC?

Ken

[Lynne A. Price]

Ken,

  There are several variations that will do what you want. I'll describe one of them. In particular, I defined Apptitle to be a table title element consisting of TitleText. I assigned the autonumber "Appendix <n+>" to Apptitle in the EDD. I defined TitleText to be a text range element containing <TEXT> and gave it a prefix of \n. I then generated a list including paragraph TableTitle (which was the paragraph format assigned to the table title), and elements Apptitle and TitleText. I created a sample document and generated the list. In my reference flow, I used all of the following building blocks:

<$paranum>

<$paranumonly>

<$elemtext>

<$elemtextonly>

<$paratext>

  I found that:

<$paranum> and <$paranumonly>, as expected, were respectively the appendix number and the number preceded by the lable "Appendix " for all three types of entries

<$elemtext> and <$paratext> were the same for all three types of entries and included the line break

<$elemtextonly> included the line break for element Apptitle but not for paragraph TableTitle or element TitleText. Thus, the latter two have what you want.

  Since I find it counterintuitive to extract element text from a paragraph, if I were using actual data in this case, I think I would create entries from the TitleText element and use the <$paranum> (or <$paranumonly>)  and <$elemtextonly> building blocks.

                 --LYnne