FrameMaker save as mif

since some versions ago (may be from 9), when you save a mif file as fm you will save a copy of the file, but the open mif file remains the same, a mif file with .mif extension.
Is it a bug or a special setting I can change somewhere?

You have to us SaveAs if you want to change the format of the file. The standard Save will maintain the original format (since FM can now open .fm, .mif, .xml and text files).

Similar Messages

Corrupted Frame files not importing correctly to RoboHelp and can't save MIF as FM

Hi,
I have Adobe Technical Communication Suite 3.0, which has FrameMaker 10.0.2.249 in it.
I created a user guide in FrameMaker, some of the chapters for which I imported from Word, and little bits of text here and there of which I copied and pasted from Word.
a) When I created a RoboHelp project and imported the Frame files, a little bit of content disappeared. A sentence here, a bulleted item there, not all the content I copied and pasted.
b) I thought I would save the Frame files as .MIF and then reopen them in Frame to get rid of any corruption. They saved as .MIF just fine and they open again with Frame just fine. However, when I try to Save As .FM, I get the message that .MIF cannot be saved as .FM.
I checked the extension in the Save As box and it has no mention of .MIF.
What to do? Any suggestions either for a) or b)?

This is a bug in the Save As dialog. If the filename is yourfile.FM, you
can choose MIF as the filetype in the Save as Type box, FrameMaker
changes the filename to yourfile.mif and saves as mif.
But, for some reason, if you have a filename of yourfile.MIF and choose
FM in the Save as Type dialog box, you get that error message and the
save doesn't happen. The workaround is to delete the MIF extension in
the filename. Then the save works fine and the file is renamed with an
FM extension.
In other words, saving FM to MIF works as expected. FrameMaker renames
the file extension and saves in the new format. But, in a MIF to FM
save, FrameMaker refused to rename the MIF extension. (Maybe there is a
reason for this?) You have to delete the extension or the save won't happen.
I'm going to report this as a bug.
Mike Wickham

FDK Problem: "Unsaved changes in file" dialog with MIFs

Hi there
I have a problem saving MIF files using our FrameMaker API client.
After we have written out all our content, we're getting prompted to save unsaved changes in the .MIF file.
We're not sure whether to click yes here or not.
If we click yes, we then get a save dialog which prompts for a filename,
but has the default file extension set to .FM.
When you click "save", another message box appears telling me that I'm trying to save a
.MIF file in the .FM format and that is not allowed, and asks if I want to save it
as .MIF.
Although this is an a mere annoyance for me, it's probably very confusing for
customers who use our software, and I'm not sure whats causing it.
I've tried to address it by modifying the default save parameters within the FAPI
using this:
F_PropValsT saveParams = F_ApiGetSaveDefaultParams();
i = F_ApiGetPropIndex(&saveParams, FS_ModDateChanged);
saveParams.val[i].propVal.u.ival = FV_DoOK;
Needless to say, it didn't work. I'm wondering is thee another approach I should
be using?
Thanks
Eric

Hi Eric,
I'm not clear if your software is saving the file automatically, or whether the user needs to do it after your process runs. And, I'm not really clear on what exactly you want to happen after your code runs.
I do think that any open MIF file (even if in binary format, after being opened in FM) will cause that prompt when you attempt to close it manually, even if you have made no changes since the last save. My thought is that FM simply looks at the file extension and generates that behavior accordingly.
A few options you have (may be more, once I understand the situation better):
- Let the code close the file itself once it is done, using F_ApiClose(docId, FF_CLOSE_MODIFIED). This, of course, if the interactive user doesn't need to see it.
- Use F_ApiNotification() and F_ApiNotify to hijack the save request and save the file as MIF automatically, which should allow you to avoid the second prompt.
- Use notifications to hijack the document closure process itself, simply closing the doc upon request whether it has changes or not. Or, maybe you could add your own prompts. This would take consideration of whether you actually want to allow an interactive user to make changes after the code runs.
Just some ideas there. If you provide more info on what you want to happen after your code runs (presumably this is the translation thing), I might be able to help more.
Russ

Can I export just the "show" conditional text to a mif?

