TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Amy -dot- L -dot- Carlson -at- jci -dot- com wrote:
> ...
>
> Also, I noticed that when converting documents from Microsoft Word to
> Framemaker, the column headings do not convert as column
> headings, just as
> regular cells. I've asked that we add 1 row to Heading (In the Table
> pulldown menu) so Framemaker recognizes it as a true heading.
> Does anyone have experience with this?
Hello, Amy. As another respondent said, Word and FM have different ways of
looking at table column headings. It would be nice if the converter simply
assumed that the first row of every table was a heading row. At least this
would leave fewer tables to fix. And unfortunately, FM has no way of
declaring a row in an existing table (i.e., an imported one) as a heading
row, as Word does. This causes much pain for the person doing the
conversion. The only way to fix an imported table is to insert a new table
just before or after the existing one, then cut and paste the contents from
old to new. Cut/paste the heading row separately from the body rows. I know
this sounds like a real nuisance. That's because it is! :) Here's one
shortcut. Make your new table have just one heading row and one body row.
This will enable you to avoid 1) having to count the number of rows in the
body of your old table, and 2) having to scroll so far from one table to the
other. (Another thing FM could learn from Word is how to split a window.)
When you paste the heading row(s), tell FM to "Replace Current Rows." When
you paste the body row(s), tell FM to "Insert Above Current Rows." Then
delete the last (empty row).
> What is the best way to generate a TOC? Standalone or with the whole
> document in a book? Why?
FM has excellent book-level functions. Use them whenever possible, even for
a document consisting of a single chapter. Let FM generate the TOC as a
separate file in the book. Same goes for the index. This is the only
reasonable way to do it, as far as I know.
_____________________________
Regards,
John Wilcox, Technical Writer
Zetron, Redmond
