HOW TO: Apply Master Pages automatically in FrameMaker

A discussion on LinkedIn about FrameMaker Master Pages prompted me to publish this short post and include an Adobe Captivate how-to video.

Master pages provide consistent look-and-feel across multiple pages that
perform
specific roles, such as the first page of a chapter, or landscape pages that display wide tables or images.
But applying custom master pages to each document page—especially
in a book with hundreds of pages manually can be time-consuming
and tedious to say the least.

  

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Starting with FrameMaker 7.0, you can
automate the process of applying master pages by mapping master pages to body pages containing
specific paragraph tags. For example, map a particular master page
to the first page of each chapter based on its chapter heading paragraph

tag, or map a landscape master page to a body page containing a wide table or an image.

Click the image below to view a short (06:31min) Adobe Captivate simulation on how to automate the process of applying customer master pages.

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2 Responses to HOW TO: Apply Master Pages automatically in FrameMaker

  1. Yves Barbion says:
    April 3, 2010 at 4:15 am

    Being able to map master pages to body pages based on paragraph tags is indeed a very nice feature. One problem, however, is that all master page overrides on body pages will be removed when you choose the Apply Master Pages command. For example, if you have made a body page text frame a little larger to make a paragraph fit on that page, this override will be gone when you reapply the master pages.So, you will have to decide:* If you want to use this feature, NEVER use master page overrides.* If you have used master page overrides, don’t use this feature.

  2. Rick Quatro says:
    April 10, 2010 at 2:17 pm

    This IS a great feature, however, FrameMaker should provide a way to suppress the warning dialog box. This is especially a problem when updating a book, because you will get the warning dialog box then as well, even if you are using FrameScript or the FDK to update the book. This puts a serious damper on automation.There are quite a few dialog boxes in FrameMaker that need a “Don’t show this again” checkbox.