When I export a document with conditional text to a pdf, just the conditional text that is set to "show" (and the unconditional text) appears in the pdf. That's good, but I want the same thing when exporting a mif. There are two reasons for this:
(1) We have an in-house tool that parses a mif and extracts data from certain tables to populate a database. The tool doesn't parse pdfs. And the tool won't always handle conditional text correctly, particularly conditional text table rows. The tool would work fine if the conditional text were already "resolved" during the export to mif.
(2) I'd like to use the Boolean logic for conditional text that is available in FM9, but I need to furnish files to other groups in the company that use FM7. Their FM7 wouldn't display conditional text properly if it depended on anything other than OR logic. But they would be happy to accept mif files that didn't have any conditional text because it had been "resolved" when I generated a mif7 file for them.
I've tried various ways to convert a pdf into a mif file, but no process seems to preserve the formatting and the editable text. I'd be willing to accomplish this in some round-about fashion involving Framemaker, Acrobat Pro and/or some other tool.
But the happiest outcome for me would be to discover that FM9 already has the ability to export just the "show" conditional text and the unconditional text to a mif.
Or can this be done by making a copy of the document and then somehow automating the deletion of the "hide" conditional text and the conversion of the "show" conditional text to unconditional?

Or can this be done by making a copy of the document and then somehow automating the deletion of the "hide" conditional text and the conversion of the "show" conditional text to unconditional?
Writing a custom script to filter the MIF to parse out the conditions is non-trivial. You can try a Google search for an existing filter or script that does the job. However, if there is no such thing, then you're on the right track, getting FM to do the hard part - filtering the conditionalized content correctly. For example:
* In a copy of the original file, delete the condition(s) you want to hide; during the deletion, you have the option to delete the corresponding text. Then save as MIF to a descriptive name, or save as .fm to a new name, then open and save that file as MIF. Close the source file without saving.
* Reopen the source file and do the same process from this fresh instance, deleting the condition(s) you want to show. Save as above.
* Within FM itself, however, there's no way to automate this process. With one of the free FM utilities - dobatch from cudspan, or dzbatcher from datazone - you can script opening and saving an FM file as MIF. Search Google for dobatch, cudspan, dzbatcher, or datazone.
* To automate setting the conditions, a keystroke-macro recorder might serve, otherwise you'd need the commercial FrameScript product, and a customized script if there's no existing script for this purpose. For FrameScript info, check with Rick Quattro at frameexpert.com.
* If you're using Structured FrameMaker and have the expertise available to customize an EDD, you could take advantage of the "filter by attribute" feature, but it's not trivial to adopt Structured FM just for this narrowly-focused need.
HTH
Regards,
Peter Gold
KnowHow ProServices

RoboHelp for FrameMaker

Hello,
I'm aware that RH for FrameMaker was discontinued a few years
ago, but we're considering using it as we have no desire to use
Quadralay ePublisher (a huge step back from WebWorks). Are there
any resellers in the U.S.? I'm only aware of the UK reseller
www.power2comm.com. Also, we use Frame 7.1 and we're wondering if
there will be incompatibilities with RH for Frame.
Thanks in advance!!!

As far as I know, RHF doesn't support FrameMaker 7.2, as 7.2
came out significantly after RHF. It seems to recognize FrameMaker
7.1, but has problems with more recent versions of Distiller that
ship with more recent versions of FrameMaker. I'd suspect that
Frame 7.0p578 would be the best option for withing with RHF.
However, you CAN have multiple versions of FrameMaker on the
same system. So you could have Frame 7.0 (for use with RHF) and
Frame 7.2 for other projects on the same system. Save your
FrameMaker files as MIF files for maximum portability across
different versions.
The sticking point will be Distiller - multiple versions of
Distiller on a system can cause all sorts of issues.

RoboHelp for FrameMaker requirements

I have v1.1 of RoboHelp for FrameMaker and v7.2 FrameMaker.
RoboHelp complains that FrameMaker is not installed. Is v7.2 not
supported? Is there a way I can fool RoboHelp into using it anyway
(filename changes, etc.)?

