RE: FrameMaker table of contents

["Joe Malin" <jmalin -at- tuvox -dot- com>]

How your reference page and paragraph tags works is this:

You modify the TOC tag related to your original paragraph tag. That is,
if you have a tag ChapterTitle that marks all chapter titles in your
book, then FM automatically generates ChapterTitleTOC. It should be in
your TOC file. You make all changes to that.

In the reference page for your TOC file, you put in a pattern line that
shows what data you want the TOC entry . In your case, you have
<$chapnum>: <$paratext>	<$pagenum>

which means this *and only this* as it stands:

chapter number followed by a colon, then a space(?), then paragraph text
(that is, chapter title itself), then a space(?), then page number.

*Nothing* else is implied.

The paragraph tag for this line has to be ChapterTitleTOC.

I say "space(?)" because you have to align the building blocks on that
line with tabs. So, if you want a left-aligned chapter number, followed
by a left-aligned paragraph starting 2" in, followed by a right-aligned
page number at the far right edge, you have to 
1. have nothing before the chapter number. That will align it on the
left margin, unless you change the indentation for the ChapterTitleTOC
paragraph tag.
2. put a tab character between the colon and <$paratext>
3. put a tab character between the <$paratext> and <$pagenum>

You're not finished. The tab characters are themselves only building
blocks.

Now you have to go back to ChapterTitleTOC and define 2 tab stops. The
first should be *left-aligned*. If you want the paragraph text to start
2 inches from the chapter title and colon, then you have to measure out
exactly how far that is from the left margin, subtract the left margin
itself (joy!) and put that as the tab stop.

The second tab stop has to be at the *right* margin. All the characters
in pagenum will appear to the left of the tab stop. If you want leaders
between the chapter title and page number, put them in this tab stop.

Once you finish, your line in the reference page should look vaguely
like what you would see for a chapter entry in the TOC. If it doesn't,
then you've done something wrong. In particular, you should see the
<$chapnum> building block at the left margin of your reference page, the
<$paratext> block indented somewhat, and the <$pagenum> block all the
way on the right side, prefaced by whatever leader character you used.

Some reasons it might not work:
1. You didn't apply ChapterTitleTOC to the reference page line.
2. Your tab stops aren't set correctly. Play with them. That's the only
way I can really get FM tab stops to work. Remember that FM tab stops
are absolute. If you set a tab stop for 2", FM moves to 2" from the left
margin. If there's text in the way, no tab stop.
3. You forgot to put in tab stops. Turn on special characters. Tab stops
look like a big right parentheses ).




	 Joe Malin
Technical Writer
(408)625-1623
jmalin -at- tuvox -dot- com 
www.tuvox.com
The views expressed in this document are those of the sender, and do not
necessarily reflect those of TuVox, Inc.	

-----Original Message-----
From: bounce-techwr-l-216553 -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:bounce-techwr-l-216553 -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf Of
juliet -dot- adlington -at- reuters -dot- com
Sent: Thursday, November 10, 2005 3:16 AM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: FrameMaker table of contents


Hello
I've set up a FrameMaker template and I'm having problems with the
generated table of contents.

This is the code I have in the reference file:
<$chapnum>: <$paratext>	<$pagenum>
openObjectId <$relfilename>:<$ObjectType> <$ObjectId>
<$paratext>	<$pagenum>



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