Adobe Frame Maker 8 User Manual

Microsoft® Windows® 2000, Windows XP,

Windows Vista™, UNIX®

REVIEWER’S GUIDE

Adobe

FrameMaker® 8

WELCOME TO ADOBE FRAMEMAKER 8

The world of technical communication is rapidly changing. Organizations must meet the

challenges of shrinking product lifecycles, increasing product variations, and disappearing

geographical boundaries. Technical communicators need tools to take advantage of established

and emerging trends and technologies, such as PDF, HTML, XML, and rich media.

FrameMaker 8 software is a key member of the Adobe tools for technical communicators and

supports organizations that need to author, structure, publish, repurpose, and customize infor-

mation for global audiences.

This document contains examples, illustrations, and mini-tutorials that show the key features

and proven functionality of FrameMaker 8.

WHO SHOULD USE FRAMEMAKER?

FrameMaker provides a rich feature set that supports a variety of users, from creators of XML-

based information to technical writers, instructional designers, and server-based publishers, as

well as anyone producing long, complex, or structured documents or books.

Tech n i cal w r i ter s

FrameMaker supports writers and publishers of a broad range of technical content, including

technical manuals, specifications, data sheets, and training materials. FrameMaker software

provides a feature set that makes it easy to master complex projects, publish to multiple chan-

nels, and obtain professional-quality results. Proven authoring features support searching and

revising multiple documents and reliably processing thousands of pages of complex content,

with robust, reliable cross-references, autonumbers, tables of contents, indices, and running

headers and footers, as well as complex tables, graphics, and equations. FrameMaker has

evolved to meet the changing requirements of technical writers, supporting both unstructured

and structured workflows, standards-compliant authoring and publishing, and dynamic con-

tent publishing in combination with Adobe Flash® and Adobe Acrobat 3D® software.

CONTENTS

Welcome to Adobe

FrameMaker 8 . . . . . . . . . . 1

Who Should Use FrameMaker? . 1

Key New Features . . . . . . . . . . 2

Comparing Document

Workflows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Getting to Know

FrameMaker 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

FrameMaker 8: A Guided

Tour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Structured or Unstructured

FrameMaker? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Unstructured Authoring . . . . . 9

Structured Authoring . . . . . . 11

Developing a Structured

Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Migrating to Structure . . . . . 15

XML Publishing . . . . . . . . . . . 17

DITA Authoring and

Publishing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Publishing 3D and Interactive

Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

PDF Publishing . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Complex Documents and

Books . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Tables of Contents and

Indices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Automatic Numbering . . . . . . 26

Text and Graphics . . . . . . . . . 28

Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Text Edit Tracking . . . . . . . . . 31

Conditional Text . . . . . . . . . . 34

Cross-References . . . . . . . . . . 38

System Requirements . . . . .40

Instructional designers

PDF has long served the needs of instruc-

tional designers, who need to render rich doc-

uments formats and support the ability to

distribute documents in print and online.

Instructional designers are increasingly devel-

oping and deploying interactive content using

applications such as Adobe Flash,

Adobe Captivate®, and Adobe Acrobat 3D

software. These tools allow instructional

designers to create engaging, effective demon-

stration and tutorial content. With

FrameMaker 8, instructional designers can

easily integrate these rich media assets into

traditional electronic documents.

XML authors and publishers

For XML authors and publishers,

FrameMaker provides an authoring and pub-

lishing platform that supports a variety of key

XML standards, including DITA, DocBook,

and XHTML. Writers can create XML content

in a familiar WYSIWYG interface, without

learning XML syntax. FrameMaker software’s

“guided editing” feature supports writers in

inserting XML elements in their proper con-

text. The authoring environment continu-

ously validates documents against the

permitted structure, based on a Document

Type Definition (DTD) or XML Schema.

FrameMaker-based XML workflows can

automatically apply XSL transformations

(XSLT) for processing XML documents.

FrameMaker software offers an outstanding

XML-to-PDF solution, with rich, rules-based

styling and high-end graphics support, inte-

grated with Adobe's market-leading PDF

publishing technology.

Server-based publishers

FrameMaker Server 8 software brings the

power of the FrameMaker publishing engine

to the server environment. The FrameMaker

Developers Kit (FDK) is an application pro-

gramming interface (API) that allows organi-

zations to use FrameMaker as an automated

KEY NEW FEATURES

The following features are new to FrameMaker 8:

Improved Globalization

Author and publish unstructured and XML

content based on the Unicode character set.

