Mapping FM figure/table caption pgf formats to Robohelp 15 style

[rombanks]

Hello fellows,

I have an FM 13 book linked to a Robohelp project and I am in the middle of mapping the FM pgf styles to RH styles.

I don't see a way to map FM figure/table captions to any similar RH style as there isn't any. As far as I understand, setting the mapping to Source isn't recommended.

Any ideas how to proceed?

Additional question is how to map the FM Note/Caution tables to a similar table in HTML?

Thank you in advance!

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Can't help you with the captions as I don't use them in my FM to RH project, but aren't they listed as a FM paragraph tag? Can you give us a screenshot of what your Conversion Settings screen looks like? I'm sure that there is a Table mapping section in there IIRC. BTW - the Source mapping can work fine - it will just give you a RH style called "FM_xxxx" where xxxx is the FM para tag name.

[rombanks]

Hi Jeff,

Thank you for your response!

Yes, the FM Figure Title and Table Title pfg tags are listed, but I wonder if there is a need to map them to some HTML tag/style. I read somewhere that mapping to Source is not a good practice as the CSS is then full of irregular tags (as you mentioned, "FM_xxxx").

My Note and Caution tables have a corresponding icon in the 1st column and text in the second column. I don't see a way to create a similar table in RH. How do I preserve the icon in the 1st column?

Thanks for your input in advance!

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Did the table just not come over? I don't do anything special with my tables & they appear in the RH topic just fine. About the only thing that I fiddle with in the Conversion Settings is pagination, excluded character tags, setting bullets & numbered lists to come over as HTML Lists, and one of my xrefs to be translated as paratext$ instead of Source (it's a see "X" on page "Y" xref format that makes no sense in WebHelp output).

[Peter Grainge]

If the RoboHelp CSS has a table style set in it, you might be able to map to that if just importing doesn't give you what you want. You would have to create a table style in RoboHelp and define it to your requirements.

I'm not 100% sure that will work for Fm so create a little test first.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring information

@petergrainge

[rombanks]

Jeff, Peter,

Hi!

Thank you for your responses!

Regarding the figure/table captions: I've created the corresponding styles in Robohelp and then mapped the FM styles to the RH styles. I also modified the xref styles accordingly.

My current challenge is the Note/Caution tables. As I wrote earlier, these 2-column tables include a corresponding icon in the 1st column and text in the second column. The icon does not appear in the RH project and the table looks ugly in general.

It is possible to create a similar table in RH, with the icon inserted into the 1st column. But I don't see a way to save this table as a style to be further mapped to the FM table style. Any ideas? I haven't found anything on the Web so far.

As always, the Adobe help is useless..

Thanks!

Roman

[Peter Grainge]

In RoboHelp's Style Editor you can create table styles and in the linking / importing dialog you can map your Fm table to the Rh table, Once the RoboHelp table is created, it should show in the mapping dialog. Create a simple style first to prove it shows, even if it isn't the design you want.

As to images, they cannot be included in the design so that may scupper the whole plan if you are linking. If importing, you could add them in.

Maybe Jeff has some other suggestions.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring information

@petergrainge

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

I just checked one of my projects that has a 2 column table with an image in the left & text in the right. It comes over fine into RH when imported - I think the trick is to make sure you're using anchored frames for the image in FM. Those are the only type that get converted when brought over to RH.

[rombanks]

Peter, Jeff,

Thank you for your responses!

The RH Table Styles editor provides only basic table look and feel configuration options, such as background color, line color, font, etc.

I can add a table with an image in the 1st column, but there is no way to save a table as a style in RH.

In Framemaker, the images that appear in the Note/Caution tables are pulled from a reference page, where they are placed in anchored frames. I also tried importing those images by reference into an anchored frame that I inserted into a table column. In this case, the table doesn't appear in the RH output at all.

An additional issue I came across is that whenever there is a cross-reference to another section, RH breaks the line and wraps the <a> link inside <pre>. So the RH HTML 5 output looks like the following:

Refer to

<pre><a>This is a Link to Another Section</a></pre>

The FM to RH xref mapping options do not provide an ability to control this behavior. I guess, it may only be fixed through CSS.

Do you know what could cause this strange RH behavior?

So far, the impression is that RH 2015 is a really horrendous tool unless you know all its quirks and back doors.

Regards,

Roman

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Hmm, my tables with images work fine in FM12 to RH10 or RH11 by just leaving them as "Source". I don't get that "pre" tag either on any of my links in HTML5 help produced in RH11. Maybe you need to find a new machine that doesn't have RH or FM on it and try downloading the 2017 trial and give that a spin.

[rombanks]

Hi Jeff,

Thank you for your response!

I have TCS 2015 installed on my Win 7 machine. There is nothing special about my FM content.

Downgrading or upgrading the TCS is currently not an option. I'll check the CSS. Maybe I'll find the source of the problem there.

Thanks!

Roman

[Peter Grainge]

The RH Table Styles editor provides only basic table look and feel configuration options, such as background color, line color, font, etc.

Apart from images which we have already covered, what else is missing? A table has cells which have borders and fill/shading and different repeats. The editor allows a lot of configuration, alternate rows/columns, repeatable rows/columns and so on. That just leaves content which will be text or images. The text can be formatted in many ways. Images we have established cannot be included in the style.

Perhaps an image of your table might help.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring information

@petergrainge

[rombanks]

Hi Peter,

Thank you for your response!

The table style editor is quite limited when defining the style. When the style is created, it is possible to edit it and configure more properties, but none of them address the issue I have with the RH style.

Here is a screenshot of a Note table defined in FM:

Regards,

Roman

[rombanks]

Hi guys,

I've installed a trial version of RH 2017, as Jeff suggested.

Unfortunately, the output has the same issues as in RH 2015.

The references to figures, tables, as well as text with a character style applied to it appear on a separate line and are wrapped with <pre>.

Note tables don't include the Note graphic. BTW, even if I manually add an anchored frame to the 1st column of the Note table and insert an image by reference, the image doesn't show up in the RH output. This is really frustrating. RH doesn't function as it should.

Regards,

Roman

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Are you able to share your FM content? I'd be willing to have a look at it to see what's going on. Shoot me a private message if you're able.

[rombanks]

Update:

I generated the HTML 5 output using the FM 15 Publisher. Many of the Note tables include an icon, but not all of them. It's not clear to me why. An additional problem is that <div> that contains the table has a right indentation for an unclear reason.

The issue I had with the cross-references also emerges when a word is italicized (in which case, both RH and the FM Publisher break the line and wrap the italicized string in <pre>).

So, the FM 15 Publisher is a bit better than RH in terms of handling tables.

Regards,

Roman