Arabic, Chinese and Russian text import

[ppa_chris]

Can anyone help me out with this one please? I'm exporting data from a database to a .txt file using MML. It works fine, except for the Arabic, Chinese and Russian language text, which isn't supported in a .txt file. If I save the file as Unicode, then the Arabic, Chinese and Russian language text is maintained, but then when I try to import that to FrameMaker, it doesn't see the Unicode file as MML, and so won't import it.

Has anyone else come across a similar problem, and maybe found a clever way around it please?

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

?What version of FM? I seem to recall only the latest one supports RTL languages...

[ppa_chris]

It's FrameMaker 13 - so the language support is there in FrameMaker and that isn't a problem - it's including it in an MML file that seems to be impossible.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Having never worked with MML, I can't help you too much, but a quick google seems to indicate that MML only comes in ASCII text format. Maybe use a Unicode XML file or HTML source?

[ppa_chris]

Yes I tried Unicode but then FM doesn't see it as an MML file and won't import it. Seems that MML has to be .txt for FM to recognise it.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

?What happens if the file is xxxx.mml ? Does FM2015 pick it up then?

[ppa_chris]

I like your thinking - fool FM into believing that it's an MML....unfortunately, that didn't work either. "The filter encountered an error and could not complete the translation". Nice idea though if it had worked - thanks!

[Arnis_Gubins]

You could look consider a workflow modification to skip the MML export from the database and instead use Datazone's Miramo Personal Edition (see:  http://miramo.com/english/overview/dp_download.html​ ). This tool let's you use tagged output (either XML or your own tagging format) that you can then wrap in Miramo XML-syntax commands that get translated into FM layouts (template based using your FM-defined catalog tags). It's a very powerful tool that I've used for database publishing since the last century.

It handles all languages and was able to get FM to process RTL languages before this latest version of FM.

By the way, the Personal Edition is a freebie, but is limited to a non-server environment, i.e. you have to drive it manually and you can only run one instance at a time. For production, I can typically produce a couple of hundred page catalog or directory in a few minutes using this route.

[ppa_chris]

Thanks Arnis - I'll have to look into that then. Seems MML is a total no-go as it has to be .txt format only, and that won't support the multi-bit non-western languages.

Is the Miramo route fairly straight-forward to work with?

[Arnis_Gubins · Accepted solution]

Like all tools, there's a bit of a learning curve. However the user guide does have quite a number of samples that show you how things are done.

There are two routes that you can take to process your data; use either a pure XML approach with XSLT to wrap your tags with the appropriate Miramo commands or use their macro pre-processor (mmpp) language (sort of like VBscript) to use your own tag structure to wrap the commands.

The workflow is typically such that one uses the database reporing tool to create the preliminary tagged output (much the same as you're doing now for creating MML text files). Then you use either XSLT or mmpp (though you have to write your own code for these) to process the output to wrap the actual Miramo commands around the content. Then you run Miramo on this wrapped content. Miramo uses your specified FM templates to get the formatting info and produces MIF as output that feeds back into FM to create the final book (and also creates all required generated FM files like the TOC and Index). Miramo also lets you call in scripts (Framescript or Extendscript) or other special APIs to process the FM content at specified steps in the book creation workflow.

Miramo is an enterprise-level tool that is designed for producing huge volumes of content. The Personal Edition is just limited in the number of concurrent output channels that be processed and requires a user to initiate each session rather than having sit on a server and automatically process content as it appears in specified locations.

The latest version also let's you directly process DITA content (using FM templates, you get more cosmetic and easier control over the output than you could using the DITA-OT) and also has a new module that produces PDF directly without even going through FM.

[ppa_chris]

Thanks Arnis - sounds like that is the way to go then. I'll download the free version and take a look now and see if I can figure it out.

[Arnis_Gubins]

If you need any help figuring out the Miramo process, send me a private message. Datazone is close by in Ireland, but they do not provide any direct support for the Personal Edition (another reason why it's a freebie).

[ppa_chris]

Thanks again Arnis - I just installed Miramo and on restart the admin account on my laptop had been deleted leaving only the guest account which wouldn't run either FM or Miramo and obviously wouldn't allow the creation of a new admin account. Had to run a system restore to get back control of my pc leaving me feeling nervous about attempting to reinstall it.

Chris O'Shea(Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.)

[Arnis_Gubins]

Did you install it using full admin rights and correctly specify a mmUser account for the processing?

[ppa_chris]

Yes I used the admin account that I normally use to sign in to Windows - which is the one that got deleted

[Arnis_Gubins]

Sounds odd, as the installer routine adds an account (typically called mmUser, but you can name it whatever you wish) and installs a service, but doesn't delete any accounts. You should contact Datazone using the "support at datazone.com" mailing address. They're pretty good at addressing issues and definitely would like to know what's going on in your configuration that would have caused the admin account to be deleted.

If there are any further issues on this, let's take this private as it's no longer on topic with this Forum.

[ppa_chris]

OK thanks - I'll maybe contact them once I get everything restored, and get back to you privately if necessary. Thanks for all your help.

[Bob_Niland]

The only time I ever looked at MML as a pathway for getting external content into FM, I decided that using MIF was easier and more effective. I've even generated MIF from spreadsheets. MIF would support Unicode.

[ppa_chris]

Thanks Bob - from what I've seen before, writing a MIF file is a pretty complicated procedure, so it sounds like Arnis's suggestion of using a tool like Miramo to write the MIF may be the easier route to go down.