Custom Master Pages

Custom master pages can be applied to specific pages throughout a book to provide alternate page layouts.

By default, the structure application template or the component template will apply one or more master pages to a document based on the settings in the Master Page Usage dialog ( Format > Page Layout > Master Page Usage). If you need to apply additional master pages to specific pages you can use the standard FrameMaker custom master page mapping mechanism through the StructMasterPageMaps table Reference page. This mapping table lets you associate master pages to paragraph or element tags and define very detailed mapping contexts. For information on this feature, refer to the FrameMaker documentation.

In order for the StructMasterPageMaps mapping table to be applied to the book components, you must set the BookBuildOverrides/UpdateBook parameter to “2” in the book-build INI file. Setting this value to “1” updates the book, but does not apply the mapping table.

If you’d like to apply the occasional master page without needing to set up this mapping table, insert an fmx-masterpage marker with the marker text set to the master page name to apply. Additionally, you must set the BookBuildOverrides/AssignMasterPagesFromMarkers parameter to “1” in the book-build INI file.

You can use an unstructured fmx-masterpage marker, which is stored in the DITA file as a processing instruction, or you can use the fm-data-marker element (which is stored as a DITA data element). If you use the fm-data-marker element, you’ll need to create the fmx-masterpage marker definition in the Topic and Book structure application templates (and potentially any component templates that are used).