How to Create a Structured FrameMaker Document from an Unstructured FM Document by using a Conversion Table
The future belongs to structured authoring but what to do with all that unstructured legacy FrameMaker files sitting on our hard-drives?
The obvious answer is of course start to convert them into structured FM documents.
If you have Adobe FrameMaker it’s not that hard a process either.
Here is a simple way to convert unstructured FM files into their structured cousins through using a CONVERSION TABLE.
Follow these steps:
1) Open your unstructured FrameMaker document.
2) Select Structure Tools > Generate Conversion Table from your main menu to display the Generate Conversion Table dialog box:
3) Select the Generate New Conversion Table option and click Generate. Your newly generated Conversion Table will look something like this:
The table says the UNSTRUCTURED document object in Column 1 will be wrapped by the STRUCTURED elements listed in Column 2. The third column is for your notes only and is not used in the conversion process.
4) Save the Conversion Table by giving it an easy-to-remember name.
5) Select the open unstructured document again. Select StructureTools > Utilities > Structure Current Document... from the main menu to display the Structure Current Document dialog box:
6) Select the correct Conversion Table Document from the drop-down list and click Add Structure and you will end up with a nicely structured new document. Save it under a new name:
CAUTION: If you do not have a proper ROOT ELEMENT in the top row of your Conversion Table you may get the famous “NoName error“. The Structure View will display a RED NoName element enveloping the whole structure and rendering it invalid.
For example this Conversion Table with no Root Element
creates this INVALID structure (NoName element and red lines in the Structure View):
Fixing it is easy:
1) Insert a new row to the top of the Conversion Table.
2) Enter “RE:RootElement” to the first column and “Chapter” to the second column.
3) Save the Conversion Table. Run it on the Unstructured document as described in Step 5 above and this time you will have a valid structured document.
MORE INFO
I have not been using FrameMaker for very long. As a matter of fact, we had an osdtiue source put all of our in-house manuals together in FrameMaker for us. I was pulled in to learn and use FrameMaker to handle all of the revisions to the manuals. All of our manuals have the same layout with the exception of one manual. The only difference with that particular manual is that it is not letter-size. It’s a 5.5 x 8.5 book. Is there a way to create a template for my manuals? I know that in the future we will be adding a few more manuals.I thought it might be easier if I had a template to work off of for newly created manuals.
Kristina, yes you can create FrameMaker templates to use over and over. Actually I had a 5.5×8.5 template myself in the past for a half-size document project. Would you like us to publish a post describing how to do that in FM12?
I need to get from Word to FM to PDF and finally to XML.
I understand how to open a Word doc, import override styles from a template, edit the content and create the PDF.
I also understand the procedure to create a conversion table and use it to create a structured version of the document.
BUT, I want the final structured document to “belong” to a structured application I have already created, that includes read/write rules that I need to finally export XML correctly.
All the explanations I find seem to miss that final step. Ideally, I would hope to somehow select the template associated with that application, which already has the conversion table setup.
Is this possible?
@Neil, yes, what you want is quite possible, and easiest to manage with Fm 2015, because of independent improvements in Word handling and XML handling. If Ugur can’t get you taken care of, I can help set up this workflow.
-Matt Sullivan
Author, FrameMaker – Creating and Editing Content