FrameMaker Reference Page Tips

Here is are 2 cool tips for altering the reference page of a List of Markers (LOM) in FrameMaker. Run through these fairly simple tricks once and I'm sure you'll find lots of ways to alter them. To the best of my knowledge, this trick is not documented in the official FrameMaker documentation.

Getting to the Reference Page

View > Reference Pages

What is it used for?

It depends on the type of page:

• Non-auto generated contents pages store: graphics, Enhance settings (don’t touch), and programs like IXgen settings (don’t touch)
• Auto generated contents pages store: everything needed to create the auto generated page.

Customizing stuff on the reference page

Non-auto generated example

Automatically insert a graphic into a paragraph tag

Reference page > Tools Palette > Graphics Frame > Insert Graphic > and name it. I use the text tool on the Tools Palette to put the name I chose beside the graphics frame. It makes it easy to find the frame name when you come back in months from now. Go to the Body page > Create a New Style > Advanced Tab > Frame above/below paragraph. Apply it, see if you like it and when you are done fiddling around, Update All.

Discussion

Placing one high quality, often inserted graphic (such as a .tif) on the reference page is one of the quickest ways to reduce file size. In addition, if you ever want to change the icon, you change it once on the reference page and it is changed everywhere in your body text.

Auto generated example (using building blocks)

From your book's skeleton (not from a page), customizing an LOM (list of markers)

A normal LOM (for TopicAlias markers) looks like this:

openObjectId <$relfilename>:<$ObjectType> <$ObjectId>
<$markertext> <$pagenum>

Alter it (from the book skeleton, not from a page) to include the containing Header:

openObjectId <$relfilename>:<$ObjectType> <$ObjectId>
<$paratext>: <$markertext>

Return Values

building block	output	comment
<$paratext>	The entirety of the first paragraph where FrameMaker finds a marker.	This can be used to troubleshoot markers placed in the wrong kind of tags.
<$markertext>	HIDD_FIRST_TOPICALIAS_MARKER_	Returns the marker's text.
:	:	I like to use some formatting in these reports. Play around, you can make them much easier to read.

Discussion

This tip is useful for troubleshooting maverick markers. Say for example, you are on a team where you expect everybody to place their index markers in the HEAD1 tag.

Alter your building blocks on the reference page of the LOM and you'll get a list of containing paragraphs with the marker underneath. Try doing that out of the box!

Got cool tips? Great, I'll be happy to publish them for you here.

I hope this tip helps. If it does, please let me know. Mimi