As far as I know, RHF doesn't support FrameMaker 7.2, as 7.2
came out significantly after RHF. It seems to recognize FrameMaker
7.1, but has problems with more recent versions of Distiller that
ship with more recent versions of FrameMaker. I'd suspect that
Frame 7.0p578 would be the best option for withing with RHF.
However, you CAN have multiple versions of FrameMaker on the
same system. So you could have Frame 7.0 (for use with RHF) and
Frame 7.2 for other projects on the same system. Save your
FrameMaker files as MIF files for maximum portability across
different versions.
The sticking point will be Distiller - multiple versions of
Distiller on a system can cause all sorts of issues.

Trouble MIF washing FM 12

Okay, what am I missing? When I save my mif back as fm, I open the fm, I see the mif-text.
1) Save as MIF (for FM 12). I make sure the extension is .mif.
2) File > Open. I select the .mif file and ctrl+click Open and select the default to access the mif text. So far so good.
3) Without making changes to the mif (cos am just testing), I use File > Save as and choose document 12.0 (.fm) and change the extension to .fm.
An .fm file is the result, but when I open it in FrameMaker I only see text as though looking at the mif source.
Thoughts?

Hi,
That's not happening.
1) Open MIFtest.fm.
2) Save as MIFtest.mif (MIF 12.0).
3) Close all open files.
4) File > Open. Highlight Miftest.mif, and then Ctrl+click Open.
5) Select the default, Treat each line as a paragraph, and ANSI Windows, and click Read.
6) The MIF opens in FrameMaker as readable text.
7) Make no changes.
8) Save the file as either .MIF or FM.
9) Close all open files.
Subsequently, I can only get a text-view of MIF by opening the files saved, I cannot recover a FrameMaker binary.
Thoughts?
Sean

Uprgrade to Framemaker 11

Hi,
Thank you for answering the following questions.
Are the files created in version 6 compatible with Framemaker 11 without any modification ?
Is Framemaker 11 actually available in French ?
Do you have a discount applying to old version owner ?
Have a nice day

Yes, as asked.
FM6 files open fine in later FMs, as long as you aren't using certain custom extensions (macros, scripts). If porting forward is all you need, I can't think of any considerations. However, as Jeff points out, the internal binary format will be rewritten and once resaved, cannot be re-opened in FM6. You can save as MIF, which can be at least opened in FM6, but FM8 and later will convert some characters to Unicode (UTF8), and will not convert them back when saving to an old MIF version.
According to Adobe's product page, the Upgrade product is available in French or English.
For FM11, it appears that the discount is limited to users of FM9 or FM10. I'm still on FM7 at home, and as I recall, the upgrade discount slipped out of my reach at FM10.

Mif template problem with table formatting

I am trying to create a database driven Framemaker document via MIF. I have a problem trying to get my table formatting to work. The table tags and paragraph tags appear correctly in their respective designers but the values shown for font, shading, etc. are Frame defaults and not from my template unless I click on the tag drop down, reselect the same exact tag name and click apply. Any ideas on where I'm going wrong?
Here is a snippet of the MIF for the main file:
<MIFFile 7.10> # File created on 4/30/2009 3:03:36 PM
include (AFrames.mif)
include (Tbls.mif)
include (template.mif)
<TextFlow
<TFTag `A'>
<TFAutoConnect Yes>
<TFFeather No>
<TFMaxInterLine 3.0 pt>
<TFMaxInterPgf 10.0 pt>
<Para
<PgfTag `Anchor'>
<ParaLine
   <ATbl 500>
> # end of ParaLine
> # End of Para
etc.
And here is a sample from the Tbls.mif file:
<Tbls
<Tbl
<TblID 500>
<TblTag `Item Table'>
<TblFormat
    <TblWidth 3.50000">
    <TblColumn
     <TblColumnNum 0>
     <TblColumnWidth 0.50000">
    >
    <TblColumn
     <TblColumnNum 1>
     <TblColumnWidthP 1>
    >
    <TblColumn
     <TblColumnNum 2>
      <TblColumnWidthP 1>
    >
    <TblColumn
     <TblColumnNum 3>
     <TblColumnWidth 0.50000">
    >
> # End of Format
<TblNumColumns 4>
<TblH
<Row
<Cell
   <CellContent
    <Para
    <PgfTag `Cell Head Left'>
    <ParaLine
    <String `Item No.'>
etc.

