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Improve Efficiency Through Scripting Automation
Using Adobe
ExtendScript
FrameMaker FDK
and Third Party
Plug-in support
Adobe Technical Communication Suite Reviewer's Guide
July 10, 2012
All components of the Adobe Technical Communication Suite 4 software provide
batch processing, scripting, and/or automation capabilities. Scripting can
automate manual or tedious tasks and can greatly improve the efficiency of
technical communication workflows.
All components of Adobe Technical Communication Suite 4 support
ExtendScript, a scripting language that provides task automation and access to
nearly all component objects. This allows you to adjust the process to support your
own specific business requirements.
The automation and scripting capabilities in Adobe Technical Communication
Suite 4 provide rich capabilities for automating and customizing the conversion
process. The capabilities of ExtendScript include:
•
Access to the application data model.
•
Ability to traverse topics by tokens, tags, formats, and styles.
•
Access to and ability to manipulate source files.
•
Access to and control of single-source layouts, variables, snippets, conditional
build tags, and other objects and properties.
•
Ability to take action based on FrameMaker markers.
•
Ability to invoke and control other ExtendScript-enabled Adobe applications,
including Illustrator and Photoshop CS6, for automated image manipulation,
resizing, or conversion.
•
Ability to Multiscreen and pass control between Adobe Technical
Communication Suite 4 applications.
Adobe Technical Communication Suite 4 also includes the Adobe ExtendScript
Toolkit. This is a full-featured development environment for ExtendScript. You
can edit scripts, view variable and object values, set breakpoints, and run scripts
line-by-line for testing and debugging purposes. You can also invoke scripts from
the Adobe ExtendScript Toolkit.
Although the FrameMaker 11 data model is exposed through Adobe Extendscript,
developers can still customize and automate FrameMaker with the FrameMaker
Developer's Kit (FDK). The FDK is a set of C libraries and header files that nearly
completely expose the FrameMaker object model. With the FDK, developers can
create freely-distributable plug-ins to customize the FrameMaker environment
and automate FrameMaker tasks. The FDK is available from Adobe at
http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/FrameMaker/devcenter.html.
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