single-sourcing PDF and "text with layout"?

[Robert Lauriston]

I've got this pretty much working (FrameMaker 10 > MIF2Go > RTF > Word
> Save As > Text with Layout) except for a couple of glitches
appearing in the final conversion:

1. The text with layout converter for Word drops tabs from headings,
so bullets and numbered steps are collapsed, e.g. instead of "1. Click
..." I get "1.Click ..."

2. Random numbers appear at the end of headings, e.g. "Known Issues"
comes out as "Known Issues26".

I guess I'll ask about alternative Text with Layout converters on a
Word-geek forum. In the meantime, any other suggestions on getting
"text with layout" out of FrameMaker?

On Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 12:50 PM, Robert Lauriston <robert at lauriston.com> wrote:
> FM10's Save As > Text Only doesn't do any indenting, so parts of the
> resulting file are harder to read than users are used to.
>
> On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 9:13 AM, Lizak, Samantha
> <samantha_lizak at mentor.com> wrote:
>> Never needed the MIF2GO and Word aspects; I'm a bit confused as to why you add them in. What particular problem are you seeing when applying a fixed-width layout template and then saving in the correct text format?  I notice that Windows FM8 only offers 1 .txt choice instead of the 3 I recall from Unix; is the issue that the Windows form doesn't force line ends?
>>
>> -Sam.
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Robert Lauriston
>> Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2012 11:10 AM
>> To: framers at lists.frameusers.com
>> Subject: Re: single-sourcing PDF and "text with layout"?
>>
>> Thanks, that's pretty much what I was figuring to do to polish the
>> MIF2GO > Word > text with layout option.
>>
>> On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 8:46 AM, Lizak, Samantha
>> <samantha_lizak at mentor.com> wrote:
>>> Back when we were still doing an ASCII version of the Release Notes, I developed a template that used the same paragraph tags but had different font (a fixed width) with headings in all upper case, bullets replaced with o, -, and + for the three possible levels, and a different page layout to force things into a certain line wrap. (There were probably a few other tweaks as well; I seem to recall that forcing the indent was giving me headaches.  May have used tabs with an awk script to convert tabs to spaces.)
>>>
>>> To produce the ASCII form, I'd apply the other template, save as Unix-based text (the product still does not have a Windows version), and add a few last touches such as underlines under the H1s, and possibly adjusting indentation. (It has been four or five years, and this was all in FM 6 for Unix so may not be needed now.)
>>>
>>> Hope this gives you at least a small leg up on the problem-
>>>
>>> Sam.
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Robert Lauriston
>>> Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2012 2:45 PM
>>> To: framers at lists.frameusers.com
>>> Subject: single-sourcing PDF and "text with layout"?
>>>
>>> I've inherited a couple of docs in FrameMaker that have for some years
>>> been delivered in both PDF and plain text and am obliged to continue
>>> doing that.
>>>
>>> As far as I can see from the source, working directories, and so on,
>>> the PDF was generated from FrameMaker, and the text version was
>>> maintained by making the same changes twice.
>>>
>>> Any suggestions on single-sourcing the text output? People are used to
>>> the text being pretty readable, with headings in caps, indents using
>>> leading spaces, bullets using "o," and so on, so FM's native save as
>>> text is not acceptable.
>>>
>>> Best solution I've found so far is MIF2Go > RTF > Word > Save As >
>>> Text with Layout (*.ans). That's kludgy but close enough that I could
>>> probably make it work by tweaking the FM template and/or MIF2Go
>>> options and maybe doing some post-processing with a script.
>>>
>>> Acrobat's save as Accessible Text also seems promising but not as
>>> close to what I need as the above.
>>>
>>> Once upon a time there was FM2A for precisely this sort of task.
>>> What's the latest version of FM it will work with?
>>> http://www.fsatools.com/oldies.html
>>>
>>> Any other suggestions?