The Monkey Butler wrote:
The include statements must appear in this order:
Put the template after the tables and the tables don't read the format.
Actually that does make sense to me (and I hate to say it, I remember now that I ran across this issue a million moons ago when first doing MIF export from a database).
In looking at the MIF includes order, in your first example:
include (AFrames.mif)
include (Tbls.mif)
include (template.mif)
all of the tables are being instantiated before FM has a chance to "analyze" the template section -- so there's no way it can say "aha, this is the FormatA that I already know" so that's why it puts the "star" on the format, indicating that it's an override to the table catalog format (and in fact there's no table format catalog yet, no table format names at all, so it's an "override to nothing" table.
In your successful document, the template includes the format for "FormatA", so when the tbls section comes along FM says "ah, ok, this is an instance of "FormatA" that I know already exists in the table catalog" so assuming there aren't any formatting changes in the instance of the table, it doesn't mark each table instance as a override to the named table format.
"include (aframes.mif)"
"Include (template.mif)"
"include (tbls.mmif)"

Editing anchored frame dimensions through a MIF

I am editing an FM file saved as MIF and using a text editor to make changes. My reason for doing this is to update the width of many anchored frames from 3.65" wide to 4.85". I open the MIF file and substitute (find and change):
<ShapeRect 0.0" 0.0" 3.65" 1.89999"> with <ShapeRect 0.0" 0.0" 4.85" 1.89999">
I save the MIF, open it in FM and save as FM. When I re-open this FM file, nothing has changed.
What am I doing wrong?
Nadeem

I jumped the gun in sending this query! It works--my fault. I guess I have become too dependent on this forum. The actual dimension on most was 3.64999 in the MIF.

Why would Framemaker add an extra page to my document ?

Hi everyone,
I have a mif file here that is used to generate a ONE PAGE pdf and for a reason that I don't know, when I open this .MIF file in FRAMEMAKER, there is a second page using default masterpage that is automatically added by FrameMaker.
The .Mif file itself only specifies one BodyPage statement so I really don't know why FrameMaker adds an other page to the document.
So the question is : Why whould FrameMaker add a supplementary page to a document by itself ?
thanks for any information.
Alex

Thanks for the quick answer Van. I had a look to my document and it seems that the pagination is OK, I also thought that maybe I had some "TextRect" that took a little bit to much space but they seem OK too.
Now I'm trying to track every "TextFlow" to see if one of them is printing outside of my "TextRect" at the bottom of the page, that may cause FrameMaker to add a new page I guess.
Thanks again

Third-party FrameMaker Resources

Some resources for you to checkout. These are not necessarily endorsed by anyone, myself included. Indeed, caveat emptor. These are third party with not necessarily any ties to or acceptance from Adobe.
Proceed at your own peril . . ..

Single-sourcing and Online Help
http://www.webworks.com--Quadralay WebWorks Publisher Pro accepts native binary FrameMaker files (*.book and *..fm)
http://www.omsys.com--Mif2Go, accepts FrameMaker ASCII files (*.mif)
http://www.ehelp.com--RoboHelp, accepts FrameMaker ASCII files (*.mif)
http://www.author-it.com--Author-IT accepts FrameMaker ASCII files (*.mif).
Everything else, including Component One's Doc-to-Help(
http://www.componentone.com), usually require you convert FrameMaker to RTF and use the RTF in the HAT.

