Re: FrameMaker and MS Word
"MS Word has a default Normal.dot Template inherent in the program. ItActually, FrameMaker does have a fundamental template for a "new" document, and another one for when you open a text file in Maker. These are in the product release directory. I suggest you don't mess with them, though. The thing to do in FrameMaker is to have a collection of templates that suit you - there is a set that comes with the product, and is in a template browser. Yes, they're just normal documents. The template browser opens them as "UNTITLED". The template browser also includes instructuctions for adding your own documents so it opens them as UNTITLED. A bit arcane, I know... You can always just open a document and SAVE AS to a different name. Or you can create a new document, and use Import Formats to "import" the formatting from a template into your new document.
doesn't seem like Framemaker has a similar Template like Normal.dot.
True?"
Steve, you've hit on the thing that had me gnashing my teeth for DAYS
trying to figure out. The Neuburger book doesn't ever talk about this
point. I think I finally got it out of the Dummies book and saved my
sanity. I never had such a hard time picking up a software program as
when I tried to learn Frame.
The think is that there is a fundamental conceptual difference between
Word (and PageMaker, and QuarkXPress, for that matter too!) and
FrameMaker. "Templates" as you think of them in Word do not exit in FM.
A Frame template is any old .fm file that you save with a new name. No
separate file extension, no unique behavior, nada. Nyet. Zippo.
Styles in Maker are absolutely different from styles in Word - a cause of much distress. In Maker, a style is just a collection of properties. Applying a style is more or less a macro that pops those properties onto a paragraph. Now the paragraph has a bunch of properties that are not connected in any way to the "style" that is in the style catalog... EXCEPT they have the same tag name properties. With that property, if you do an UPDATE ALL, the product goes through all instances of that tag name and performs this "macro" again. The software also keeps track of instances in the document that don't match with the catalog - overrides - by showing an asterisc in the status bar. But changing one instance has no effect on other instances unless and until you tell Maker to update all.
This concept of inherited properties also carries over to things like
styles. As you noted, in Word (and QXP) you can base one style on
another. That way, if you update one, you update all the child styles.
Page breaks are not separate entities... They are properties of paragraph formats.
Yes... A historical artifact. I use SAVE very often - then I can always back up to the last save via REVERT. I have had no catrastophes for want of multiple UNDO, but then I'm used to it.
Once you get this firmly entrenched in your brain, most of the other FM
tricks should fall neatly into place. I really like it now that I *get*
it.
Also--this is very important!--there is only ONE level of undo.
You can specify the default paste behavior in the maker.ini file. The question is, should an OLE "server" paste contents in as an OLE object or as regular old text? Me??? NEVER as OLE. When I build a Maker doc out of Word docs, I eventually throw the Word doc away - maintaining the link is prohibitive. If you do lots of copy/paste from Word, it's woth it to hunt down the .ini setting and change it.
If you copy text from Word, select Paste Special-->Unformatted text or
it will simply embed the text from the word doc as a separate text flow
in your doc.
You should try the FrameUser's list if you're going to be using Maker for a while. Lots of swell advice. Try http://www.frameusers.com (if I'm not mistaken) to get to a subscriber form.
Cheers and good luck.
ps
You should see how I suffer over learning Word.
--
Chris Despopoulos, maker of CudSpan Freeware...
Plugins to Enhance FrameMaker & FrameMaker+SGML
http://www.telecable.es/personales/cud/
cud -at- telecable -dot- es
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