I Came, I Saw, I Learned...

Adobe FrameMaker: Custom Master Pages

by Barbara Binder 

New FrameMaker documents have default Master Pages. Single-sided documents have one, called "Right," and double-sided documents have two, called "Left" and "Right."

We use these pages to place the objects we want to repeat on all the Body Pages, things like our running heads, page numbers and repeating graphics.

But what do you do when you need a different look for a Body Page, on a repeating basis? For example, no page number on the opening page of each chapter? You set up a custom master page. Here's how:

1. Choose View > Master Pages.
   
   
2. Choose Special > Add Master Page.
   
   
3. Select which master you'd like to base the new one on, and give it a logical name.
   
   
   
   
4. Make any changes that you like to the new master (i.e., remove the page number for the opening page), and return to Body page 1 by choosing View > Body Pages.
   
   Did that work? No! FrameMaker is very powerful, but still can't read your mind. If you are going to create custom master pages, you will also have the obligation to apply them to the Body pages. Here's the easiest way:
   
   
5. Choose Format > Page Layout > Master Page Usage.
   
   
   
   
6. Select your custom master from the drop down list at the top, and the page range from the bottom, and click Apply.
   

There you go. You are allowed 100 master pages in a single FrameMaker document, so you can make as many as necessary. I usually create one for the opening page of my chapters, one for the "This page intentionally left blank." pages, and one each for left and right Landscape pages in my portrait documents.

Tune in next week for automating the custom master page application!

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If you are new to FrameMaker and need some training, I've got an instructor-led, online Introduction to Adobe FrameMaker 9 class coming up December 2-3, 2009. Looking for advanced FrameMaker training? Click here to see our upcoming Adobe FrameMaker 9 Advanced dates. Looking for other online classes? Click here.

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About the author: Barbara Binder is the president and founder of Rocky Mountain Training. Barbara has been a trainer for nearly two decades and was recently recognized by Adobe as one of the top trainers world-wide for 2007.

Adobe FrameMaker: Troubleshooting Unavailable Fonts

by Barbara Binder 

I never like opening up a FrameMaker document and getting the dreaded unavailable fonts dialog box:



Sadly, with multiple authors who contribute documents to me from around the world, it's just a fact of life that I see the dialog box frequently. Each time that I do, my goal is to resolve the matter as quickly as possible.

When a document has unavailable fonts, the missing fonts will be listed in the FrameMaker Console. Look at your taskbar to locate the Console and you can see the list of troublemakers:



I typically begin by noting the unavailable fonts, and then search for them by choosing Edit > Find/Change. I then pick Character Format from the Find drop-down menu, and press [Shift] [F8] to set the window to As Is. I change the Family to the missing font, and repeat for the Change drop-down list, only I substitute the Family I'd like to use. With the Find and Change buttons, I remove all usages of unavailable fonts, repeating as necessary to address all fonts listed in the Console.

To test the results, I save the file, close it, and then reopen it. Normally, I'm good to go. Sometimes, however, the document will still show unavailable fonts. I check the Console again, make a note of the names, and then try it again, because maybe I missed one or two on the first try. Or not.

What frustrates me is when a documents states it has unavailable fonts, but then comes up with the Not Found message when I search for them:



Now what? It's actually pretty simple. Just choose File > Save and save the file as a MIF document. Close the file, open the MIF, and then save it over the FM file. That will take care of unavailable fonts that are not actually in the document.

Why do we need that extra step? I don't know. I guess I'll head over to the Adobe Feature Request & Bug Form and remind Adobe that this needs fixing. If you see bugs or think of some great feature for FrameMaker 10, don't just think about it, please use this form to let Adobe know.

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Need some more help with FrameMaker? We've got an online Adobe FrameMaker 9 Introduction class coming up December 2-3, 2009. Sign up today. Looking for advanced FrameMaker training? Click here to our upcoming Adobe FrameMaker 9 Advanced dates. Looking for other online classes? Click here.

***

About the author: Barbara Binder is the president and founder of Rocky Mountain Training. Barbara has been a trainer for nearly two decades and was recently recognized by Adobe as one of the top trainers world-wide for 2007.

