Known limits and special properties

In most programs the numbers of objects to be handled are limited. The same is true for FrameMaker. Special properties (defaults) are often hard coded … The found restrictive value may have been present since the beginnings, although I have discovered them only in late FM versions.

Readers of this page are kindly invited to provide additional information or corrections to the author.

Property	Min / max value	FM version	Source
Book: number of files	no limit		see remark
Border around imported graphic	1/12" = 2.12 mm This can be modified by some plug-ins		experience
Case insensitivity of names	Marker type		experience
Case sensitivity of names	Paragraph format, character format, colour, cross reference format, table style, table ruling style, user variable…		experience
Character formats in catalogue	Maximum length of name: 254 chars Maximum number of entries: see Document objects		experience
Commands for all FM Api Clients	2017 (previously, the limit was 250)	7.0P578
Conditional tab	Names are URL encoded in xml, may be up to 256 characters. Special characters, such as blanks, require 3 positions (%20).	8.x	f.i.t. 2007
Dictionary, entry length (custom.dct, site.dct)	31 chars including hyphenation dashes. There is no chance to define hyphenation or spelling of the word Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (34 chars) or Überwachungsbedürftigkeit automatically by "learn". You need to delete some of the hyphenation points in the user/site or document dictionary. Special codes (e.g. `\x9f` for `ü`) count as 4 characters.	4.x	experience
Dictionary, entry length (custom.dct, site.dct)	63 chars including hyphenation dashes since FM 8. The coding of the dictionary now is UTF-8.	8.x	experience
Dictionary, personal	Number of entries < 2'000 words. If exceeded, FM may crash unexpectedly	7.x	N. Furia
Document objects	The internal context table is a memory construct that holds many types of FrameMaker document objects. The following table illustrates the different entries and their requirements. element: 2 entries; variable: 2 entries; cross-reference: 2 entries; marker (any type): 1 entry; table: 1 entry; anchored frame: 1 entry; hidden conditional text: 1 entry per block. In FrameMaker 5.5, maximum number of entries is 2^24 (16 777 216)		Adobe support DB
Elements (structure)	8 millions	5.5	Adobe
Equation (formula)	Maximum length of string constant: 61 characters. See note formula strings below.	7.2	experience
File path	up to 255 characters according to OS displayed in object properties dialogue: at most 49		experience, see note
Font size	2 pt … 400 pt (0.7 … 141 mm)		FM dialogue
Line width	0.015 pt … 360 pt (0.005 … 127 mm)		FM dialogue
Maker.ini	Max length of line processed: 255 chars	3.0	f.i.t 3 - see remark
Marker text	255 characters \ acts as an escape character (attention in hypertext markers with windows-paths!). See also note Markers	4.x ??	www.microtype.com
Master page	100 including Right/Left More can be defined by importing formats (!)	6.0, 7.0	FM help
Page size	1 x 1" (25.4 × 25.4 mm) … 216 x 216" (548 × 548 mm) In FM8 documents with A0 size (118.9 × 84.1 cm) have been handled - but I do not know about the printing. This restriction can only be overcome with reduction of the printer resolution. See Creating a banner with FM and Acrobat. This is not a restriction in Acrobat!	7.0	FM help
Paragraph formats in catalogue	Maximum length of name: 254 chars Maximum number of entries: ???	7.2	experience
Paragraph numbering	Maximum value: 65536 (x10000). Larger values (e.g. set by <n=xxxx) are presented as mod(value, 65536). For example, if the ¶ format contains <n=136987> then the numbering presents "5915" . Thus it it not possible to create negative numbers by "overflow".	7.2	experience
	The label of the numbering sequence (eg. the A in A:<n+>) may be any printable character from the (lower) ASCII set. I have tested these characters: $ ; : _ + , . \| ~ 7 ^ " ` blank Hence there are 96 possible numbering sequences (including that with no label)	7.2	experience
Running Headers/Footers	12 (previously 4)	7.0	Adobe
Table sort order	Seems to depend on Windows locale		experience
Table	Maximum width of table or column: 40"=1016 mm = ; Maximum height of row: 14" = 355.6 mm = Maximum number of columns: 256 Maximum number of rows: > 3600 (tested with 256 empty columns) Maximum 'overhang' of table over the current text column width, before the table is aligned at the next 'higher' text column: 1/6" = 4.23 mm (see note table-overhang)	7.0	experience
Text frame	Height minimum: 1/8" (9 pt, 3.175 mm); maximum 216" (15552 pt, 548 mm)		Adobe support DB
User String object	FP_UserString can contain up to 1038 bytes of string data. The main problem is sharing the strings between plug ins.		www.zenserve.co.uk
Variable: contents	Until FM 7.2: up to 255 characters including meta-notations (such as `<Default ¶ Font> or \t` - this counts as 16 resp. 2 characters). See also note Variables below From FM 8.0: up to 2023 Windows Codepage characters or up to 2022 UTF-8 characters	7.0 8.0	experience

