Paragraph Style Mapping Going from Frame 10 to Robohelp 9

Report · Jun 05, 2012

I am starting a new project where I want to use Frame 10 files as a source for an online help output via Robohelp 9. I have read the Robohelp 9 online help regarding this integration and gone through the postings on the FrameMaker Integration forum.

It appears to me that there are two methods for appropriately mapping the Frame styles to Robohelp styles:

The first method being creating a second Frame template with styles appropriate for how I want the Robohelp output to look, in which case during the actual mapping of paragraphs styles in Robohelp I would use the [Source] option.

The second method being updating the RHStyleMapping.css file in the Robohelp project with the styles I want in my online help output before integrating with the Frame files, in which case I would map my Frame paragraph styles to the appropriate style in the Robohelp Style drop-down list.

So now I have some questions. Are there any better options? Is one of these options clearly superior to the other? Am I correct in believing that both of these options will successfully map the Frame styles to the Robohelp styles? Is there anything else I should know about this process?

I would appreciate any assistance on this! Thank you.

Report · Jun 05, 2012

Superior, no - sometimes depending on complicated conditional text expressions, using the FM template method (see Matt Sullivan's blog about this) is better. Your biggest choice is importing or linking. Play around and try whatever gives you the best results.

Report · Jun 07, 2012

Jeff,

Thanks for the input. I have not tested the two methods yet, but I feel that I know enough about them for now.

Regarding your comment about choosing importing or linking: when I look at the RoboHelp help for integrating FrameMaker and RoboHelp, I see a section called "Importing and Linking Microsoft Word documents" and one called "Importing FrameMaker documents." I see nothing about linking FrameMaker documents.

But from your comment, I'm guessing this is possible. Is there any written guidance somewhere on which to choose and why?

Thanks!

Scott

Report · Jun 07, 2012

Well, there's - http://help.adobe.com/en_US/techcomsuite/tcs/using/WS1b49059a33f77726-31aee1b1342288940d-7ffe.html

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/techcomsuite/tcs/using/WS1b49059a33f77726-31aee1b1342288940d-7ff0.html

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/robohelp/robohtml/WS4380DBC5-F798-4ac0-8A36-98B586900D70.html