Adobe FrameMaker: Pasting Text from Microsoft Word

by Barbara Binder 

This is one of my all-time favorite tips because it's something I have to deal with on a regular basis.

Let's say I need to replace a paragraph in my FrameMaker document with one from an MS Word file. The process seems easy enough: go to Word, select and copy the paragraph to the clipboard, return to FrameMaker, select the old text, and Paste. Right? Wrong!

Instead of the text simply replacing my highlighted FrameMaker text, the clipboard text is pasted as an OLE object (OLE stands for Object Linking and Embedding--it's a Microsoft technology that allows you to embed and link objects into documents). The pasted text appears within an anchored frame--not exactly what I was looking for.

To get around the anchored frame, I'll now have to undo the Paste step (by using the Undo command) and choose Paste Special, select "text" and then click OK.

When I need to paste text between Word and FrameMaker, I almost always want regular old text to appear, not an OLE object. While the extra work I mentioned above will give me the results I wanted, why doesn't the pasted text just appear as text by default? Why do I get the OLE object in the first place?

The answer is FrameMaker's "Clipboard Format Priority" list. By default, FrameMaker is set to paste objects from Word as OLE. If you want to change the paste priority order, you can do so by editing the maker.ini file (the maker.ini file is FrameMaker's initialization file.).

Note: Before attempting the following steps, please make a back-up copy of the maker.ini file in case you need to restore it later.

1. Open C:\Program Files\Adobe\FrameMakerX\maker.ini in a text editor like Notepad
   
   
2. Scroll down until you find:
   
   ClipboardFormatsPriorities=FILE, OLE 2, EMF, META, DIB, BMP, MIFW, MIF, RTF, UNICODE TEXT, TEXT
   
   This list is read from left to right by FrameMaker, and OLE has a higher priority than TEXT, so if an object can be pasted as either OLE or TEXT, it will paste as OLE.
   
   
3. Rearrange the order so that TEXT is first and OLE is last:
   
   ClipboardFormatsPriorities=TEXT, FILE, EMF, META, DIB, BMP, MIFW, MIF, RTF, UNICODE TEXT, OLE 2
   
   
4. Save and close the file and restart FrameMaker.
   
   
5. Go ahead and copy and paste text from Word.
   
   Look, Ma! No need for Paste Special! Wow!

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Need some more help with FrameMaker? I've got an online Introduction to FrameMaker 9 class coming up October 22-23, 2009. Sign up today.

***

About the author: Barbara Binder is the president and founder of Rocky Mountain Training. Barbara has been a trainer for nearly two decades and was recently recognized by Adobe as one of the top trainers world-wide for 2007.

Adobe FrameMaker 9: The Application Bar

by Barbara Binder

 

FrameMaker has had the same look and feel for a hundred years, or at least it seems that way. As I make the transition to FrameMaker 9, most of my attention has been focused on the new interface. I just think it's weird. I mean, it's the same old FrameMaker, with the same menus and functions, and funky Esc key shortcuts, but now it has the look and feel of Adobe's InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop. Will the new interface pave the way for new productivity features? I hope so, but meanwhile, let's spend some time looking at what we have today, beginning with the brand new Application Bar, which is now found in the new CS4 Suite, and in FrameMaker 9.

The Application Bar appears at the top right of the FrameMaker 9 window, right after the Help menu. It consists of four options:

1. UI Visibility. This toggle simply hides and shows the various toolbars, panels and pods, removing the workspace clutter. I use it when I want to show my work to a client on my computer, without all the distractions.
   
   
   
2. Arrange Documents. This button greatly simplifies the display of multiple open documents. I'm personally thrilled to think that I may never have to stop a class again to explain the difference between Tile Vertically and Tile Horizontally. A picture really is worth a thousand words!
   
   
   
3. Screen Mode. You now have three views of your document: Standard Screen Mode, Full Screen with Menu Bar and then the very dangerous, Full Screen Mode. Try it. At first, Full Screen Mode seems great. Talk about removing the clutter! Now, restore the menus, toolbars, pods and panels.
   
   How's that going for you?
   
