Re: Converting of styles from Word to a FM template

["Brierley, Sean" <Brierley -at- QUODATA -dot- COM>]

Mike:

I missed your original post. For FrameMaker questions, check out
http://www.adobe.com/supportservice/custsupport/forums.html and sign
into the FrameMaker group.

Anyway, while I have not yet done this, such projects are on my horizon.

As a thought, why not import the Word document directly into a blank
FrameMaker document? Open a blank FrameMaker document. Set up the
margins, columns, headers, footers, etc.  Then, Use File|Import and turn
on Copy into Document. Use the Source's formatting. FrameMaker ought to
(as I said, I've not done this) bring the Word doc in with formatting
intact. If you look at the style drop-down box, you will see Word's
formatting names are retained with an asterisk next to them. The
asterisk means they are not bona-fide FrameMaker paragraph files, yet.
Select a paragraph that uses a style denoted by an asterisk. Select
Format|Paragraph Designed|Apply|Create. This will create a FrameMaker
paragraph style with the same settings and by the same name as the Word
style. You must do this for each unique Word style (it's tedious, I
know).

After you have done one Word document, you have your template. For
subsequent conversions, import the Word doc as before. Save it. In
FrameMaker, open the first document you converted. You should now have
two Frame docs open, the first one and the new "blank" one that contains
the newly imported Word paragraphs. In FrameMaker, select
File|Import|Formats. From the drop-down list box "Import from Document,"
select the first document you converted. I recommend you import
everything. Save the new document.

As an aside, I do not envy you such a conversion project. Word and
FrameMaker clearly work in very different ways and manual revisions and
adjustments are necessary. Cross-refs, autonumbering, macros, reference
fields, TOCs, indexes, etc., and often graphics do not convert well. a
few weeks ago I converted a Ventura 4.2 doc to Word 97--what a pain.

Best of luck!

Sean

P.S. I like FrameMaker a lot. I recommend you get into a FrameMaker
class. Such a class will get you up to speed efficiently and will show
you things that you may never be able to realise on your own.



>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>From: Shannon Orr [mailto:sorr -at- FDS -dot- COM]
>>>Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 1999 10:48 AM
>>>To: TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
>>>Subject: Re: Converting of styles from Word to a FM template
>>>
>>>
>>>Mike writes: "I am new to FrameMaker.
>>>We supply software to a client company that has its own
>>>"LOOK" and our
>>>manuals must look the same, using their templates.
>>>The names of the "paragraphs" in the FM OEM template are not
>>>the same as
>>>the "styles" in Word.
>>>I converted manually one chapter very, very slowly.
>>>Is there a way to do it at least 90% automatically, without
>>>changing the
>>>name of all the Word styles?
>>>FM uses convertion tables to convert to HTML. Is there
>>>something similar
>>>for converting "styles" that would not cost a fortune of money?"


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