Special remarks

Files in a book

FrameMaker does not limit the number of files you can place in a generated book. Adobe has tested placing several hundred files in a book without consequence. Though you can create a book of this size, generating or updating the book requires enough memory and disk space to open and save every file.[Adobe Support DB]

f.i.t 3

The company itl in Munich arranges FrameMaker Information Days since 1992. At the 3rd event 1995 a collection of questions and answers concerning FrameMaker on Windows (3.1) was presented. The source of information was Frame Technolgy's Frame News etc. The collection was distributed by itl as FrameMaker Help (FrameViewer format).

File path

The object property dialogue does not display the full path of an imported object, if the path name is too long. The middle part is replaced by an ellipsis:

G:\VeryLongFilenames\Level02\...\TheImage.png
E:\VeryLongFilenames\L...03\Level04\TheImage.png
..\..\Samples\Glossary...s\Graphics\TheImage.png

Relative paths are used only up to a certain level of directories. I have not yet found out what this level is. In the above examples the path for the document containing the image is E:\FM-specials\Tips\GraphicsFiguresEps\Path-of-graphics.fm

Find out the full path name by 're-importing' - just opening the import dialogue for the selected image. In the Import dialogue expand the Look in drop down list to see the full directory hierarchy.

If you have the extended Send to function implemented in Windows, you may get the full path with the Send To Clipboard function on the selected file:

G:\VeryLongFilenames\Level02\Level03\Level04\Level05\Level06\Level07\Level08\Level09\Level10\TheImage.png

If you don't find this useful tool anymore on the MS-site, here is a copy of W95powertoy.zip. Unzip and right-click on SENDTOX.INF and select Install. It works fine in Win NT4, W2K and XP.

Formula strings

Markers

Lynne A. Price reported the possibility for an Index Marker to be much longer than 255 character. My findings are these:

A MIF file set up with an index marker holding 1290 characters will display 1024 characters in the Marker dialogue. Leaving the dialogue by just closing it will preserve these 1024 characters. But these 1024 characters are interspersed with semicolons to form multiple index entries.
Trying to Edit Marker will issue an error message (Marker text is too long. Marker text is limited to 255 characters).
Generating an index from the overly long marker will create multiple index entries (due to the semicolons) with a maximum length of a 248 characters.

Variables

Until FM 7.2: When defining variables in MIF, the contents my be up to 1024 characters. However, as soon as the dialogue Special > Variable… gets involved with a change of the contents, this will be truncated to 255 characters.

Valid characters in variable contents

In MIF a blank must follow this code!		In Dialogue
Hexadecimal notation	Meaning	Display after import	Insert as	Count
\x20 … \xfe	Displayable characters	blank ! " # $ % & etc. (some may not be displayed correctly, because they are not in all fonts)	similar or directly via keyboard	1
\x04	Optional hyphen	blank, functional	\x04	1
\x05	Suppress hyphenation	blank, functional	\x05	1
\x08	Tab	bank, functional	\t	2
\x09	Newline	\r	\r	2
\x0a	Paragraph end	blank, no function
\x0b	Flow end	blank, no function
\x10	Numeric space	\s#	\s#	3
\x11	Non breaking space	\§ (§ depicts a blank)	\blank	2
\x12	Thin space	\st	\st	3
\x13	En space	\sn	\sn	3
\x14	Em space	\sm	\sm	3
\x15	Non breaking hyphen	\+	\+	2

Table overhang

A table is placed in the same text column as the table anchor is. The table is aligned at a different boundary if it is to wide for the current text column:

If the table is to wide for the current text column, but the overhang (table width - text column width) is smaller than 1/6" the table is left as is.
If the table is wider than text column width + 1/6" a second (and third etc.) text column is taken.
If this also is not sufficient the side head area is taken into consideration also.
If the table is wider than the text frame it projects over the text frame and even over the paper area (where it is cut off).

URL:	Created: 2004-04-20	Updated:
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