   I found three ways out of Full Screen Mode, none of which appeared anywhere in the FrameMaker 9 Help files: close the program and restart, press ESC + SM + s, or right-click the gray area to the right of your page and choose Toggle Screen Mode. Hey Adobe, did you forget something?
   
   
   
4. Workspace Switcher. Choosing the best workspace for my specific workflow is a feature I've long relied on in InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop. Now you can all pick the best panel/pod arrangements for your FrameMaker workflows from this drop-down menu.

With the exception of an easy, intuitive way out of the Full Screen Mode view, it's all good stuff. Join me next week as I continue the tour through the new FrameMaker 9 interface.

 

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Want to learn more about Adobe FrameMaker? Click here.

 

***

About the author: Barbara Binder is the president and founder of Rocky Mountain Training. Barbara has been a trainer for nearly two decades and has been recognized by Adobe as one of the top trainers in the world.

Adobe FrameMaker: It Wasn't My Fault!

by Barbara Binder

 

I'm normally a happy Adobe FrameMaker user and instructor. FrameMaker 8 has been very trying for me, however. In my production work, and for the majority of my students, FrameMaker 8 didn't give much improvement on the unstructured side. It did, however, offer up a number of issues. The biggest issue for me was the Frame to PDF conversion. Initially it worked, and then it didn't.

 

Hours on the phone with Adobe's Technical support boiled down to: "There is something wrong with your computer. There is nothing wrong with our software." (And I heard the unspoken, 'There is something wrong with you.')

 

Every time I tried to create a PDF on my Vista system, FrameMaker would crash. On my last project, my Frame to PDF workflow morphed into:

• Lay out the documents on the Vista system with the 24" monitor
  
  
• Back up to a portable drive
  
  
• Move the files to my XP system with a 15" monitor
  
  
• Print each chapter (there were 50+) individually to .ps files (because any other technique would cause a crash)
  
  
• Distill the PS files manually into PDFs
  
  
• Use "Merge files into a Single PDF" command in Acrobat to put them back together in the right order, which required making my husband read the author names out loud (actually entertaining because they were mostly Cuban authors and he couldn't pronounce them)

Needless to say, I was a less-than-happy camper.

 

Recently I came across a link that changed everything. The link will take you to a July 2008 post on the Group Wellesely Wire, a BLOG put out by Group Wellesley.

 

Here is what the post said (credit here of course goes to Group Wellesley):

 

"Some users of FrameMaker on Windows XP and Vista (including myself) have been vexed by FrameMaker crashes while generating PDF files, and generated PDF files with missing text (not good). The problem appeared to be random, affecting some systems but not others, and some documents but not others.

 

"The workaround (until now) has been to delete the file 'C:\WINDOWS\system32\FNTCACHE.DAT' and reboot. Many FrameMaker users would delete this file regularly, and some did so automatically through a shutdown script.

 

"Mahesh Gupta, Product Manager for Adobe FrameMaker, reports that Microsoft has patched the underlying font management issues that have caused these problems. His post in the Adobe Technical Communication blog provides details of the Microsoft patch."

 

And there was much rejoicing among FrameMaker users!
No kidding! Just deleting "FNTCACHE.DAT" allowed me to generate my first PDF from Frame 8 on the Vista machine in months! Hurray!

 

Microsoft to the rescue. Who'd a thunk? Hats off to Alan Houser and the Group Wellesley team for BLOGGING about this maddening issue.

 

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Want to learn more about Adobe FrameMaker? Click here.

 

***

About the author: Barbara Binder is the president and founder of Rocky Mountain Training. Barbara has been a trainer for nearly two decades and has been recognized by Adobe as one of the top trainers in the world.

Adobe FrameMaker: Character Formats That Work

In my line of business as an Adobe Certified Trainer, students share all sorts of documents with me both in class and on post-class consultations. One of the things that I see regularly that never fails to make me cringe is the duplication of effort in FrameMaker's Character Catalog. When I see names like BoldBody, BoldFootnote, BoldTable, and BoldBullet, all in the same catalog, I know that the client and I have something to talk about.

