Which templates are used for ditamap when saved as PDF?

[kaorim49702983]

I have successfully changed looks of topics, tasks etc,. with following instructions in the site below:

[Guest Post] “Customize FrameMaker 2015 DITA Templates for your Corporate Design” by Bernard Aschwan...

However, when I save a whole document as PDF (The top tag is bookmap), the all the changes I made for the templates are discarded.

I edited the following templates in a same manner as editing topic and other templates, but did not bring out the change into the PDF either.

$Structure$\xml\DITA_1.2\app\technicalContent\template

map.template.fm

$Structure$\xml\DITA_1.2\app\bookmap\template

bookmap.template.fm

How can I customize looks and feel of PDF made from dita bookmap data ???

[peterc47573221]

Hi,

As far as I can tell, the $Structure$\xml\DITA\outputTemplates\ditabase.template.fm is used to determine the output of the PDF.

You'll need to add or modify a cover page to the Master pages, and set the first page of the body page use to the cover.

This is how I've managed to get reasonable PDF outputs.

[kaorim49702983]

Hi, peterc47573221!

I followed your advice and saw the changes in the PDF.

Thank you so much for the tips!

One question.

Do you mean a cover page should be made as topic (concept, task, etc.,) then locate it at the top of topics?

[peterc47573221]

Hi,

I discovered that for PDF output, the only output file that influences the format is the ditabase.template.fm.

If you add a cover page to the Master Pages of distabase.template.fm, and then in the Body Page view set the Format>Page Layout>Master Page Usage to the cover page, when you create a pdf, the first page will use the cover, and the others will use the left-right pages.

In addition, the head.0 paragraph format maps to the ditamap title.

Cheers

Peter

[kaorim49702983]

Hello again!

I understood about the cover page thing after following your procedure one above!

So, this is how front cover is dealt with DITA. (and also back cover, isn't it? 😆 )

Thank you so much for your answer!

Kaori

[peterc47573221]

Since posting my original answer, I discovered that the ditafm-output.ini (C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\FrameMaker\13) determines what is included in the output.

Save Individual Topics as PDF

FrameMaker uses the concept, reference etc. That is, the files in the Dita 1.3 Templates folder – the same as the WYSIWYG view.

Save as PDF From Ditamap

FrameMaker uses ditafm-output.ini to determine the PDF output:

SavePDFViaBookRoute=0	SavePDFViaBookRoute=1
Uses Output folder/Ditabase1.3.template.fm only	Generates Cover, TOC etc. However, the templates used for the topics depend on the ApplyOutputTemplate settings.

ApplyOutputTemplate = 0	Template = Output folder/ Ditabase1.3.template.fm
ApplyOutputTemplate = 1	Topics are merged, so FM only uses Output folder/ ChapterOutputTpl.fm

Saving a DITAMP as FM book with components

Create a ditamap with three nested concepts:

Concept1

   Concept2

      Concept3

	GenerateFlatBook
	GenerateFlatBook = 0	GenerateFlatBook = 1
ApplyOutputTemplate = 0	Template = Dita 1.3 Templates folder – the same as the WYSIWYG view. That is, concept.template.fm. If you have tasks, reference etc. then FM uses the corresponding template.	Concept2 and Concept3 are merged with Concept1 Template = Output folder/ Ditabase1.3.template.fm
ApplyOutputTemplate = 1	Template= Output folder/ ChapterOutputTpl.fm SectionOutputTpl.fm SubsectionOutputTpl.fm	Concept2 and Concept3 are merged with Concept1 Template= Output folder/ ChapterOutputTpl.fm

[vinayakrishnabhat]

Hello Peter,

Sorry for reaching out late. I saw this post today.

This post is really helpful. I was mad about this whole issue from the past 2-3 months!! I mean, I was very pleased regarding the HTML output of FM, but was clueless about how to modify the PDF output. This post is an eye-opener. And more over, these things are so clumsy inside the Framemaker folder structure that we can't guess which template to edit to get the right output... To make things worse, there are no proper help/videos to demonstrate these editing. Can you please let me know from where did you get the information of customizing the PDF output? I could find the information of DTD edition for task, concept and other templates from FM blogs and vidoes, but could not get any info on the PDF template editing part like where to locate the ditabase.template.fm file, the chapter cover master page info etc. So, if you can provide any link/source help from where I can get more info on this, it would be very helpful for me.

Thanks in advance,

Vinayakrishna

[Matt S - Tech Comm Tools]

Hi Vinayakrishna,

Here's a post I did for Adobe a few years back. The process is still about the same.

Structured FrameMaker 11: Printing DITA to PDF and Defining Banner Text in Strawman Topics – Adobe T...

I've also done two webinars for Adobe on customizing the output and templates, but I can't seem to find the links to the recordings. Poke around their webinar recording pages, and please post the link here if you manage to find them.

-Matt

[vinayakrishnabhat]

Hello Matt,

Thanks for the blog link. As always, the content is very informative for a beginner like me.

I did search the webinar link and finally got it. But it was not easy, though! All the searches were redirecting me to the same page. This is the link for the webinar.

https://2262919.meetus.adobeevents.com/

This forum has been a life saver for me!

Thanks again Matt for the recording. Will post other links too in this thread as and when I come across.