Special character as bullet

[David Spreadbury]

Nina,
I knew I saved my Frame 5.5 User's Guide for a reason. The original
FrameMaker books went into much more detail than the newer versions.

The 5.5 User's Guide has the following procedure to use a special bullet
symbol:
To use a special bullet symbol:

1. Create a character format that uses the font of the bullet symbol you
want to use. For example, to use 9-point Zapf Dingbats, create a character
format using that font. Give the format a descriptive name such as
BulletFont.

For information on creating character formats, see "Creating new formats".

2. Display the Numbering properties of the Paragraph Designer and enter the
character corresponding to the bullet symbol you want in the Autonumber
Format text box (rather than select the symbol in the Building Blocks scroll
list).

For example, if you want a Zapf Dingbat square bullet, enter the lowercase
letter n, which appears as () in that font. To find the character that
corresponds to the bullet symbol you want, see the character set for that
font (see the online manual FrameMaker Character Sets for the character sets
for the Symbol and Zapf Dingbats font).

3. Click the tab symbol (\t) in the Building Blocks scroll list or enter
spaces.

Note: You may have to use special codes to enter characters such as
nonbreaking spaces or em spaces. For information, see Appendix A, "Typing in
Dialog Boxes."

4. In the Character Format scroll list, click the bullet character format
that you created.

5. Click Apply to Selection.

HTH.

David Spreadbury
Sr. Technical Writer


-----Original Message-----
From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com
[mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Nina Rogers
Sent: Friday, April 02, 2010 2:11 PM
To: framers at lists.frameusers.com
Subject: Special character as bullet

I want to create a paragraph style for bullets, but I want to use a
pointing finger instead of a traditional black dot for the bullet. I'm
in Framemaker 7 (unstructured), and my beloved Framemaker 7 guide says,
"Another way to set up bullets involves taking advantage of the
character formatting that's available. You can, for example create a
character format that applies Zapf Dingbats or Wingdings font, and then
use one of the dingbats or wingdings to make a special bullet (such as
diamonds or pointing hands)."

This is exactly what I want to do! Unfortunately, the paragraph ends
there and doesn't explain how to do it. :-(

I have the Character_Sets.pdf file open from my Online Manuals
directory, and it looks like the pointing hand is the dingbats graphic
for Hex code \x2b. (If, that is, I'm reading this right, which may not
be the case.) But that's also the hex code for the "plus" sign. I can
create a bullet that uses that plus sign, but I don't know how to make
the jump to the pointing hand.

I guess I could create a character style for dingbats and manually type
the character for the pointing hand ... but then I would need to change
the font manually (I think) for the rest of the text.

My question: How do I create a paragraph style that will make the hand
appear as a bullet, but will allow me to type any additional text in my
usual font (in this case, Times New Roman)?

I'm sure I could figure this out eventually, but it's Friday and my
brain is fried ... and I really want to get this format in place before
I leave today.

Thanks so much for your help.

Nina Rogers (still feeling like a Framemaker newbie after all these
years)