Use Unicode characters in documents, dia-

logs, markers, and catalog entries. Author

and maintain non-English or multi-lan-

guage documents without the need for spe-

cial FrameMaker versions or character code

manipulation. Generate PDF files with Uni-

code-based text and Unicode characters in

bookmarks. Use newly provided dictionar-

ies for spell check and hyphenation support

in more than 30 languages.

DITA Support

Author and publish documents that con-

form to the Darwin Information Typing

Architecture (DITA), an industry-standard

architecture that facilitates re-use and re-

purposing of modular information units.

Use a rich set of DITA features, including

topic authoring, map authoring, content

fragment reuse (conref) and book building

from DITA maps.

Rich Media Integration

Create interactive PDF documents by

embedding SWF files directly in

FrameMaker software. Include eLearning

and tutorial content created using applica-

tions such as Adobe Captivate and

Adobe Flash.

Import 3D graphics (U3D) files created

using applications such as Adobe

Acrobat 3D. Select parameters such as back-

ground, lighting, render mode and default

view. Create PDF files containing live 3D

models.

Improved XML Support

Preserve comments in XML documents.

Save system variables to XML, and preserve

all XML processing instructions (PIs).

Import element formatting from a cascad-

ing style sheet (CSS) to quickly define ele-

ment formatting for print and PDF

generation.

Improved Single-Source Publishing

Use improved conditional text features for

managing and publishing multiple docu-

ment variations. Define behaviors based on

logical operators (AND, OR, NOT) for

overlapping conditions. Rename existing

condition tags.

Filter by Attribute

In structured documents, show or hide con-

tent based on attribute values. Leverage

XML metadata for publishing multiple doc-

ument versions. Create logical expressions

to define whether element content is pub-

lished or suppressed. Use Filter by Attribute

or conditional text to manage document

variations in structured content. Retain

conditional text and Filter by Attribute set-

tings when saving documents to XML.

Trac k Te xt E di ts

Identify text insertions and deletions during

the document editing process. Accept or

reject text edits individually or globally. Pre-

view documents with all edits accepted or

rejected. Maintain text edit tracking infor-

mation when saving documents to XML.

Other new features

· Use a tabbed document view to better

manage multiple documents in the

FrameMaker software workspace.

· Import content from Microsoft

Office 2007.

· Embed graphics references from a URL

or directory path.

· Automate and customize FrameMaker

using the Frame Developer’s Kit (FDK),

which has been updated to support

FrameMaker 8 features.

publishing engine for database-resident content or XML data. Using the FDK, developers

can integrate FrameMaker Server into applications that automatically render customized

or personalized data in rich, complex formats.

Other key users

The capabilities of FrameMaker for creating and maintaining long, complex documents

make it a natural choice for governments, large organizations, and scientific/research orga-

nizations. Each of these entities produces large numbers of often complex documents that

must be published with a common format to multiple output channels. All must meet the

ever-changing requirements to deliver to multiple channels, including print, PDF, and the

Web, and many are facing new requirements to deliver personalized content via XML.

FrameMaker 8 software also supports organizations that need to add 3D and interactive

content to their publishing workflows.

Many commercial publishers have relied on FrameMaker software’s long-document fea-

tures for textbooks and reference materials. These same publishers can use FrameMaker

software’s multichannel publishing features to generate new revenue streams from multi-

ple output channels or XML-based personalized content delivery.

COMPARING DOCUMENT WORKFLOWS

Document workflows — the process by which authors create and maintain content — can

be organized into three general categories: design- and format-driven, template-driven,

and structure/XML-driven. In contrast to page layout applications or word processors,

FrameMaker excels at supporting template-driven and XML-driven process models.

Design- and format-driven workflows

Documents can be created from a broad variety of authoring tools and processes. For

example, magazine designers conceive and implement their ideas based on a page-oriented

paradigm. Their process model is a design-driven workflow, where the components of a

page (such as the story title, the lead paragraph, the body copy, the illustrations, and the

photos) are considered separate assets. Graphic designers use their artistic skills to manu-

ally position and manipulate these components on individual pages.

Word processing users, however, often follow a format-driven workflow. For example, they

select text and manually apply formatting properties — font size, font style, line spacing,

paragraph spacing, and so on.

