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dragonwave
Known Participant
March 25, 2015
Question

How to manage abbreviation bank?

  • March 25, 2015
  • 1 reply
  • 571 views

I am using FM 11 structured mode. I wonder if there is any easy way to manage our abbreviations in our manuals. We have an abbreviation and glossary bank. I hope in my development, when I enter an abbreviation in the fm file, it can automatically pop-up the full name in our bank and give it an cross-reference. Can this work out?


Our current working mode is like this. Since we have no CMS, we have made a bank of abbreviation in an .fm file (using structure mode and some tags which are customized), and when we have developed a certain manual, we first add the fm file into the book, manully delete all the abbreviations those are not used in this manual, and then manually make cross reference to the bank file. It is killing.

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1 reply

ScottPrentice
ScottPrentice
Inspiring
March 25, 2015

I'm not aware of anything that manages terminology and creates cross-references. This could be done, but would require custom development. If  you were using DITA, you could make use of the glossary term linking, to do something close to what you're describing .. but not exactly the same. You might take a look at www.acrolinx.com for a terminology management tool that integrates with FrameMaker .. but I don't think it handles referencing as well.

...scott

D
dragonwaveAuthor
Known Participant
March 26, 2015

Currently, I am using FM11 (in structured mode) without CMS. We have our own defined format (or we say tags) in structured mode, a bit different from the template provided by FM.

What I want to do is like this:

  1. 1. We are making a book made up of several fm files.
  2. 2. In a book there are many abbreviations, for example, in this stentence "It is recommended to use DCN port to ..." here DCN is an abbr.
  3. 3. What I want is when the reader arrives the sentence in point 2, and when he clicks the word DCN, it will automatically link him to the explanation "Data Communication Network". Also the same with other many DCNs in the book. (You can suppose there is a single chapter listing and explaining all the abbrs and you can link the reader to this chapter, or the explanation pops up like a bubble beside the mouse cursor, whatever you can imagine).

Here is what I do to make it:

  1. 1. We have maintained a single fm file out of the book, to list all the abbrs and explanations, called Abbr Bank. In this fm file, we list every abbr in its own tag, we call it "glossary-entry", maybe it's a self-defined tag.
  2. 2. When we make a certain book, we insert this big bank fm file into this book as one chapter of the book.
  3. 3. Then we use the "Find" pod and delete all the abbrs that is not used in the book, which is manually and very killing as the bank grows bigger and bigger.
  4. 4. Then we use the "Cross-Reference" pod to make cross reference between all the abbrs in the book and the explanation in the Abbr Bank file, which is also very killing and manually.
  5. 5. After all this, the reader can click the term DCN and jump to the small-sized Abbr Bank chapter in the book.

I want to know if there is any smarter way to realize this without CMS. If there is no way, is there any way to realize this when we use a CMS, which has this function module?

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