Batch Conversion of Frame Referenced Graphic Calls

[Combs, Richard]

Tony Marek wrote: 
 
> Hello -- about five years ago I was given a method for converting all
> referenced graphic files in a Frame document from .tif to .gif format.
> (.gif works better for our purposes now.) The document I'm working on
> has thousands of .tifs, so an automated way to do this is needed. Our
> method involved saving/exporting the Frame document to some sort of
> text-based format where all of the graphic references were spelled out.
> (This was not .mif.) Then I could simply search for all ".tif" strings
> and replace them with ".gif". After that I'd somehow save the file back
> into the standard Frame format. Then in Photoshop, I'd do a batch change
> of the .tifs to .gifs. Then opening the converted Frame document
> resulted in all the reference calls bringing up the new .gif images.
> The problem is that I lost my cheat sheet on how to do this, and I can't
> recall the process of saving the Frame file to this text-based format
> and back again. Been through the current Frame menus and the Adobe
> support postings with no luck.
> 
> Can anyone help? I'm in Frame 9 now.

If you're sure it wasn't MIF, then it must have been MML (Maker Markup Language). I believe FM 7.x was the last version to support that. Google "framemaker mml" if you're curious. 

But you can do exactly the same thing with MIF files, which like MML are plain ASCII text. Save a file as MIF, globally replace .tif with .gif, and save. Then open the MIF file with FM and save as FM. If you have large numbers of FM files to process, you can script this. 

HTH!

Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
------
rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-903-6372
------