The design-driven and format-driven process models place significant emphasis on the

user’s skill and dedication to lay out and format the content consistently and correctly. The

output of these types of workflows tends to be channel-specific. For instance, a magazine’s

graphic design and layout that is optimized for the size of the printed page is often

inappropriate for other media such as the Web. Repurposing design- or format-driven

content for other output media typically requires a substantial reformatting effort.

Template-driven workflows

A template-driven workflow can effectively address the limitations of design- and format-

driven models. In a template-driven workflow, the format of the content is controlled by a

style sheet that is part of a template, which controls the physical layout of the finished pub-

lication. Users tag the content to identify components such as chapter names, words to be

Valid XML content in the FrameMaker user interface, with the Structure View and Element Catalog.

emphasized, product names, and

cautions and warnings. The style

sheet associates format and layout

information with these tags to

ensure, for instance, that chapter

names always start on a new recto

(right) page and appear in 16-point,

centered, Adobe Myriad® Bold type.

The template includes a set of style

sheet definitions, plus one or more

standardized master layout pages that

apply consistent parameters for the

positioning of text and graphics on

various types of pages (such as cover

and contents pages, ad pages, and

inside text pages).

FrameMaker software’s template-

driven workflow ensures consistent

formatting and layout of the content;

automated formatting and layout

reduces the need to manipulate a

publication’s components manually.

Even more valuable, however, is the

separation of the formatting and lay-

out decisions from the source content. This allows organizations to use a group of tem-

plates tailored to specific output media with exactly the same content.

Structured workflows

In structured or XML-based workflows, authors tag and organize content into a hierarchy

of elements, with attributes (metadata) attached to those elements. XML allows the user to

define and enforce a set of rules that apply to a specific document type (for instance, chap-

ters must start with a chapter name and contain one or more sections; sections must start

with a section name and contain text or subsections). These rules may be expressed using a

Document Type Definition (DTD) or XML Schema. XML content that conforms to its DTD

or Schema is valid. FrameMaker software supports the production of valid content that is

often critical to XML workflows.

Because content tags can carry information about the meaning and usage of the informa-

tion, tagging facilitates easier interpretation of documents than is possible based on

appearance alone. Tagging has the added power of enabling software applications to intelli-

gently process content. For documents, this can mean the automatic production of tables

of contents, indices, lists of figures, and navigation links. Tagging is also the key to XML-

based solutions that provide personalized, customized or interactive versions of the con-

tent.

GETTING TO KNOW FRAMEMAKER 8

FrameMaker 8 software provides the power of many

tools in a single product. Try the features described in

this document to see how FrameMaker software can

help you create, share, customize and publish content

faster and with fewer resources.

Global Language Support

The Unicode Standard is a character coding system

designed to support the worldwide interchange, pro-

cessing, and display of text in any language or charac-

ter set. Unicode encoding allows you to create

documents containing characters from any number of

character sets, and allows sharing of documents

between different geographic or linguistic regions.

FrameMaker 8 supports Unicode text encoding for

creating, editing, saving, and publishing documents in

multiple languages and for creating multilingual doc-

uments. Unicode text is supported in FrameMaker

markers, catalog entries, and dialogs. PDF export sup-

ports Unicode text, bookmarks, tags, and comments.

You can import or copy Unicode content from other

applications.

FrameMaker 8 includes greatly expanded dictionary

and hyphenation support for multi-language author-

ing:

Demonstration of the globalization capabilities of FrameMaker software. Four languages are included within a single document.

· Full authoring support (including language rules, dictionary, and hyphenation) is

provided for US English, French, German, Swiss German, Canadian French, and

British English.

· Full authoring support (without dictionaries and hyphenation) is provided for

Japanese, Korean, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese.

· Dictionary and hyphenation support are provided for Spanish, Italian, Portuguese,

Danish, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Nynorsk, Finnish, Catalan, Greek, Russian, Czech,

Polish, Hungarian, Turkish, Slovak, Slovenian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Estonian, Latvian,

Lithuanian, and Romanian.

Structured Authoring and Publishing

FrameMaker 8 software provides a structured authoring environment that eases the pro-

cess of creating and editing valid XML. You can use Document Type Definitions (DTDs)

or XML Schema to define the structure and validity of your content, and format your doc-

uments with the FrameMaker context-sensitive styling language (Element Definition Doc-

ument, or EDD). Read/write rules allow you to map XML elements to document objects

such as tables, graphics, footnotes, cross-references, and index markers. You can work on

your content in full WYSIWYG mode.

