Automating the application of Master Pages

[Alexandra Wilowska]

Dear Framers

I've just been looking into the automatic Apply Master Pages functionality
in FM7.0 for the first time. I'm using unstructured FM on WinXP.

 

I maintain multi-chapter books where each book component uses the same
template and all possible master pages are defined in the template. Hitherto
I've assigned master pages manually and I'm happy enough to do that, but as
I had a bit of spare time yesterday I thought I'd see briefly whether I
could set up the Apply Master Pages functionality to automatically set all
my different master pages appropriately. I've never tried it before as the
manual approach is not a huge overhead for me. But from an initial look I
don't think I can make it do exactly what I want.

 

For example, I have a Preface chapter prior to the main Chapters. There are
master pages for, say, Preface First, Preface Right and Preface Left, which
differ from the master pages used in standard Chapters. The first page of
the Preface is distinguished by a unique para tag in the heading, so I can
map that to the appropriate master page. But the subsequent preface pages do
not differ in terms of tags used from subsequent pages in a normal chapter.
What makes them preface pages is purely that they follow on from a preface
front page until the end of the preface file. No unique tag on the page
marks it as a preface page and the same tags can appear on chapter pages. I
would like to set things up so as to: map Preface Heading para to the
Preface First master page, then for each subsequent left/right page apply
Preface Left or Preface Right, until a Chapter Heading para is encountered,
whereupon map that para to a Chapter First master page, apply it and apply
subsequent Chapter Left and Right pages etc. I have the same issue with
appendices, but you get the idea.

 

I think in theory that it would only work if I cloned and renamed a para
that would appear on each preface page after the first, and mapped that with
an Until Changed range indicator, and similar for chapter pages. But I'd
prefer to just keep doing the master pages manually than proliferate para
tags.

 

I looked on the web at the documentation for the Silicon Prairie Master Page
Tools, which looked more promising, as you can use a marker to indicate the
appropriate master page mapping in situations where you can't rely on the
presence of a particular para tag. But I would still have to maintain the
markers, and my interpretation of the documentation was that that I would
have to have a marker tag on each page that couldn't be mapped to a para
(i.e. I wouldn't be able to put a marker tag on the second preface page only
but have it apply appropriate preface left and right pages for all
subsequent pages until a different master page trigger is encountered).
Again, probably less effort to just apply the pages manually.

 

I do have FrameScript so another option would be to write a script to suit
my circumstances if I really really wanted to. 

 

I thought I'd run it by this list to see whether a) with my limited time and
knowledge I've correctly interpreted how FM's Apply Master Pages and Silicon
Prairie's Master Page Tools operate, and b) how anybody else might automate
this requirement. Like I said, it's not a major issue for me, but I'm sure
that it can't be such a rare requirement.

 

Regards, 

 

Alex Wilowska