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FrameMaker: Chapter Template Numbering, Part I
By Matt Sullivan

Author Bio

For this month’s article, I’ve decided to tackle a project I’ve wanted to do for quite some time: chapter template numbering. But because of the scope of the project, I’ll have to break this into two separate installments. This month I’ll discuss preparation and strategy, and next month I’ll cover the details relating to the process itself and the codes or “building blocks” involved.

In my FrameMaker classes, the topic consistently ranked as the most difficult is our section on multiple autonumbers. This is not too surprising, really, because FrameMaker’s autonumbering capabilities are quite robust. In fact, this material is so odd that Adobe’s Classroom in a Book doesn’t even address it in detail.

That said, what I want to do is walk you through the process that I go through when I set up the numbering system for a client’s template. It doesn’t even require work in FrameMaker, since the first step is really to set up a worksheet to hold your notes and record the changes you plan to make to the autonumbering properties of your various paragraph tags.

Note: If you are using FrameMaker 5.5 or earlier, the process differs significantly. If you need details, contact me at matt@grafixtraining.com.

Figure 1 shows a sample worksheet, a completed worksheet, and questions designed to help you figure out which blocks are needed to get the desired result.

Figure 1

Starting the Process

I typically store my notes on a custom Reference Page called “numbering” within my actual FrameMaker template file. This allows me to use FrameMaker’s table capabilities to sift through the process, and allows me to store the notations directly within the chapter template itself. Translation: I can’t lose this valuable work! My notes stay right with my project.

Regardless of how you create or store the data, the first thing to do is to list the names of the paragraph tags that will have automatic numbering associated with them. These names make up the first column of the table, and I typically order these tags in the same hierarchy as my chapters. In other words, the ChapterTitle paragraph tag is at the top of the list, and List items are toward the bottom.

The second column contains examples of the numbering I want to see within my document.

Finishing the Prep

Keep in mind that our goal is to work through the building blocks needed by the Paragraph Designer to achieve the proper numbering for our chapter and book files.

In my example table, I’ve highlighted some of the cells in the ChapterTitle row. These cells represent the area in the Paragraph Designer/Numbering properties that control my Autonumber Format. Each row contains coding that I will ultimately retype into the Paragraph Designer/Numbering/Autonumber Format area for the corresponding paragraph tag.

The final prep tool I find handy is a few sample chapters with all of my required paragraph tags sprinkled throughout. I use this sample material to work through the current values for my paragraphs, and it typically resembles an outline, where the paragraph tags are nested, but unnumbered.

Next Month -- Part II

Next month in Part II we will look at the development cycle for these tags, and find out how Frame keeps the numbers current (and correct!). We will also look at how the Book file controls our Chapter numbering by setting the value of the <$chapnum> system variable.