Scripts

I developed the following scripts and tools to simplify various writing tasks:

Verify URLs during doc builds
Creates an ant file to verify URLs.

Restart Eclipse infocenters that have been down 20 minutes
Checks infocenters regularly and tracks status to restart when down 20 minutes.

Generate Arbortext comparison files
Creates a file to run in Arbortext to generate comparison files that show the differences in XML files.

Convert images from GIF to EPS
Provides conversion of GIF files to EPS files with drag-and-drop simplicity. Can easily be modified to convert other formats.

Generate a TOC for an HTML file
Takes an HTML file and produces a copy of the file that includes a table of contents (TOC).

Spell check HTML files
Converts one or more HTML files in the current working directory to text then pipes the text to the UNIX spell command.

Promote/demote elements via the popup menu
Sets up the FrameMaker popup menu to allow the promotion/demotion of SGML elements.

Set doc preferences
Allows you to set preferences for an entire FrameMaker book; preferences currently include use of smart quotes, borders, zoom setting, and so forth.

Turn change bars on / turn change bars off
Allow you to turn change bars on/off for an entire FrameMaker book (does not clear change bars, but you can write a macro to do that).

Set a watermark
Places a watermark--with text of your choosing--on the background of every page in a FrameMaker PostScript file.

Edit an existing FrameMaker index:

  1. Run extract.IDX.markers.pl to pull index markers from an entire FrameMaker book into a single text file.
  2. Edit the text file.
  3. Run apply.IDX.markers.pl to push edited markers back into the book.