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I'm a complete FrameMaker newbie and was able to follow Richard's
instructions. It took me about three minutes, so I'm very thankful for
the clear instructions for what (on the surface) looked like a lengthy
solution.
Nina
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+nina -dot- rogers=drakesoftware -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+nina -dot- rogers=drakesoftware -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- co
m] On Behalf Of Combs, Richard
Sent: Monday, June 18, 2007 11:12 AM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com; quills -at- airmail -dot- net
Subject: RE: New to FrameMaker
quills -at- airmail -dot- net wrote:
> The advantage as I see it for Autotext is that you don't have
> to program. You fill in a table in FrameMaker, and the
> plug-in takes care of it for you. That is an advantage over a
> scripting solution.
> It doesn't have quite the flexibility, but it is drop-dead simple.
The solution Ed was commenting on had nothing to do with programming or
scripting. It was just defining a user variable.
My explanation was lengthy because I began by talking about symbol fonts
and hexadeximal character codes -- for the benefit of someone used to
Word's autocorrect, this background information seemed appropriate.
Once you've found an arrow character and learned how to enter it (and
both those steps are needed for Autotext as well), creating the variable
takes less time than it takes to read the description.
In fact, creating a variable to insert the arrow is, IMHO, quicker and
simpler than doing it with Autotext. Autotext is best reserved for
replacing a complex series of steps, not for replicating FM's built-in
user variable functionality.
YMMV, of course. :-)
Richard
------
Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
------
rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-777-0436
------
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