Time Saving TCE Menu Options

Automating Content Using the TCE Menu

Most XML editing platforms today can be enhanced to give the user a supercharged authoring and editing work flow. Some give you ability to apply custom menu commands that can automate tasks like custom publishing, or applying mass changes to content that aren’t possible using out of the box functionality.

We've been employing the use of our own TCE menu options in our day to day technical projects to automate and elevate our tools as well. We then use our own feedback to further enhance our customer’s XML editing platform's user experience. There are an insurmountable number of possible commands you can automate using this method, you just have to be creative.

So, to get you started, here are some of the custom commands we’ve built for our customers that have helped them meet or exceed their content performance requirements:

Our Projects

Custom XML Automation Commands

The following commands are built to manipulate XML and in the case of some of our customers, are implemented in Adobe FrameMaker. Adobe FM uses ExtendScript and XSLT to apply the transformations and, in the case of DITA content, uses the DITA OT for publishing instructions.

Fix overrides, spaces, etc on Unstructured book Fix overrides, spaces, etc on Unstructured book

This command runs the following scripts:

Fix Index Markers: Moves index markers to the end of the corresponding paragraph. When an index marker appears in the middle of a word, a space is added at the location of the marker.
Fix Overrides: Marks character tag applied in the content to allow that content to be wrapped in the correct DITA element (i, b, and so on)
Fix Spaces Character Tag at Book Level and Fix Range Issue: Fixes issue where the space between text with a character format (bold or italic) and normal text is deleted. The Fix Range Issue script fixes this issue when character formats are incorrectly applied (using Ctrl-b and Ctrl-i) on spaces. Without this script, a space with character formatting on it after a character range is deleted.
Prefix File Name: Adds the chapter name (or anything required) as the prefix to every cross-reference marker.
Fix Tables: Moves table anchors out of titles (h1, h2, etc) and out of the s,step and sta,step_table_align paragraph tags. Titles and steps are converted to elements that do not support tables.
Delete Paragraphs By Tags: Delete paragraph tags not supported in DITA

Merge Unstructured book after override script has run Merge Unstructured book after override script has run

Merges all chapter files into a single book file. (Runs the MergeChapters script).

Merge Duplicate Cross-Reference Marker in unstructured merged file Merge Duplicate Cross-Reference Marker in unstructured merged file

Fixes the issue where two cross-reference markers exist on a single paragraph.

Open Conversion Toolbox on Structured Merged file Open Conversion Toolbox on Structured Merged file

The commands in the TCE Conversion Toolbox apply the following changes to the source files:

Fix Table Titles. This command modifies the table structure to the required DITA table structure (changes table > tgroup > title to table > title > tgroup).
Click Fix Id Attributes. This command changes topic identifier and targets to the required DITA id and idref (by default, FrameMaker creates these attributes with an upper-case “I”)
Fix Cross-References. This command creates the correct link format for cross-references (appends idref to the href (after the #symbol).
Fix Image Attributes. This command resizes graphics to 40%.

Create DITA map Create DITA map

Chunks the long merged XML file (structured file including all book chapters) into topics organized in a DITA map.

Find Composite Graphics Find Composite Graphics

Finds anchored frames that consist of more than one imported graphic or more than one item drawn using the FrameMaker drawing tools.

Create FM book for publishing Create FM book for publishing

Creates a FrameMaker book from the DITA map. The generated book file has a configured table of contents, index, and PDF bookmarks. You do not have to configure these automatically generated files. The generated book can be used to output to PDF and HTML5. The generated book is located in a subfolder to the c:\publish folder. The subfolder is named using the following convention:

XXXXX_published_<year-month-day-hour-minute-second>

Run XSL stages Run XSL stages

Runs a series of stylesheets, similar to the examples below, to fix remaining structure issues of converted files. The example scripts are run in the following order:

“Stage 1 - Fix Conditional PI Style Sheet”
“Stage 2 - Clean-up Style Sheet”
"Stage 3 - Import Style Sheet"
"Stage 4 - On-save Style Sheet"
"Stage 5 - Final fixes (unwrapping elements) Style Sheet"

Clear Status attributes Clear Status attributes

Used to remove change bars set using the status attribute. Can be used to clear change bars on a single file or the entire DITA map.

Unwrap DITA elements Unwrap DITA elements

This command is run on the generated FM book, prior to creating HTML5. This command is required for proper dynamic filtering of full topics in HTML5.

Update mini-TOCs Update mini-TOCs

The cross-references in a list of procedures and list of concept/references topic are created and updated automatically using this command in the FrameMaker TCE menu. You do not need to manually create these cross-references or update these links manually.

If some of the procedures in the list of procedures must be made conditional, you can use this command to initially create the list of procedures. However, you will then need to disable automatic update of the list of procedures you have made conditional the required procedures. For lists with conditional content, you must maintain the list of procedures manually.

catchall.xsl Post-processing Stylesheet catchall.xsl Post-processing Stylesheet

You can run XSL as a post-processing style sheet during the conversion phase. This style sheet can:

Change structure entry > refbody > section > p to entry > p in a table.
Ensure every topic has an id.
Can be used to force generic layout of images.
Write the public ID to the DTD.
Strip out white space.
Convert index entries to index-terms. Currently this style sheet is located in the following folder: Structure\xml\DITA1.2\app\technicalContent\xslt
Change tasks to other topic types based on the “outputclass” attribute value.
Fixe dlentry structure.
Wrap //step/content content in an info element.
If a p element is wrapped in a table title (because the author used the wrong paragraph tag) the contents and its attributes are moved to the title element.

whitespace.xsl Pre-processing and Post-processing stylesheet whitespace.xsl Pre-processing and Post-processing stylesheet

The whitespace.xsl stylesheet is run as a pre-processing and post-processing stylesheet during authoring. This stylesheet:

removes all whitespace
fixes the issue where the space between two consecutive variables is removed

Publishing to any standard Publishing to any standard

The TCE command menu can also be used to create custom publishing scenarios. Since DITA/XML is the structure, we can use the DITA open source toolkit outside of FrameMaker to apply formatting that looks exactly like a FM publish event or better. Plus, it speeds up the publish process because the script runs outside of the authoring environment. Here are the publishing format output options: