How to Add a FrameMaker Drop-Down Menu to an Image

Introduction

Would you like to add a 1- or 2-level drop-down menu to any image in your Adobe FrameMaker technical document

Follow These Easy Steps

It’s easy and this is how:
1) Create a new FrameMaker (FM) document or open an existing one.

2) Either add a new image or select an existing one. For the sake of this tutorial I’ll use a Green Arrow in a new document:
FM_How to add drop-down menu to an image 1
3) If you still don’t have it open, select Graphics > Tools and display your toolbox.

4) Select the TEXT FRAME tool and draw a text frame around the image; just slightly larger for ease of selecting. When the Create New Text Frame dialog box is displayed, click Set and close it:
FM_How to add drop-down menu to an image 2
5) Select and right-click the text frame to display the pop-up menu. Select the Object Properties option to display the Customize Text Frame dialog box.

6) Under Flow, enter a name for the Tag attribute. For example: “Fun”.

7) Click the Set button to close the dialog box. This tags the text frame with a text flow of “Fun”.

8] Go to your Reference Pages by either using the Esc+v+R shortcut or selecting View > Reference Pages from the menu.

9) On any reference page, drag and draw a text frame on any clear spot by using the text frame tool.

10) Select and right-click the text frame to display the pop-up menu. Select the Object Properties option to display the Customize Text Frame dialog box.

11) Under Flow, enter a name for the Tag attribute. For example: “fun”.

12) In the first line of the text frame, write the name of the text flow of the button’s text frame: “fun”. This establishes the link between the button and the drop-down menu.

13) Then on the second and subsequent lines, enter the name of the options that you’d like to display as links in a drop-down menu. For this example, we’ll use “Web Site 1” and “Web Site 2”:
FM_How to add drop-down menu to an image 3
14) Select Special > Hypertext from the menu to display the Hypertext dialog box:

FM_How to add drop-down menu to an image 4

15) Select the “Web Site 1text. Click the Command drop-down menu in Hypertext dialog box and select Go To URL option:
FM_How to add drop-down menu to an image 5
16) Enter a website address after the “URL”; for example, http://www.nfl.com (to go to the National Football League website). Click the New Hypertext Marker button.

17) Repeat Steps 15 and 16 for the Web Site 2. Now both drop-down menu options will display a hypertext marker:
FM_How to add drop-down menu to an image 6
18) Go back to your Body Pages by either using the Esc+v+B shortcut or selecting View > Body Pages from the menu.

19) Select the text frame. Display the Hypertext dialog box. Select Popup Menu option from the Command drop-down menu:
FM_How to add drop-down menu to an image 7
20) In the Syntax field, enter the name of the reference text flow (“fun“) after “popup”. Click the New Hypertext Marker button to link the image to the drop-down list in the reference pages. (Note: make sure your cursor is placed in the Insertion Point of the text frame.)

21) Click Make View-Only button to test your drop-down menu.
Now when you bring your cursor over the image, the arrow will turn into a finger and when you click, FM will display your drop-down menu.
FM_How to add drop-down menu to an image 8
22) Click the menu option to launch the website linked to the option:

FM_How to add drop-down menu to an image NFL

How to add a drop-down sub-menu

MORE INFO

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How to Turn Off and Hide Images in a Adobe FrameMaker Document
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How to Display FrameMaker Conditional Text
How to Use FrameMaker Pending Marker
How to Insert Text and Images to a FrameMaker Side Bar
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How to Generate a QR Code with Adobe FrameMaker
How to Publish in Multiple Formats with Adobe FrameMaker
How to Use System Variables in Adobe FrameMaker
How to Create a Structured FrameMaker Document with a Conversion Table
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1 Comments

  1. Britton Hansen on April 14, 2011 at 11:19 am

    Seems to work well as a framemaker file, but not when distilled to PDF. What outputs would this be useful with?