FrameMaker’s
Master Page Usage
By Matt
Sullivan
Matt is president of GRAFIX Training, Inc., an Adobe-certified training provider with offices in San Diego and Tustin Ranch. Matt has experience in all aspects of electronic and print publishing, which helps to explain his prematurely gray hair.
For tech
questions or suggestions for articles, you can reach Matt at
matt@grafixtraining.com.
www.grafixtraining.com
(619) 275-3963
A few weeks
ago I had trouble with a new feature in FrameMaker 7—the ability
to assign a Master Page based upon the Paragraph Tags used in a document.
Unfortunately
I ran into this issue in the middle of class, my six students making this
problem a bit more difficult to solve! (That'll teach me to stray from
the normal lesson plan.)
If you're
not familiar with the Apply Master Pages feature yet, it's actually quite
cool. Rather than manually applying Master Pages using the deeply nested
Master Page Usage command, you can set up a table on your Reference Pages
and automatically apply the Master Page based on the Paragraph Tags you
use on individual pages. This is convenient for things that require page
breaks such as full-page graphics or rotated tables.
In theory,
this system sounds great. Unfortunately, although I expected problems
with converted Frame 6 documents, I had the same problems with both new
and converted documents: I couldn't locate the Reference page needed for
the conversion table.
This missing
Reference Page meant the next topic in class was a review of Frame's online
help system. We couldn't find a direct reference to what we needed to
do but ultimately found a hint to the solution in the online documentation:
If the mapping table does not appear in the reference pages, choose Format|Page Layout|Apply Master Pages.
After following
that advice, we found that the Reference Page did indeed appear as promised,
and we were then able modify the table entries to map Paragraph Tags to
Master Pages appropriately.
Once created,
modifying the table is fairly straightforward. It's really not any more
difficult than the HTML Setup Dialog. The only part I found confusing
was the Range Indicator. For my work I found that the Single Page option
worked best, though I would use the Until Changed option when I was using
multipage tables.
With the
added steps needed to create the table, the advantages to using this feature
don't really show up until further along in your editing cycle.
After all
of your Paragraph Tags have been assigned to appropriate Master Pages,
Frame will update Master Page Usage as part of the Update Book process.
This means that Master Page usage will be updated as part of the normal
workflow within a book but that standalone documents will need more attention.
If your work doesn't require Book files, you will need to keep using the
Format|Page Layout|Apply Master Pages command to update your Master Page
assignments. This will still be a big timesaver over proofreading for
Master Page usage.
While working
with a few of our clients, I've found the Master Page Usage works consistently
and removes one of the more frustrating proofing tasks, reapplication
of Master Pages.
Next month,
I'll discuss how to modify the base Frame template as well as changes
to the Frame initialization file.