FrameMaker 8 software provides

Example structured document that conforms to DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture), an industrystandard topic-based information model.

context-sensitive guided editing with

the Element Catalog, the Structure

View window, and the FrameMaker

continuous validation feature. The

Element Catalog quickly shows you

which elements are valid while you

develop your information and navi-

gate the structure of your document.

The Structure View window is tightly

integrated with the WYSIWYG view,

and displays any validity errors as

they occur in real time.

You can define your own

FrameMaker structured applica-

tions, which means that FrameMaker

automatically picks the right DTD or

XML Schema, template, and settings

when you open an XML document.

FrameMaker software’s parsing

engine examines the XML at import

to determine whether it is well-

formed and to validate the code against the appropriate DTD or XML Schema. After

authoring and tagging tasks are complete, you can save standards-compliant XML for fur-

ther processing.

FrameMaker supports XML namespaces, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and the Unicode

character set. Namespaces are commonly used as a prefix to XML element names, particu-

larly when content is combined from multiple sources. FrameMaker software can export

standards-compliant CSS files for use with a broad variety of media.

Adobe provides several resources to aid users who are not familiar with structured author-

ing. Choose Help>Complete FrameMaker Help to access the complete set of FrameMaker

resources. For example, the XML Cookbook gives users a “jump start” at designing and

implementing a structured authoring system. The XML Cookbook includes a detailed set of

procedures and examples to guide users through all aspects of authoring and publishing,

including structured template creation and XML import and export. Adobe also provides a

white paper, Migrating from Unstructured to Structured FrameMaker, to guide organiza-

tions that wish to migrate from an unstructured, template-based workflow to a structured,

XML-based workflow.

FrameMaker software includes a set of sample applications for several common types of

documents and several standard DTDs. Organizations can use these sample applications

“out of the box,” or use them as a starting point for customization. Four sample applica-

tions for standards-compliant structured authoring are integrated into FrameMaker:

DITA 1.0, DocBook 4.1, xDocBook 4.1.2, and XHTML. DocBook 4.1 and xDocBook 4.1.2

conform fully to the industry-standard DocBook (SGML) and xDocBook (XML) DTDs

for technical documentation. The XHTML sample application conforms to the DTD for

the next generation of HTML — the Extensible HTML version 1.0 transition DTD.

DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) is an industry-standard information

model that facilitates re-use and re-purposing of modular information units.

FrameMaker 8 provides a rich environment for authoring and publishing DITA-compliant

content. FrameMaker 8 supports the authoring of DITA topics, including task, concept,

and reference types, and DITA maps. Support for content fragment reuse (conref) is pro-

vided through a graphical interface. DITA xref elements are converted to “live”

FrameMaker cross-references, and book building from DITA maps is supported. The

FrameMaker 8 DITA support is highly configurable. You can modify the provided

FrameMaker DITA templates to specify your own publishing formats, or you can create

your own DITA specializations.

Rich Media Publishing Features

FrameMaker users often choose Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) as a publishing

format, and FrameMaker software makes the process automatic. An Adobe PDF Creation

Add-On is included with the FrameMaker software, allowing the generation of PDF docu-

ments with a simple “save as PDF” operation. Cross-references and hypertext links within

and between documents are preserved when you convert to PDF.

FrameMaker supports several graphics formats that are common in interactive content.

FrameMaker 8 adds support for U3D and SWF files. These file formats allow the authoring

and publishing of new forms of interactive PDF content from FrameMaker 8 software.

Authoring Tools for Complex Documents

FrameMaker offers a proven, powerful set of long-document authoring and management

tools. Master page usage can be associated to specific paragraph tags or elements, and cus-

tom master pages can be rearranged in any order. This functionality reduces manual layout

chores for custom pages. Twelve running headers and footers are available, and a Select/

Deselect All button streamlines the process of importing formats between documents. Out-

of-the-box layout options and a rich set of examples for skill building are provided by book

templates and structured templates. The option of saving a document in FrameMaker 7.0

format provides backward compatibility with prior versions of the software.

Accessibility Features

FrameMaker supports accessibility for authors with impaired vision and support for the

creation of accessible documents. Accessibility features provided by Windows 2000,

Windows XP, and Windows Vista are supported, including a high-contrast user interface,

screen reader compatibility, and keyboard shortcuts.

