RE: New to FrameMaker

["Combs, Richard" <richard -dot- combs -at- Polycom -dot- com>]

Nina Rogers wrote:
 
> I've been working through the user guide and have done some 
> tutorials and am slowly but surely figuring this out. One 
> thing I can't seem to find, though: How do I make an "arrow" 
> character for steps? (Ex.: Click
> New-->File, etc.) In Word, I would just type two hyphens and 
> a "greater
> than" symbol and it would automatically turn into a nice 
> arrow. Is there a function similar to this in FrameMaker? I 
> can't seem to find anything (yet, at least). I would rather 
> use an arrow than switch to using a slash or a >.

I'm a huge FM fan, but I've got to admit there are some pretty cool
features in Word that would be nice to have -- and autocorrect is one of
them. I hate to break it to you, Nina, but you're not going to be able
to get away with typing "teh" anymore either. ;-) 

A real arrow is more work than in Word, but it's practically all
one-time setup -- after that, it's an easy keyboard shortcut. 

First, see what symbol fonts you have (Symbol, Zapf Dingbats, Wingdings,
Wingdings 2, etc.) and whether any of them have an arrow or arrows you
like. You can use Character Map, which is probably under Accessories in
your All Programs menu, to browse your fonts. 

There's a right-facing arrow in Wingdings that looks pretty good, so
let's use it as an example. In Character Map, it's the character at row
10, column 12. When you select it, Character Map shows you its
hexadecimal character code on the bottom left -- in this case, 0xE0 (the
"0x" is just a convention indicating that what follows is a hexadecimal
-- base 16 -- number). Make a note of that hex code number.

In FM, create a new character format named "Wingdings" that's defined as
Family Wingdings and everything else As Is. 

Now, open the Variable dialog (Special > Variable) and click Create
Variable. In the Name field, enter a name -- let's say "arrow-right." In
the Definition field, first enter <Wingdings> (you can select it from
the Character Formats list) and then the hex code for the character --
but FM uses "\x" instead of "0x" (see Character_Sets.pdf), so enter \xE0
(or \xe0). Click Add, Done, and Done.

Now you have a user variable defined as your arrow. Whenever you want to
insert the arrow, type Ctrl+0 (the quick variable shortcut), followed by
a (to select the first variable beginning with a), and press Enter. 

(If arrow-right isn't the first or only variable beginning with a: Watch
your status bar after you type Ctrl+0 -- it shows you which variable is
selected. Type more of the name if necessary to uniquely identify the
one you want. You might even want to name your variable with an easy
shortcut in mind.) 

So, once you set up the variable, it's Ctrl+0 a Enter -- only one more
keystroke than in Word. :-) 

HTH!
Richard


------
Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
------
rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-777-0436
------




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