[Framers] DTD Question (Nicole Rader)

Tue Jun 12 03:09:48 PDT 2018

I haven't followed this thread 100%, but I can comment on the below:
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This one has me stumped. I have a good EDD that works and the customer
wants the SGML to work with the given DTD. Is there a way to update the DTD
of theirs to include my paragraph tag selections for formatting, which are
defined in the Chapter Template file? If so, can I create a new structured
application that includes this DTD, the EDD created from it, and my
template to create a book for all the chapters and front matter of this
manual?=================
It looks like you're mixing up the purpose of a DTD vs the purpose of an EDD.  The DTD should ONLY describe the structure of the SGML (or XML, by the way).  That is to say, it gives the rules that determine what elements can go into a document, what order they can be in, and what attributes they can have.  A DTD has no formatting information in it.  So your question about adding your pgf tag selections for formatting to a DTD has an answer by definition...  no.
The purpose of an EDD is two-fold.  First, it replicates the structure of a DTD.  This is so you can edit in FrameMaker, and you will create structure that is compliant with the DTD.  The other purpose is to map formatting to the structure.  This can be done by assigning a specific pgf format based on an element and where it is in the document, or it can be done by designing format changes that you make based on the element and where it is in the document.  

Example...  Imagine a DTD that defines <topic> elements and <title> elements.  Now imagine the following document:<topic>  <title>Top-level Title</title>  <body> ... Imagine topic content here ... </body>    <topic>    <title>Second-level Title</title>    <body> ... Imagine topic content here ... </body>  </topic>

</topic>
You can set up the EDD to apply Head1 to the Top-level Title, and apply Head2 to the Second-level Title.  Or you can set it up to apply a Head pgf format to every title, and for Top-level Title make the font 32 pt, and for Second-level Title make it 24 pt.  

These are formatting rules in the EDD.  That's a big part of an EDD.
But the bottom line is, you should not change the customer's DTD.  If you do, then the files you return to the customer might not work -- They might not be compliant.  What you should do is make (or modify) an EDD so that it maps to the DTD and displays the structure as you intend in your FrameMaker template.