 

The reason people end up making four, five or six versions of a Bold or Italic format is because they simply don't understand how the Character Designer works. In my Introduction to Adobe FrameMaker 8 class, I break up the process into creating Character Formats down into six easy steps (five of them are intuitive; but one is very easy to overlook):

1. Select a range of text that you would like to emphasize within a paragraph
   
   
2. Open Character Designer (you can press [Ctrl] [D]
   
   
3. Click the Commands drop-down menu from the bottom left of the dialog box and select Set Window to As Is
   
   
4. Type in a descriptive name (i.e., name the format Bold).
   
   
5. Select the properties you like to use (i.e., Bold)
   
   
6. Click the Apply button and then click Create

Voila. The new format appears in the Character Catalog and can be used on any text that needs to have bold type. 

 

What makes my list so special? Step number 3. When you select text in step number 1 and then open the Character Designer, FrameMaker picks up every property from the selected text: typeface, type size, color, tracking (spread), etc. The simple act of setting the window to "As Is" makes the software disregard everything about the selected text, except for what you pick.

 

Now you can select any text, in any size and use your Bold format. The only thing that will change is the weight: everything else remains as is. Try it, and let me know how it goes. 

 

***

 

Want to learn more about Adobe FrameMaker? Click here.

 

***

About the author: Barbara Binder is the president and founder of Rocky Mountain Training. Barbara has been a trainer for nearly two decades and has been recognized by Adobe as one of the top trainers in the world.

Adobe FrameMaker: Function Key Shortcuts

As I've said before, I love all of FrameMaker's unique Esc key shortcuts. I'm all about using the keyboard to get my work done in a timely manner, but I know that many of my students really find the three-key shortcuts both cumbersome and overwhelming.

 

How about trying some function key shortcuts?

 

Here's a quick list. The first column shows the function key; the second column shows the function key's primary function. You will notice that some of the function keys change their behavior when used with the Control, Shift and Alt keys.

 

Key	Function	Control	Shift	Alt
F1	Help	Align Top
F2	Plain text	Align Middle
F3	Underline	Align bottom	Overline
F4	Bold		Cascade Windows	Exit
F5	Italic		Tile Windows
F6				Toggle between document windows
F7			Set focus back to Document Window
F8	Apply Character Formatting		Set dialog box to "As Is"
F9	Apply Paragraph Formatting	Transpose Characters	Change settings to match current text

 

 

I have five favorites in the table above. Here's a little more information on how I use them:

1. Character Formatting. Highlight a range of text and press the F8 function key. The left side of the status bar lights up with a blue background and offers you a list of Character tags. You can use the arrow keys  to navigate to the desired format, or tap the first letter of the format to jump right to it. After you highlight the one you want and just press Enter to accept. To remove Character formats, press  F8 and then press Enter.
   
   
2. Paragraph Formatting. Works like Character formatting, but F9 displays a list of Paragraph Tags. Here's a tip for long lists with multiple tags that start with the same character: press a lower case letter to work through the list from the top down, and an uppercase letter to start at the bottom and work up!
   
   
3. Transpose characters. Those of us who try to type far too fast for our own good will love this one. Just place your cursor between two letters and press Control F9. They reverse position instantly!
   
   
4. Shift the focus back to the document window. When you are in a Designer, and want to shift the focus back to the document window, just press Shift F7.
   
   
5. Set dialog box to As Is. The best way to make Character Formats is to begin by setting everything in the Character Designer to As Is. What a pain in the neck. Not anymore:  Shift F8 is the way to go. (What? Still struggling with Character Formats? Tune in next week for a quick review.)

You certainly do not have to use shortcuts to be effective in FrameMaker. I simply find that learning and using shortcuts helps me to get the job done quickly and gets me back outside into the sunshine and fresh air.

 

***

 

Want to learn more about Adobe FrameMaker? Click here.

 

***

About the author: Barbara Binder is the president and founder of Rocky Mountain Training. Barbara has been a trainer for nearly two decades and has been recognized by Adobe as one of the top trainers in the world.

QuarkXPress 8: Where Text Acts Like an Image Box

by Kevin A. Siegel

 

One of the coolest features in QuarkXPress is the ability to take any old text, convert the text into a picture content box and insert pictures into the letter shapes. Using this technique, you can create truly unique special effects out of otherwise static text.

