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Wednesday, June 12, 2013

FrameMaker Tables & Anchored Frames

Introduction

For my second post about FrameMaker, I thought I would focus on objects with
what I have termed "text-centric outsides." As I explained in my last post
(about FrameMaker), these are objects whose outsides interact with the object
that contains them in a "text-centric" manner. In other words, you can insert
them at a particular point in a text flow and they move along with the text.
There are only two objects that do this: tables and anchored frames. Now, many
books will talk about inserting other types of objects (what I call "graphic
objects") into text but fail to mention that what really happens is FrameMaker
automatically inserts an appropriately sized anchored frame and then sticks
that graphic object inside the anchored frame. In my opinion, it is better to
understand what is really going on. Once you have a solid understanding of the
fundamentals, it is much easier to build up various combinations of these
objects to achieve the desired effect.

As I mentioned in my last post, I will not be repeating all the basic steps
for inserting tables and anchored frames. I assume you already know those
things from reading the "help file" that comes with FrameMaker or one of the
many books that are available. Instead, I tend to dig a little deeper than most
books bother to explain. I like to experiment around the edges and find the
limits of the software I use. This post is based on that experimentation.