FrameMaker supports the creation of accessible documents in many ways. Template-based

publishing makes it possible to output several versions of a document, including a large-

print edition. FrameMaker supports the generation of tagged PDF, which identifies a pub-

lication’s layout elements and contents and the visual relationships between them. This

allows logical reflow of tagged PDF files during viewing on a broad range of devices with

widely varying screen sizes. You can use conditional tags and graphics attributes to display

graphics at normal resolution in the standard edition of a document, in high-contrast out-

line mode in a large-print edition, and as textual descriptions in an edition for visually

impaired readers. Documents can be output as raw text for input to accessibility tools that

require ASCII text files.

FRAMEMAKER 8: A GUIDED TOUR

The following sections highlight the key features of FrameMaker 8 software.

STRUCTURED OR UNSTRUCTURED FRAMEMAKER?

FrameMaker provides both unstructured and structured authoring capabilities in a single

product.

By default, FrameMaker opens in a structured interface. All features of FrameMaker are

available in the structured interface, including the paragraph and character catalogs for

formatting unstructured documents, and the element catalog and structure view for

authoring structured documents. You can work on both structured and unstructured doc-

uments in the structured interface.

If you wish to constrain FrameMaker to the unstructured interface, you can choose

File>Preferences>General and specify the unstructured FrameMaker interface. Subsequent

launches of FrameMaker will open in unstructured mode. You can use the File>Prefer-

ences>General dialog to switch between structured and unstructured modes at any time.

You must quit and restart FrameMaker for the change to take effect.

UNSTRUCTURED AUTHORING

FrameMaker software’s unstructured authoring mode supports authors in formatting text

automatically by applying paragraph formats and character formats. FrameMaker exposes

frequently-used commands in a Formatting Toolbar, and provides a history palette and

“multiple undo” capability for reviewing and undoing previous editing operations.

FrameMaker 8 software adds a tabbed interface for managing multiple documents and a

Track Text Edit toolbar.

FrameMaker software includes both unstructured and structured templates that you can

customize for your particular needs.

Creating a new Unstructured Document

1. Launch FrameMaker. The Structured FrameMaker interface opens. You can edit both

unstructured and structured documents in structured mode.

2. Choose File>New>Document. The FrameMaker New file dialog opens.

3. You can create a new document by clicking the Portrait, Landscape or Custom buttons

or by using the templates provided in this folder. FrameMaker 8 also adds an

XML_Templates folder for sample XML documents. Click Explore Standard Templates

to display the Standard Templates browser.

4. Select from the list of FrameMaker templates on the left side of the dialog. The

Template browser displays a thumbnail view and description of the selected template.

To create a new empty document based on a template, click Create, or click Show

Sample to create an example document based on the template.

5. Click the Show Paragraph Catalog button to display the Paragraph Catalog. Park your

History Palette

Paragraph Catalog

Show Paragraph Catalog

Show History Pale tte

Trac k Tex t E dit b ar

Tabb ed D ocu me nt Bar

cursor in a block of text and click in the Paragraph Catalog to apply a paragraph

format.

6. Click the Show History Palette button to display the history palette. Click on any

editing operation to undo that operation and all subsequent actions.

7. To view the Track Text Edit toolbar, choose View>Track Text Edit Bar.

8. To enable the tabbed document interface, choose View>Tabbed Bar.

STRUCTURED AUTHORING

FrameMaker 8 offers the ability to work with XML files, DTDs, and XML Schema, which

makes it possible to integrate with an externally developed XML application. The parsing

and validation engines built into FrameMaker ensure well-formed and valid XML when

you open and save XML documents. You can convert a DTD or XML Schema to a

FrameMaker EDD (Element Definition Document), incorporate its element definitions

into a new or existing structured FrameMaker template, and apply element tags to your

content.

When you finish your work, you can parse and validate your XML and then save it as a

standards-compliant file for use by others. XML publishing maximizes the efficiency of

content creation and makes it possible to easily disseminate information from a single

source to many channels, such as Web, print, interactive media, wireless devices and PDAs.

Creating a new XML Document

FrameMaker 8 software includes new sample documents that allow you to get started

quickly with XML authoring and publishing.

1. To create a new XML document, choose File>New>Document. The FrameMaker New

file dialog opens.

2. Double-click the XML_templates folder to view example XML documents.

3. Double-click the Book folder, and choose UserGuide.xml. Click New.

4. FrameMaker chooses an appropriate structured application based on the XML

structure. The structured application defines the appropriate styles and page layouts to

format the XML document for screen display, editing, and printing.

+ 28 hidden pages