Saving MIF file to FM

Many posts on here talk about converting an FM file to MIF and then saving back to FM, in order to clean or fix up a file. I rarely do it, but have done it in the past.
Today, I am having troubles with an old file converted to v7.2. I can save it to MIF, but when I try to save to FM, Frame tells me that MIF cannot be saved to document format. I have encountered this error before, but with book files and just assumed that saving a mif book to standard fm book does not work. But now I cannot do it with a document file. Is there something I need to do in the ini file, or somewhere else.
Or is my Frame install completely corrupted. I have had to kill it several times recently because it gets stuck trying to display a PDF. I thought the problem was with the PDF, but maybe it is with Frame itself.
I have Frame v7.2b144. The operating system is Windows XP v2002, service pack 3.
Thanks,
Van

Thanks Sheila and Art for the patch information. I thought we had the latest.
The MIF issue seems to be that when one does a save as, Frame displays the .mif extension in the file name box. When you try to save to fm, Frame complains because the .mif is part of the file name. Deleting it then allows Frame to save the mif file as fm. I just never noticed this before. On the other hand, it does not complain when saving an fm file to fm, even though the .fm extension is displayed in the file name box. O, the quirkiness of it all!
And the update did not resolve the PDF importation problem. I am going back to my original tack and assuming the problem is with the PDF file. It was created by a program that can view gp4 files (a fax format) but cannot save to another format. So, we just print to PDF. Photoshop can open the PDF, but Illustrator gets bogged down. Hence, the notion that the problem is with the PDF. I think we will buy a cheap conversion program that can save the gp4 file to tif, which can then be imported into the Frame file.
This call worked OK three years ago, but maybe the version of Acrobat at that time created a simpler PDF file.
Thanks again,
Van

Framemaker 9 Graphics Show Grey Boxes Half way through Doc

Hello,
I am using Framemaker 9 (service pack 2, windows XP) with a ~5000 page document, thie document has lots of embedded Graphics.When create a PS (postscript file) about half of the way through the PDF file the figures Show Grey Boxes. This occurs using either the Framemaker save as PDF file or when printing to a PS. An error message apprears "Cannot Print Some Imported Graphics", I click OK and the systems creatse the PS file. When viewing PDF the grey boxes appear. Now for the interesting anomaly, I delete the first 2500 pages and the PS and PDF files are fine. If I delete only 1000 pages the grey boxex occur later in the document.
Any help on this is appreciated,
Nick
PS
same error occurs on computer with Service pack 3

Ah, 1gig of RAM. Unfortunately I don't think that's going to cut it in FM9, not for that large a size document. You might try rebooting, not turning on any other app like e-mail, and see if you can manage it then, but I'd doubt it.
Even though the job works with FM7, FM 9 has substantially more features that could definitely require more RAM, e.g. the unicode features alone.
Here's a comparison in Task Manager on my XP system:
FM9 running without a doc open shows as approx 110,320 K
FM7 running without a doc open shows as approx 34,508 K
Other questions:
in your FrameMaker Preferences (File > Preferences) do you have "Save FrameImage..." turned off? If not, that will add exponentially to the memory use. A couple of other things that might save some memory:
FM automatically loads the Windows Character Map app. You can find it listed in your Task Manager. To save some memory you can disable this, following info in this thread:
http://forums.adobe.com/click.jspa?searchID=3832601&objectType=2&objectID=2325331
AND, here's another REALLY important thing to test: you want to test using FM without any of the Workspaces open. The workspaces definitely add time and memory usage in FM9. Doesn't matter whether you actually use any number of variables or markers or whatever in the doc, just the work that FM has to do to scan the entire doc to update these panels takes an enormous amount of effort.
Being sure that all the workspaces are really closed can be a bit tricky; I'll post instructions in a separate post.
Sheila

FM11 .fm file shows as M (MIF) in book.

A FM11 file has a .fm extension and opens fine, but when I add it to a book FM shows the message "The file <name> is not in recognizable format". In the book, the file shows the M icon for MIF file. I'm sure I never saved it as MIF. I resaved it as .fm, then deleted and re-added it to the book, but it still shows the M icon in the book. What to do?

Does this also happen when you add the file to a new book file? If so, try MIF-washing the problem file (save as MIF, open the MIF and save as .fm) and try again. If not, then create a new book file and add the other files.

FrameMaker save as mif

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for