How to Add a FrameMaker Drop-Down Menu to an Image

Table of Contents

Introduction

Would you like to add a 1- or 2-level drop-down menu to any image in your Adobe FrameMaker technical document

Follow These Easy Steps

It’s easy and this is how:
1) Create a new FrameMaker (FM) document or open an existing one.

2) Either add a new image or select an existing one. For the sake of this tutorial I’ll use a Green Arrow in a new document:

3) If you still don’t have it open, select Graphics > Tools and display your toolbox.

4) Select the TEXT FRAME tool and draw a text frame around the image; just slightly larger for ease of selecting. When the Create New Text Frame dialog box is displayed, click Set and close it:

5) Select and right-click the text frame to display the pop-up menu. Select the Object Properties option to display the Customize Text Frame dialog box.

6) Under Flow, enter a name for the Tag attribute. For example: “Fun”.

7) Click the Set button to close the dialog box. This tags the text frame with a text flow of “Fun”.

8] Go to your Reference Pages by either using the Esc+v+R shortcut or selecting View > Reference Pages from the menu.

9) On any reference page, drag and draw a text frame on any clear spot by using the text frame tool.

10) Select and right-click the text frame to display the pop-up menu. Select the Object Properties option to display the Customize Text Frame dialog box.

11) Under Flow, enter a name for the Tag attribute. For example: “fun”.

12) In the first line of the text frame, write the name of the text flow of the button’s text frame: “fun”. This establishes the link between the button and the drop-down menu.

13) Then on the second and subsequent lines, enter the name of the options that you’d like to display as links in a drop-down menu. For this example, we’ll use “Web Site 1” and “Web Site 2”:

14) Select Special > Hypertext from the menu to display the Hypertext dialog box:

15) Select the “Web Site 1” text. Click the Command drop-down menu in Hypertext dialog box and select Go To URL option:

16) Enter a website address after the “URL”; for example, http://www.nfl.com (to go to the National Football League website). Click the New Hypertext Marker button.

17) Repeat Steps 15 and 16 for the Web Site 2. Now both drop-down menu options will display a hypertext marker:

18) Go back to your Body Pages by either using the Esc+v+B shortcut or selecting View > Body Pages from the menu.

19) Select the text frame. Display the Hypertext dialog box. Select Popup Menu option from the Command drop-down menu:

20) In the Syntax field, enter the name of the reference text flow (“fun“) after “popup”. Click the New Hypertext Marker button to link the image to the drop-down list in the reference pages. (Note: make sure your cursor is placed in the Insertion Point of the text frame.)

21) Click Make View-Only button to test your drop-down menu.
Now when you bring your cursor over the image, the arrow will turn into a finger and when you click, FM will display your drop-down menu.

22) Click the menu option to launch the website linked to the option: