Re: importing XML to FrameMaker

[Stuart Burnfield <slb -at- westnet -dot- com -dot- au>]

Hi Brooks -

Have a look at MML (Maker Markup Language). The manual for it is in 
OnlineManauals/MML_Reference.pdf under the FrameMaker directory.

You can import a MML text file into an empty Frame doc. Each line of 
text in the file is wrapped in a tag, and each tag is converted to a 
corresponding paragraph style in the Frame doc.

For example you might strip out the individual attributes in the XML 
file to look like this:

<msgid>00099</msgid>
<msgtext>A bad thing happened.</msgtext>
<msgid>00100</msgid>
<msgtext>Intermittent problem between chair and keyboard.</msgtext>

In the Frame doc these would be imported as para styles named msgid and 
msgtext. You would then select all these paragraphs and use Convert 
Paragraphs to Table.

It's a shame that you can't use MML to define tables directly--that way 
you could have a single script to extract the messages from the XML file 
and create the Frame doc containing the corresponding tables. At least 
this way lets you automate most of the process.

Stuart

____________________________________________________________

Can anyone recommend an automated method that will:

1. Import specific attributes from XML files to FrameMaker.
2. Dynamically build tables in FrameMaker for the imported content.
3. Place the imported attributes into individual rows in the
    FrameMaker tables.

I've been asked to document the individual messages in a
software messaging system. Message description content,
currently stored as attributes in XML files that are
maintained by SW development, needs to be imported into
FrameMaker and placed into tables. One table for each message.

Because the messaging system contains hundreds of messages,
I'm looking for an automated solution to import the attributes
from the XML files and build FrameMaker tables as 'homes' for
the imported content.

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