Customizing
FrameMaker
By Matt
Sullivan
GRAFIX would like to start a Frame/Adobe Products users group starting in March. If interested, please email Matt at matt@grafixtraining.com.
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
Imagine how cool it would be if you could control the font substitution when opening a FrameMaker file, or if your File/New command opened up a document that conformed to your favorite template. How about creating a site dictionary for your workgroup or having FrameMaker go to the proper network location when you need to access a special template?
What if this was not only possible, but clearly documented in Frame's online manuals?
This month I'll show you how to make a few simple changes to the maker.ini file. This file is the initialization file which keeps track of all the details regarding default directories, font mapping, and tool defaults (for unstructured FrameMaker running on Win2K; other platforms may use a slightly different name).
Before You Start
The first thing you should do before reading this is print out the manual which outlines use of the maker.ini file. The file to print is Customizing_Frame_Products.pdf and is in the FrameMaker Install directory, in the OnlineManuals directory.
For simplicity's sake, the things I'll discuss will assume a Windows 2000 Professional operating system, and FrameMaker 7.0 runnings in Unstructured mode.
Two important things to remember:
- The maker.ini
file is a text file. That means that you should save a backup copy of
it prior to any changes attempted, and save any changes to a text-only
file.
- Also, FrameMaker often writes changes to the .ini file. Any changes you make may be overwritten by preference changes in FrameMaker itself.
If you're not scared off yet, here we go!
Default
Template Directory
Find the [Directories] section. If you want to specify a network location (preferably a read-only directory) for display in the File/New command, change:
TemplateDir=templates
to
TemplateDir=(Server Name)\(Template Directory Name)
Changes need
to be made for each member of your workgroup.
Setting Up a Site Dictionary
Find the
[Files] section of the initialization file.
UserDictionary=user.dct
SiteDictionary=dict\site.dct
Again, changes
need to be made for each member of your workgroup.
Mappings
for Unavailable Fonts
When opening documents created on another machine, the Missing Fonts dialog is all but inevitable. If you cannot load the needed fonts on your machine, then some substitution will occur. You do have control over that substitution, however, if you're willing to spend a little time mapping out the missing fonts to fonts on your machine.
First find the [UnknownToKnownFontMap] section. (Remember, I didn't come up with these conventions.) Use the following syntax (all on a single line):
unavailable_Frame_font [angle|*], [weight|*], [variation|*]=available_Frame_font [angle|*], [weight|*], [variation|*]
Here is an example of a finished rule:Helvetica, *, Light, *=Helvetica, *, Regular, *
If loading the needed fonts for a document is simply not possible, you must decide whether you want the substitution to be temporary (when the file goes back to the original author) or permanent. For a temporary substitution, go into Edit/Preferences and choose Remember Missing Font Names. For permanent substitution, make sure that option is deselected.
Well, that should keep a few of you busy for a while! Next month I plan on discussing either Autonumbering or vector graphics, depending on how many of you chime in for each!
