How to Attach Graphics to the Headers of a FrameMaker Document?

Imagine you’d like to have the sweet image of a finch accompanying every section header in your FrameMaker document that has something to do with “Birds.”

For example, let's say you want the readers to see the image of a finch right before every header that reads something like “Birds of North America,” “Migration Routes of Birds,” etc.

First of all, create the image and save it on your computer.

Then do the following in your FrameMaker document:

Select View > Reference Pages to display your reference page. The chances are you are looking at the default images of Footnote, TableFootnote, Single Line and Double Line. This is where we will add our image.

Select Graphics > Tools and display your tool bar.

Click and select the “Place a Graphic Frame” tool in the middle. Your cursor will transform into a Plus Sign.

On the Reference Page, drag and draw a graphic frame appropriate for the size of your graphic file. FrameMaker automatically displays the Frame Name dialog box.

Enter a short but distinct frame name. If you enter names that are similar to each other this will create a problem later on when it is time to select that graphic and to attach it to your header paragraph style.

Select File > Import > File to import your previously saved icon/image.

Browse and find the image file. Click the “Import by Reference” radio-button if the image size is too large and at the end you’ll save the whole document as PDF before distributing it. Otherwise you will need to distribute the image together with your FrameMaker file. If the image is small, you can select the “Copy into Document” radio-button as well.

Click the Import button to import the image into the graphic frame. And you are half done.

Save and go back to your main document by selecting View > Body Pages.

Now, open your Paragraph Designer (Ctrl+M). Find the Header Style to which you want to attach the image.

Select the Advanced Tab. You’ll see that, at the bottom, there are two drop-down menus: “Frame Above Pgf:” and “Below Pgf:” Select the former if you’d like your image to appear ABOVE the header paragraph, and the latter for BELOW.

If you click and view the drop-down list for either option you’ll see the name of the image you’ve saved in the Reference Page listed there.

Click and select the name of the image and you’re done! Save the paragraph style.

Now the image will be placed either above or below your header (depending on your previous choice), and it will always be so every time you use that paragraph style, giving you a very consistent looking document.

TIP: if the alignment of your image is not perfect, then go back to your Reference Page and play around with the dimensions of the graphic frame of the image, and the image’s alignment WITHIN the frame itself (click and select the image and then move it around inside the frame by clicking one of the four positioning buttons on the main toolbar, on top of the FrameMaker screen).

I find that most of the time perfect positioning of most FrameMaker images require some minor visual trial and error until they look right.