1. Format some text using a large font size and a thick font (Arial Black works great)
   
   
2. Using the Text Content Tool, select the text and then choose Item > Convert Text To Boxes > Convert Entire Box
   
   It may not seem like you have done anything to the text. However, the letters are now one large picture content box--you could import a single picture into the entire word. However, it may be even cooler to split the letter shapes into individual letters and then import pictures into each shape
   
   
3. Choose Item > Split > Outside Paths to split the letters into individual letter shapes
   
   
4. Now you can import pictures into the letter shapes by choosing File > Import
   
   
   
   Once the text has been converted to an image box, you can use the Select Point Tool to reshape the item.
   
   
   
   

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Want to learn more about QuarkXPress? Attend our QuarkXPress 8 Basics class. Click here for more information.

QuarkXPress 8: Not Your Father's QuarkXPress

by Kevin A. Siegel

 

If you are a veteran QuarkXPress user like myself, you have probably lamented Quark's stubborn refusal to update the QuarkXPress interface over the years.

Hold onto your hats... the new QuarkXPress 8 is here, complete with an interface that has been totally overhauled! Over the next few weeks, I'll be discussing some of my favorite improvements in QuarkXPress 8--the best version of the this top-notch print publishing application in, well, forever!

Let's begin with the most basic of QuarkXPress features... the Tools palette. It won't take you long to notice that the Tools palette has been streamlined from the palette available in QuarkXPress 7 and older.

With the older version of QuarkXPress you had to draw an item (for instance, a text box using the Text Box tool). After drawing the text box, you then had to switch to a different tool, the Content tool, to type or edit text in the text box. While this approach worked, and worked well, for years, the process of switching tools always seems like an extra step to me. In fact, as a long-time QuarkXpress instructor, I found the concept a difficult one to hammer home to my students.

Those problems are distant memories with QuarkXPress 8. Now you draw a text box using the Text Content Tool.

After drawing a text box, you simply double-click inside of the box to begin typing or editing text--even if you've selected the Item tool (the first tool on the Tools palette).

Similarly, you can create boxes for pictures using the Picture Content Tool. Of course, you can, at any time, switch a text content box to a picture box, and vice versa.

If you are a veteran QuarkXPress user, you are probably wondering what happened to the Linking and Unlinking tools, which occupied a prominent place on the old Tools palette. No worries, those tools are still available... they've just been grouped with the Text Content Tool (which is really where they belonged all along).

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Want to learn more about QuarkXPress? Attend our QuarkXPress 8 Basics class. Click here for more information.

QuarkXPress 8 Basics: It's All Greek to Me...

by Kevin A. Siegel

 

Depending on your monitor's display resolution, and your QuarkXPress layout view percentage, you may or may not be able to read the words on your QuarkXPress pages.

 

If the text on your layouts looks like gray bars instead of character shapes, there isn't anything wrong with your vision. The makers of QuarkXPress assume that at a reduced page view, you are not interested in reading the text in your QuarkXPress project. Instead, the general thinking is that you are more interested in the page layout than the editorial content. This assumption is called text greeking.

 

Correct assumption or not, it is not recommended that you attempt to read and/or edit text at reduced views such as Fit in Window. As far as I'm concerned, there are two types of print publishers in the world, those who have glasses--and those who will. Working with text while in a reduced view will hasten your journey into the "have glasses" club.

 

If you are not a fan of text greeking, or if you'd like to enable the feature, follow these steps:

1. Windows users, choose Edit > Preferences;
   Mac users, choose QuarkXPress > Preferences
   
   The Preferences dialog box appears. There are many categories.
   
   
2. Select the Print Layout, General category
   
   
3. From the Display area in the upper right of the dialog box, select Greek Text Below (put a check in the box)
   
   
   
   
4. Click OK
   
   
5. To view the "greeked" text, choose View > 50%
   
   At this reduced view, you should notice that the letter shapes disappear and instead you see gray bars-greeking. If you can still see letter shapes instead of gray bars, try zooming out a bit more by changing your View Percentage to something like 30%.
    

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Want to learn more about QuarkXPress? Attend our QuarkXPress 8 Basics class. Click here for more information.